Divide by Three and Carry the Carpool Lane

I rely, perhaps a bit too much, on scheduling, organization, and planning. I don’t do well when plans change at the last minute, I don’t like changes in my schedule, and I’ve never quite learned to plan for the unexpected (I hear you laughing over there, Air Force).


It should also be mentioned that due to my constant travel/work schedule we have one car here in the wild west and one car back in DC. My tight rein on our schedules makes this work, but throw in an almost-driving teenager and this option is becoming less and less feasible.

Now add in the fact that said teenager processes about 30% of what is said to her and parses out what little information she does process on a need-to-know basis and we end up with days like today where her father, the car, and I are trying to figure out how to be in three places at once while missing as little work time as possible. These negotiations lead to emails with complex time and distance formulations and calculating for variables such as phone call duration, meeting schedules, and wind shear.

Today, it looks like I’ve drawn the short stick so I’ve gone from an afternoon of quietly working to taking part of my lunch break to take Kevin back to work after his lunch break so that I can keep the car, taking the rest of my lunch break 2 hours later when I run the kiddo up to the school to be measured for a new choir dress by the choir mom (something I did just a week ago, but nevermind that), running back home to wrap up work for 30 minutes, driving downtown and dropping the kiddo at an hair appointment, turning around to pick up Kevin from work, and then running back to pick up from the hair appointment.

How on earth do people to this with more than one kid? I think Kevin’s going to have to start biking to work…or hitchhiking…that could work too.