No Time, No Time

Last year when I took Nicholas to school we always seemed to be early. I could pull right up to the front of the school almost every day. We took our time going in, hanging up his stuff, and many days we were there before the teacher was ready for us.

This year it is completely different. No matter how I try to get out the door early, we always seem to make it right on time. Not that time actually matters - it is a class of 3 year olds, after all, and it's not like he's going to miss some important topic that will be on his final exam. And Nicholas has also always been really easy to drop off, getting absorbed in toys right away and waving goodbye as an afterthought.

But being just on time puts me in the same category as "every other parent in the school" and I have had to park some distance away each time, trying to ignore the tall, skinny, perfectly dressed parents convening in front of their SUV's parked right in my old spot, chatting away blissfully before they take off for yoga class, as I waddle my big belly to the door of the school, towing the two kids by the hand. And also later, as I hold a kicking and screaming Nate and waddle back TO to car. (Nate thinks he's ready for school. I think he's wrong.)

It frustrates me that I can't move faster, and each morning (and afternoon, for that matter) I can feel myself overreact to the whole parking space situation. I know it's not worth the complaining. But I can't seem to help myself, and there are some people in particular, or at least their cars, which I have learned to hate. (But honestly, who drives a bright yellow hummer? With vanity plates that spell out a vacation island of note? I would dislike this person anyway.)

I should go now and start getting ready for school so I can try to be early again.