Wheels

We've been learning a new dance for this semester.  It is called One Set of Wheels.  Our faithful, maroon colored car spends a lot of time driving between parking lots it seems.  We're lucky that all of us work relatively close to each other.  Jonathan works a  half a mile from our house and about the same from where I work.  Tanner goes to school about a mile from my office, so between the three of us, two bikes and a car we manage an intricate dance of schedules.

We have occasional missteps.  Like the time Jonathan forgot to pick up Georgianna, or the time two girls were sick on a day that absolutely NO one could take off of work (they ended up sleeping in the cafeteria at my office), or the time that Tanner forgot that he had classes.  So far, we've successfully rolled with the mishaps, and no one has crashed and burned.

A typical Monday sees Tanner dropping off the girls while I bike to work.  Then he swings by my work, drops off the car, grabs the bike and goes to school.  Jonathan (who usually bikes to work at about 5:00am) then walks to my work to pick up the car.  He then picks up Georgianna, Kate and Reagan.  They come to my office when I get off of work.  I take the car home, finish making the dinner that Jonathan started and then I get ready to teach (from 5:30 to 8:00) while Jonathan walks back to his work, gets his bike and rides off into the blue yonder.  Tanner bikes home if he gets out of evening classes early enough.  If not, then he calls me, and I pack the girls into the car after I finish teaching, and we go to pick Tanner up.

As you can see, this requires that we all not forget where we are suppose to go.  We've had a couple of Mondays that see me running/walking home so that I can get there in time to teach my first lesson (1.5 miles in less than 30 minutes requires a bit of jogging).  We've also had a few Mondays where Jonathan has wandered into my office wondering where the car is.  Luckily, my bike has been there and I have an extra set of keys, so he was able to bike to the car, lock up the bike and still pick up the girls.

The week does get easier as long as you count as a positive the fact that on Tuesdays and Thursdays I have to bike to work and back home because nobody can pick me up because Tanner has classes at 5:20, Jonathan works at 5:25, and I teach lessons from 5:30 to 8:00.  Yup, that's an easy day.  At least the car just goes back and forth between home, school and A&M.

All this crazy wheel turning is making me wish I had a moped, but that won't fit 3 children, will it?