God Bless The Curbside Pick-Up

As I briefly alluded to in my last post, I have been introduced to some serious parking pandemonium at my oldest daughter’s school.

Here’s the lowdown.

She’s in first grade at our public school in our neighborhood, but it’s our first year there because they re-routed all the Kindergarteners to the next closest school due to overcrowding. So last year we were at a school that was farther away, but it had ample parking.

And while I’m speaking of Kindergarten, there is another key difference between last year and this year.

When class is over in Kindergarten, the teachers open their doors and no one comes out. The teacher stands at the door and looks for the parents that are waiting outside the room. Then she calls out the names of the kids who have someone there to pick them up. Each child is then let out of the room by the teacher as they are handed off to the responsible adult in waiting.

Essentially, she is the gatekeeper and we are the keymasters, and the secret password best be known or you will give up the rights to your first born.

This year it’s a bit less personalized. In short, the bell rings, the doors open, and children flood out.

Simple enough I suppose. I really don’t have a problem with it. Although I definitely don’t speak for all parents on this one.

And imagine what this is like for the kids. They are released into the open and expected to find someone in the masses that is looking for them, that may or may not be there when the door opens.
It’s a little overwhelming, even for the more responsible kids, such as my daughter. So what happens in these first few days and weeks is that the parents hover outside looking for their needle in the haystack, and the kids tend to linger in the rooms, as if they are waiting for someone to call their name. Like two strangers at a dance, neither one of them is sure they should make the first move. Then many of the parents try to give the secret password to their child's teacher, which is amusing to watch since the teachers don't even know which student they are trying to pick up. They just smile and not a lot during this process.

Now enter in an incredibly inadequate parking lot with only one outlet and a drop-off and pick-up section that feels a bit too much like SFO (“the white zone is for loading and unloading only”), and you have a veritable nightmare leading up to that crucial moment when the dogs are unleashed, running about sniffing for familiar blood.

Not to mention that I am also dragging my two other kids into this chaos every time.

In short, our first three days of school were highlighted by parking in the loading zone and getting a ‘friendly’ warning note, attempting a curbside pick-up when the teacher said she would bring kids out to the curb but never did ("Mom, what took you so long!!??"), and a very long and hot walk that was peppered with enough whining to make a conversation with Grumpy the dwarf seem like a breath of fresh air.

After three long days last week, I declared it curbside pick-up only in our family. After all, I've been looking forward to this since before she started Kindergarten, so there's no better time like the present.

The problem was talking my child into it. She was a bit hesitant to try it out.

Enter in the carpool.

I called up a friend of ours that lives down the street, whose daughter is at our school in 2nd grade, and who is also a good friend of my daughters and I said “How’s about a carpool?”

After an enthusiastic response, we worked out a plan. I’d pick up two days, she’d pick up two days, and we’d likely walk together or call an audible on the 5th day. And we’d let our husbands pick up some slack in the morning for a little while and see if we could get by on our own for the morning drop-offs.

Excellent!

Today was the first day of the new plan, and it worked like a charm.

My daughter’s friend stopped by her room, picked her up, and escorted her out to the usual curbside pick-up spot she has with her mom. But instead I was the one there today, and they were both ready and willing to hop on in when I pulled up.

They opened the door, got in the back, buckled their seatbelts, and we were off.

No looking for a parking spot (towards which only feable attempts were made since I heard you have to be there more than 30 minutes early to get one), no putting the baby in a stroller, no whining from my preschooler, and no trying to find my child in the midst of the few hundred other kids merging back into their natural environments.

It bears saying again.

God Bless the curbside pick-up.