Phew...

It's only -10F with the wind chill factor. This is almost balmy compared to recent days. Yesterday, the kids were granted a two hour delay because the temperatures dipped down to ~-44F. Brrrr. But as Alex was waiting for the school bus, it was still -32F. MINUS 32. Unbelievable. How that is better than -44 is beyond me. Once temperatures hit double digits below zero, it is time to stay in the house, if you ask me...which, of course, no one is. It really was too cold for anyone to be walking around outside, let alone waiting at the bus stop. In our mad attempt, once again, to embrace the morning insane rush, I left with Andrew and Aidan, and Thomas set out to leave with Amanda. Amanda's school starts at 7.50...Andrew starts at 8am, and Aidan starts at 8.15. In order to get Andrew to school ontime, I have to leave by 7:25 at the latest..the very latest. Alex's bus doesn't come until 7:32...and often times it is later than that. Even minutes makes the difference in Thomas' commute with Amanda. Because her school starts at 7:50 and it is in the middle of St. Cloud and just off of one of the busiest (haha, I know...St. Cloud traffic...but still...busy is busy) streets, he needs a good 25 minutes to get there so that she is on time.

Yesterday, after I was out the door, Alex went out to wait on his bus. As usual, it was running late...but the temperatures were so cold that despite his face mask, gloves, snow pants, boots and warm coat he was freezing. He ran back up towards the porch just as the bus pulled around the corner. The bus driver didn't even stop. He didn't see Alex and so he just kept on driving. The result? Alex had to be driven to school and Amanda...was 15 minutes late...again.

Late as in....hmmmm....how did the vice principal put it when she was talking to me about it yesterday....."just so you know, this is her 23rd tardy this trimester". cough cough....did she say 23? Holy, holiest of shits. 23 TARDIES? I explained about having only one car last week and that I had called each day to remind the school that we would be late, but beyond that, she has been 2-10 minutes late more times than she had been punctual.

It's shameful really...except there is no solution. I honestly don't know how we can change things.

She asked me to describe the problem to her, and I did.

"hmmmmm"...

She offered that I could drop Amanda off as early as 7:30 at the school and we then tried to calculate whether or not I could make it across town at that time to get to Andrew's school. They couldn't be farther away from each other if we had tried....Finally, the vice principal said "there is no way on earth you can get there at that time...any other time of the day? maybe. not in the morning. Not at 7:30. Could you leave your 8 year old to catch the bus on his own? No. Forget I even suggested that. You really are between a rock and a hard place"

OMG....23....I'm still stuck on that. I have no idea how we can remedy that..but we sure look like the loser family.

Thomas tried to calm me down: "Kris, we're doing the best that we can. It's almost funny. I guess it's just who we are...we're the Math's".

Ummm..yah....23 Tardies. We are building a great name for ourselves.

The even sadder thing is that my first parenting article for the St. Cloud Times comes out on Monday and...hold on to your hats... I wrote it about oversleeping and not being able to get going in the morning. Is it too late for a retraction? It was really more tongue in cheek and referred to a particular night where Zoe was up vomiting and I just kept letting the alarm go off...and it was really meant to be a funny article and not a commentary on every morning, though between you and me and my alarm clock...Damnit...I'm not a morning person. I KNOW who is going to get the last laugh over this one, and it isn't me. Boohoooo for me. I haven't mentioned moving in a while...maybe it's time?

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