Teacher Conference Tuesday and Mother of the Year Award

I'm literally loving alliteration this week.

Obviously.

Today I had a teacher conference with Sara's teacher. It was at 3 pm.

The final bell rings at school at 2:35. Bus riders get loaded first, the buses take off around 2:45, then the pick up lines circles through the bus lane to pick up car riders.

So, technically, picking up Sara after school would have seemed like the most efficient way to get her after school and to the conference on time.

Except -

Unless I'm willing to get in the pickup line around 1:30 and wait, there's no guarantee that I would make it in time. And since one of the last times I was in the pickup line my battery died and no one offered to help me, I wasn't eager for even the slight possibility of a repeat.

When the kids ride the bus, they are dropped off at the bus stop between 2:50 and 2:57 normally. For the past week, they haven't been dropped off before 2:55. So today I headed out of the house right at 2:50 (or so I thought), knowing it only takes a minute to get to the bus stop.

Except -

I was in the bedroom before I needed to leave to pick up Sara, changing clothes. I left the bedroom and the clock said 2:47. When I got into the car, it was 2:53. I have no idea what happened to those 5 minutes. I got to the bus stop at 2:54, and the bus was pulled over, waiting.

Oh. No.

I pulled in behind the bus, the doors opened, Sara came out and burst into tears.

Oh. No!

She got in the car and was SO upset (rightly so), and said that the bus driver yelled at her and they had been waiting for me for 10 minutes. I doubted that it was 10 minutes, but I have no doubt it seemed like that to Sara and that she was really scared.  I feel awful!

So I calmed her down, we drove to school, parked, walked into the office to sign in, and went to the teacher conference. Sara seemed to be okay by that point and she settled down on the floor of the classroom to work on some math activities.

The conference went really well, and by the time we left, it was almost time to pick up Tucker from his Lego class. So we just hung out until he was done and then ran some errands and came home.

All I can say is this..I'm very glad that it was Sara being evaluated today and not me, because I would not have scored well at all. And even though she was emotional this evening, I just kept saying small prayers of thanks that she is such a loving and forgiving child and that her teacher didn't have one negative thing to say about her. I'm so grateful. And so sorry I let her down.