Doing Things the Hard Way

We’re a one-car family. Up till now this has been an occasional inconvenience, but not a problem. Now that Lij has started school, things have changed.

See, I want to take Lij to school. I want to pick him up at the end of the day. I want the first person he talks to, when he’s still mildly excited about his day, to be me. I feel very strongly about this. And Alexander agrees with me. So what’s a one-car family to do?

Well, we wake up early (out the door before 6:15am). It takes an hour and a half on average for our drop-off run. Pick-up in the afternoon is more like two hours (if Alexander can get away on time and if we don’t have to run any errands). Yes, that’s right. The three younger kiddos and I spend a grand total of at least three and a half hours in the car. Everyday.

Except this week. Because our fridge broke. This would ordinarily not be a good thing (and it wasn’t really), but because we had to rearrange our whole schedule for three days to make sure we were continuously home to meet the repairman’s fixing whims, it meant we were able to take Lij to and from school without an entourage.

Yesterday, while I was walking Lij into school, blissfully unencumbered by little cling-ons, we had the following conversation:

Lij: It’s so much easier this way.

Me: Not having to drive Daddy to work or not having Dyl and Nicholas and Maddy with us?

Lij: Both.

Me: It is easier, but don’t get too used to this. We’re going back to hard way really soon.

Lij: (sighing) With all the kids?

Yep, that’s right. With all the kids. I just forget the part where he’s ever been the one buckling and unbuckling all those kids!