Early piano tonight. We moved the boys’ lesson up by one hour because Wednesday evenings are just insane for me. Their teacher had the earlier time slot come available and offered to let us move it up. I told her that we could try it and see how it goes. That was last week. It worked okay. It worked well enough that we decided to try it again this week.
The evening stressful drive was at least less stressful. Now I won’t lie, this time is cutting it close for us. It didn’t hurt to try though. Now I pray that there is no traffic, or at the very least it is flowing smoothly and quickly. It isn’t that we have to go very far, just that traffic can get really heavy along the most direct and shortest route. It can get really congested at the intersection before and at the freeway, then you add on the fact that the road narrows down to one lane each way on the other side of the freeway and it can get backed up quickly at “going home” times. Of course, the time of evening does help the traffic considerably.
So long as Andrew gets home from school (off the school bus) as consistently as he has been, this should work out much nicer for me. This is especially true for me when Ben is out of town. My need to drive to one location to drop off 2 boys, drive to another location to drop off 1 boy, go back to the first location to pick up 2 boys, drop off one child at a third location on the way back to the second location to get the 1 child that was left there…this is gone. It isn’t that crazy. This gets very old very quickly. Now, I go to piano and wait for the 2 boys to get done. Then I swing back by the house to drop off Andrew and pick up Lance and have Kyle change his clothes. Then I take Kyle and Lance to karate while Andrew goes to his Young Men/Scout (youth group) activity at church. This only changes if Ben is out of town as I’d have to take all 3 boys with me to piano and they’d have to be ready to go beforehand, but that is manageable. It is much easier to get Andrew a ride on that night as I can leave him home without supervision for a short while now.
Of course, the whole reason for “wanting to try” an earlier time for lessons was smashed today. I wanted more time so I could at least breathe between drop-off and pick-up. Andrew’s piano lessons have officially advanced to the 45 minute lesson length. Great! That’s progress. Progress is good. However, that means that instead of earmarking an hour for piano lessons each week, I now have to earmark an additional 15 minutes. So now, my 30 minutes between the end of piano lessons and the time I need to have Lance to his karate class is now down to 15 minutes. Fortunately, it is not far to go. It does mean that Kyle will have to learn to be a quick change artist or get his karate uniform on before we head out the door for piano.
We’ll see how it continues to work, but most likely this is the way it will stay. It just seems more logical and way more stressful on me in the long run. This is a big deal if you ask me. Somehow, things always tend to work out.
Be the first to comment