School Pickup? Nothing Short of Crazy
It’s no secret that I love to be with my grandkids. In the quest to spend time with them, I like to pick them up from school once a week. However, now that I have two sets of grandchildren going to the same school with different last names, Nona pickups (at least to this point) have become a bit more storied. I’ve set myself up for a weekly dose of crazy.
Take, for example, my first pick up. Now, mind you, this was the first week of school, so the teachers and staff were working quite hard to make sure each child connected in the right place. It had to be quite stressful, but I could see their dedication. As I inched my car towards the pickup point, I saw my grandkids hugging and jumping with glee while engaging with mass of equally enthusiastic students. And then, my car doors opened and the tsunami of excitement pierced through the soft rock music from my car radio. “NONA!” my ears filled with giggles and elation and abounding energy. “NONA! NONA! CAN WE GET ICE CREAM?”
Yet, something wasn’t right. “Where’s Marie?” I counted the bouncing kids in my back seat and realized I was missing one. A slight amount of panic overtook me as I pulled over to the school parking lot. Off I ran to find Marie, threatening the remaining unsupervised kids in the unattended car that if they touched anything remotely near the driver’s seat, I’d send them to Siberia. Well, they really don’t know what or where Siberia is; but as I retrieved Marie, all I could hope was the car was still in park.
Finally, all 4 kids were present. But then, I had to buckle them all safely. Car seats are a bit more complicated now than they were back in the day when I had one car seat that lasted for the tenure of my 4 kids. Now, every child with a 5 pound weight differentiation needs a different NASA worthy car seat to ensure safety. (I would sound old if I argued otherwise.)
Think about these 4 ice cream ready kids jumping around the back of my car with flying backpacks and enthusiasm that made it impossible to focus. Yet, here I am; shoes off, crawling in the back seat of my car, straddling each child, navigating their knees with my knees as I tried not to squish them by forcing them into safety. I don’t know about you, but if I were in charge of designing back seat safety in the auto industry, I would certainly make access to seat belt buckles much more accessible. I can tell you from recent experience, connecting seat belts to their designated clasps buried deep beneath the abyss of unforgiving cushions is challenging. Add car seats, boosters, and energetic kids, and the task becomes intense.
Shimmy this way, lean that way; all the while I’m in pretzel position. All I could hope was no one else in the school parking lot had a backside view of this Nona trying to adhere to the National Transportation Safety Board’s regulation on how to secure kids in a car. Believe me, it was not attractive.
I’d like to tell you we gleefully made our way to the ice cream store while engaging in meaningful conversation about all they’d learned, but the reality was I had by this time lost 10 percent of my body weight in sweat. I told them if we stopped for ice cream, we’d have to buckle in all over again. My wise little ones instead agreed; popsicles at Nona’s house would be just fine. It’s a good thing I’m just fine with crazy.