Driving with Miss Molly (and her brother and sister)

Over the years, I have deluded myself that our family morning routine of dropping each of the kids off at school is a precious time to connect with them before the rigors of a busy day. In theory, this sounds great. A few moments to start our day together in the same space. In practice, this seldom works. 

Sometimes, it does. There are magical unicorn days that have us running mysteriously ahead of schedule. The cupboards are full of good lunch foods and the kids are walking out together, joking with one another, bags full of sandwiches, snacks and fruit in reusable containers. Everyone gets to school on time and with parting words of love. 

Unicorn days. Like, crazy rare/imaginary.

Other days, there are hastily assembled food oddities left on the counter for the kids to scrounge through and mostly leave behind. Inevitably, one person takes FOREVER to get out of the door and makes the other two IRATE and LATE. This feud starts in the driveway with anger and recrimination and continues for the entirety of the journey. Every single comment by every single person ignites a series of criticisms or mockery. Everyone's nerves are frayed and exposed. 

We had that day. It was miserable and mean. And we were late. There was blame. At the end of Finny's ride, she said that if that had been an Uber ride, she would have given me the lowest possible rating. I wondered out loud if we could rate passengers...her rating would ALSO have been VERY LOW.

Long story short, by the time we had delivered Lukey and it was just me and Molly in the car, she climbed into the front seat and we put on a song we both like (and these are usually the songs reviled by the other two). We turned the corner off of Discovery Street and it was a completely different experience. We were singing and the heavy blanket of the other two and their grumpy morning had been dropped off with Lukey. 

"Mumma, if I were rating my Uber ride, you'd get perfect."

I don't have endless car rides to school with that girl left. Far from endless, in fact. Very few. I'm happy my rating is high.