I Digress

In addition to D., our house is home to the baby, J, and two older sisters: DD1, 6, and DD2, 5. Every morning, my husband drives carpool. In the car are D., DD1, DD2, and 4 children from another family. DD2 goes to a different school, where another 2 children from the carpool family also go. Those two go later with their own mother, because their school starts later anyway. My husband drops DD2 off after he takes the bigger kids, and he hangs out with her at school for 10-15 minutes every morning.

This week, my husband is out of town on business, which means that I am ALONE with 4 children.

A month ago, when this trip was set up, I called our carpool family to tell them that this week, I would not be able to drive carpool in the mornings. Ostensibly, I cannot drive carpool because my four kids plus their four kids equals 8 kids plus me, equals too many people for even my beautiful Honda Odyssey. But I also can't drive carpool because I'm not about to wake the baby from his morning nap to drive carpool. I felt that by giving them A MONTH to come up with an alternative, I was being more than reasonable. Particularly when you consider that a month ago, Mrs. Carpool said to me, "Oh, by the way, I can't pick up the little kids tomorrow, so you need to do it." That was ONE DAY'S NOTICE. And if I had been busy? Well, too bad.

Anyway, we gave them a month's notice, and we made our own arrangements for DD1 and DD2 for the week. And I even mentioned to Mrs. Carpool on Saturday, "I asked S. to take my girls to school this week, but you'll still bring them home, right?" And she said yes.

LAST NIGHT Mrs. Carpool called. "So, why is it that you can't take the kids in the morning this week? Is it because there are too many kids?"

"Well, yeah," I said, knowing where this was going.

"Well, could you take two of my kids? And then I can find someone else to take the other two."

"Um, no, not really."

"Why not?"

Can I tell you how much that question irritated me? A LOT. So I gritted my teeth and said, "I'm not even taking my own kids. I have S. taking them because that's when the baby naps and I just can't get out the door with them all that early." You know, just like she obviously doesn't want to do.

If I had given her just one day's notice, I would have felt compelled to also provide the solution. But I gave her A MONTH to work it out.

Plus, I hate her because she has seven children and is skinny as a post.