What About Alex?

We are in the middle of our school and extracurricular activity chaos. This is how our next couple of months are shaping up, including school pick up times:

Mondays
6:10am Leave the house for Anthony's Cross-Country practice at 6:30pm
7:04pm Natalie's and Eric's school bus picks them up
7:30am Leave the house with Alex's school carpool*
3:25pm Alex's school day ends
4:10pm--Variable--Alex's bus gets to the local middle school
4:05pm Anthony's school day ends
3pm Pick up Eric and Natalie from school for Natalie's 3:30-4:15pm piano lesson
5pm Leave home for Eric's 5:45-6:15pm swimming/Natalie's 6-7pm swim team practice
5:30pm Leave home for Alex's 6-7:30pm club soccer practice

Tuesday
6:10am Leave the house for Anthony's Cross-Country practice at 6:30pm
7:04pm Natalie's and Eric's school bus picks them up
7:30am Leave the house with Alex's school carpool*
3:20pm Natalie's and Eric's school bus drops them off
3:25pm Alex's school day ends
4:10pm--Variable--Alex's bus gets to the local middle school
4:05pm Anthony's school day ends
5:30pm Leave home for Natalie's 6-7pm swim team practice
6-7pm Eric's soccer practice

Wednesday
6:10am Leave the house for Anthony's Cross-Country practicez at 6:30pm
7:04pm Natalie's and Eric's school bus picks them up
7:30am Leave the house with Alex's school carpool*
3:20pm Natalie's and Eric's school bus drops them off
3:25pm Alex's school day ends
4:10pm--Variable--Alex's bus gets to the local middle school
4:05pm Anthony's school day ends
5:30pm Leave home for Natalie's 6-7pm swim team practice
5:30pm Leave home for Alex's 6-7:30pm club soccer practice

Thursday
6:10am Leave the house for Anthony's Cross-Country practice at 6:30pm
7:04pm Natalie's and Eric's school bus picks them up
7:30am Leave the house with Alex's school carpool*
3:20pm Natalie's and Eric's school bus drops them off
3:25pm Alex's school day ends
4:10pm--Variable--Alex's bus gets to the local middle school
4:05pm Anthony's school day ends
5:30pm Leave home for Natalie's 6-7pm swim team practice

Friday
6:10am Leave the house for Anthony's Cross-Country practice at 6:30pm
7:04pm Natalie's and Eric's school bus picks them up
7:30am Leave the house with Alex's school carpool*
3:20pm Natalie's and Eric's school bus drops them off
3:25pm Alex's school day ends
4:10pm--Variable--Alex's bus gets to the local middle school
4:05pm Anthony's school day ends

There are other things like Anthony's after school meetings or other school or social functions. There also may be some additional changes in the coming weeks. Natalie now says she is interested in the "Strings" group. She says she wants to play the cello because she likes the way it sounds. She seems very excited about it, and because of that, we would like to be able to do this for her, but we have to find out more information. A bus would pick her up from her school on Mondays and Wednesdays. They have lessons/practices at the middle school that we feed into (and that Anthony attended for eighth grade). We would have to pick her up from there at 4pm. If she does this, we would have to drop the piano lessons. There is no way she can do both, from the schedule perspective, and from the perspective of having time to practice both instruments.

We have already cancelled Eric's swimming lessons, at least until January or so, then we'll see. He is tired after having school all day. Yesterday (Monday), by the time he came home from Natalie's piano lesson/his swimming lesson/Natalie's swim team practice, it was almost 8pm. He had to go to bed, but he didn't want to. He just wanted some time to play with his dinosaurs. We have to let him be a kid too.

Unless I'm off or on call and don't have to go to work until later, Patrick has to take Anthony to school for his cross-country practice, then come home and make sure the little ones get on the bus a little after 7am, then 2-3 days a week* he has to take Alex and Jeff, his carpool friend to school. The other days, Jeff's parents take them to school. The problem for the next couple of months is that Jeff has football practice after school, so we are solely responsible for picking up Alex. We pick him up either at his school or at the local middle school, whichever way the timing works better. The local middle school is obviously closer, but the pick-up time is very different and can be very variable.

We also have to add one more factor. My work schedule has changed and technically I have to work until 4:30pm every day. I can still pick up Anthony, but I'll be late, and I can't pick up Alex at either his school or at the local middle school. This is particularly troublesome on Mondays, because Patrick is at Natalie's piano lesson. We forgot about this until this past Sunday. We suddenly went over the game plan on Monday and asked, "What about Alex?" Luckily, my job can be a little flexible. I was able to leave work early, in time to pick up Alex from school. We waited around for Anthony to finish with his after school Model UN meeting, then came home. We had to pretty much turn around and leave again for Alex's soccer practice.

We found a temporary solution, but not in time to put it into effect yesterday. Alex has a friend, Marco, who rides the bus with him but does not live in our neighborhood. Marco's mom will pick up Alex on Mondays and take him to their house (a couple of miles from our house). We will return the favor on Thursdays. We don't like having to rely on a third party for our scheduling, but what else can we do?

All of that above is pretty confusing, so I'll change gears and share something else fun. There's been a cold front and the kids have started wearing jackets to school. The temperatures are only in the mid 60's but they insist that they are "cold". I had to take a picture, of course. They were trying to run away from me, hence the blurry picture. Eric was starting to wake up from all of that running around, which was a good thing.

Tonight, because I'm on call and have to be at work by 3pm, Patrick has to wait for the little ones to come home on the bus, then he has to go pick up the big boys at their respective schools, come home and feed everyone, then go back out for Eric's soccer practice. Natalie has to miss swim team practice.