Hopalong Cassidy and Sir Embarrassed

Let me tell you one thing I know for sure, a nugget of foundational truth that will never change:

Nothing slows down the morning drop-off routine
like forgetting the knee scooter at home in the garage.

Sweet Tuck is so good at the morning routine.  He gets up so early, and he packs his lunch and gets ready for the day, right on schedule. Though he tells me this is because he wakes up about every two hours throughout the night to see if its time to get up yet.  (He is his father.)  

I can confirm this because he wakes me half those times just to see if I’m up yet. (Robb didn’t do that part.)  (Smart man.) 

Tuck is so much on schedule that he is the first to head out to the car on his own at 8:12.  He gets in the car on his side, and he leaves the scooter parked over there.  On his side.  (Which is not my side.) 

Then I get into the car, and I don’t give a second thought to the scooter.  Or probably not a first thought.  And that’s how his primary mode of mobility gets left behind.

In the carpool lane at school, nobody is supposed to use the handicapped spaces except for the people who truly need it.  But we are a family who needs that very space—not for always, but for now.  So I pulled into one of those space, but I inadvertently drove right up onto the sidewalk.  Nice, Trish. 

Tyler hopped out of the car, looking several shades of indignant.  “Seriously?!  Mom!  You’re on the sidewalk!  Mom!  Seriously?!” 

Yes.  Apparently and very seriously, I parked on the sidewalk in the red zone right in front of his very school.  That was our car all whopper-jawed and catawampus in front of his entire social network.  Sorry, kiddo.

Meanwhile, I needed to get Tucker into school, though of course he couldn’t walk.  So I left the wonky parking job and helped Tucker start the Hop-Along Cassidy routine into the school building, at which point I was very thankful to be completely dressed, because I haven’t always been when it comes to dropping my kids off at school.  At least for today, I had learned my lesson.  The grace of getting dressed had paid off.

I learned in this process that our school’s health office keeps a wheelchair handy  for such moments.  Count on my crowd to create such moments.

I brought Tucker’s scooter to him later, and his teacher exhaled in relief.  The only thing more hassling than an immobile student is a constant raffle of fourth graders wanting to push him in the borrowed wheelchair. 

But.  You know what?  They were on time for school, both Captain HopAlong and his brother, Sir Embarrassed. 

And that is no small thing.