Hooray for Carpools!

Ok, so this is a total "fluff" post, just about some random things going on in my and the girls' lives. Most of you may know that my kids started in Montessori somewhere between 18 months and 2 years. This means Miss D has officially been in "school" for 3.5 years now. All this time, she's had a nice little 9-12 schedule, giving me just a little break from the "joy" that is full-time SAH parenting ("loving every minute of it" -- hmmph).

Anyway, Miss D has been begging, pleading, whining, crying, cajoling and pretty much doing every other annoying thing she can think of for at least the past couple of months trying to get me to send her to "lunch bunch." Let me explain. Our school has a toddler program. It's for kids 18 months to 3 years old. It's strictly 9-12. Some go M-W-F, others go T-Th, and a few go M-T-W-Th-F.

The next level up is called early childhood. This is for kids aged 3-6 years old. It essentially goes from pre-school through kindergarten. In the early childhood classroom, there is the standard 9-12, they go either M-T-W-Th-F or (new this year, yay!), M-T-W-Th. Then there are two more programs in the afternoon: enrichment and elementary prep. These run until 3:00 p.m. Any kid can sign up for the all-day option. Depending on whether they "have their workbook" (which is something they get when the teacher decides they're ready to do more writing and reading than they do with the regular classroom materials) determines whether they are in "enrichment" or "elementary prep." It's the same montessori stuff, just a little more advanced lessons in the elementary prep, getting them ready to enter first grade.

So anyway, at about 11:30, the kids in each early childhood class at our school (we have two classes) split into "lunch bunchers" and "home teamers." Home Teamers are the kids who go home at noon, whereas Lunch Bunchers are the kids who go eat lunch and then go to enrichment or elementary prep for the afternoon. Makes sense, right?

Miss D has been asking me for months (actually, now that I think of it, she started asking me last year) "why can't I go to lunch bunch?" Last year, I asked her what she thought lunch bunch was, and she couldn't tell me. So she switched to asking why her friend "Sydney" couldn't be a home teamer -- obviously had more to do with wanting to stay and play with her friend.

This year, she got a little wiser and figured out what she wanted to do as a Lunch Buncher. "Mama" she says, "I want to go to lunch bunch so I can work on my workbook." Ok, that sounds good. So I told her that if she committed to do 2 pages of her workbook every day, I would send her to lunch bunch.

She did pretty well, I have to say, so this past Tuesday she started lunch bunch.

What does this have to do with carpools, you ask? (No, I know, you didn't, but it was a nice transition, huh?). Well, two days of doing the "drop-off-at-9-pick-up-at-12-pick-up-again-at-3" and I was about ready to drop kick the lunch bunch thing. I mean seriously, by the time I drop off at 9:00 and get back to the house to work, I have about 2 hours before I have to leave again. It's worse in the afternoon. By the time I pick up the littles, get them herded into the car, home, fed lunch, I have maybe 1.5 hours before I have to leave to pick up Miss D. Ok, this sucks!

Enter Jackie, Carmen, and Anna. Carmen is Miss D's friend in school. Jackie, her mom. Anna, her little sister. Carmen is a Lunch Buncher. Anna is in the toddler class. Jackie, Carmen, and Anna live sort of in the same direction from the school as we do. Jackie is doing the same dumb drop-off-pick-up-pick-up-again routine that I'm doing (mind you, she's been doing it since September!).

So today I called Jackie and said, "Hey, why don't we switch off weeks picking up the big girls at school?" That way, one week I have to go back at 3:00 and pick up Denali and Carmen and drop Carmen at her house, which isn't that much worse than what I have to do already. But the OTHER week, I get to stay home and work from 1:00 when I get the littles fed their lunch until about 5:00 when Big Carmen (that's our housekeeper/nanny -- I LOVE HER -- but that's another post) goes home. Heaven?!

Ok, so little things make me happy these days. I still can't imagine what it will be like in September when the littles become Lunch Bunchers and I have all three of them in school from 9:00 to 3:00. It will be weird. Thank goodness they are still doing the M-T-W-Th option next year. I love not having to go anywhere on Fridays. Turns out we usually go on a big field trip just me and the girls, but it's so nice having it be our choice!

Wow, that one got long. If anybody actually read this far, you can have some of the shrimp and sausage gumbo I made for dinner tonight. Yummy!