Last Sunday Sarah had her piano recital and did a beautiful job, as always. And, as always, I felt a bit teary watching her. In the earliest days of wondering if she would ever crawl or talk or reach for a toy, who would have ever thought she would be up in front of a small crowd of people playing the piano?
Monday was The Day the Buses Broke. I have no idea what was going on that day to result in the ridiculousness we experienced. Sarah’s bus situation was as perfectly reliable as ever. We have THE most reliable driver ever this year. But Amy’s bus situation was another story. For her morning bus there is a Facebook chat group and the driver is part of it, informing us if there is a delay due to weather or traffic. So why the driver didn’t then post about her bus breaking down is beyond me. She later posted that she didn’t notify the group because a backup bus took over five minutes after the breakdown, transferring the students already on the bus and getting the remaining students on the route. Except… there must have been a significant delay because Amy and one of her friends came home after waiting in the cold for half an hour. It is possible that they were opening my door at the exact moment the replacement bus passed their stop. But it is also possible that because the driver and the bus company didn’t inform anyone of the change, the kids who were waiting wouldn’t have known to get on a differently numbered bus from usual. I don’t know. All I know is that Amy and her friend gave up after waiting in the cold for so long. I wasn’t able to drive them but luckily another parent was. Then…Amy’s afternoon bus is a different bus entirely from the morning bus. It is also always 20 or 30 minutes late no matter what, but we have gotten used to that. We figured that if she got home by 5pm as usual then she and Carl would have plenty of time to have dinner and get into costumes for the Star Wars movie they were going to see. What we didn’t expect was that the afternoon bus would break down too! Before even getting to Amy’s school. When a replacement arrived they had been waiting for an hour after dismissal. The only information coming to the parents was from those students with phones. No communication from the bus company or the school. When I contacted the bus company they said to complain to the school. When I contacted the school they said it was the fault of the bus company. After finally getting the kids, the bus driver then got lost! So Amy got home at 5:40! Luckily, another parent thought to go meet the bus at the stop because the crossing guard had gone home and it was dark and cars run the red light not infrequently. Sarah and I were swimming so I was out of the mix of possible helpers for any of the situation, but I was definitely in the mix of disgruntled parents. I understand that things go wrong, but I think the school and the bus company need to up their communication game.
On Tuesday the busses all ran as expected, but ten minutes before the end of the Star Wars movie that Amy and Carl were seeing that night (they were seeing the original trilogy, now numbered 4,5, and 6)… the projector broke! So they had to come home to finish watching it.
Getting Sarah out the door for her bus was more challenging than usual Monday and Tuesday. I’m not sure why, but she had more things that she felt like needed to happen before she finished getting ready for the day, with screams and upset if we said she needed to get ready first. I was glad she had no school on Wednesday. If things are difficult again this week then we will move her waking time earlier. In contrast, Amy has shifted her morning routine so she is truly ready before she does any extra things.
Thursday morning Carl and Amy did a one mile Turkey Trot downtown. Sarah and I stayed home. Then we had a wonderful Thanksgiving Extravaganza with Carl’s parents and sister and her partner. There was so much delicious food! We had six pies, but one of them was a bit of a failure. It was the one thing I had never made before and I tweaked the recipe to make it vegan. It was an attempt at a cranberry curd tart, but it was too tart and didn’t gel. The 2 pumpkin, 1 apple, 1 key lime made with avocado, and 1 chocolate mousse pie made with avocado were all delicious. Carl was absolutely stuffed after plates piled high with goodness so for dinner he had one Pringle and one peet swickle. When I was growing up, the traditional evening meal following the afternoon extravaganza was turkey sandwiches, Pringles potato chips, dill pickles, and sweet pickles (always called peet swickles). So that is the meal we have too.
We came up to our mountain house for the remainder of the Thanksgiving weekend, and it has been a lovely time of pajamas, snuggles, movies, the Great British Baking Show, and food. We watched “Spirited,” the music for which was partially written by someone who went to my high school and who had my dad as a third grade teacher. Although the person writing the music probably had nothing to do with the names of the characters, I’m sure he thought about how he had a teacher with the same name as one of the main characters: Mr. Briggs. It is really such a very small world.
There has also been some kid screaming and upset this weekend, but that is par for the course. What was impressive yesterday was the post-yelling conversation to work through why Sarah and Amy had gotten upset about a zoo drawing they had been working on together. I think they are set to proceed today to finish it. Sarah is all into wearing her orange shirt that says “zoo” and has an elephant, a shark, and a jellyfish silk screened on the front. That was a shirt she made in kindergarten and it was huge on her then and fits perfectly now. She has a zoo themed blanket out here that she has been enjoying, and then yesterday Amy orchestrated them drawing a zoo on many sheets of paper taped together. Sarah also made Carl a small paper zoo shirt design to match her own.
One night as Carl, Amy, and I were watching the Great British Baking show we heard Sarah strumming Carl’s guitar and singing, “Don’t put your junk in my backyard.” That is a song by someone else but I don’t remember whom. It was wonderful hearing Sarah belt it out so confidently.
I don’t understand why three times this year I have been sitting or lying down and when I go to get up my left knee just doesn’t work anymore. It hurts to straighten it or put weight on it. This always resolves within a day or so, but um…? What is going on? It happened again this morning. I really don’t understand it at all and I don’t like it either. But at least I can move around again.
I hope you had wonderful Thanksgivings.
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