Sittin' on the dock of the bay

So, I was going to write something about things I think about, since my words are not precious and my thoughts need someplace to go. Maybe I will later, since there are many things I find interesting to think about. My brain turns my thoughts over and over in my head, which would polish them and hone them if there were any place for them to go. Since they stay in my head they just get smaller and smaller. I really should put them down so they don't all disappear.

Today, however, I need to record events.

Kip woke me up. He came in and asked me to help him take his pants off. I asked him, "Did you pee in the bed?"

He said, "No. My pants are boring."

Uh-huh.

Turns out he wasn't the one who peed in the bed, Paul was, but Kip was the one soaked and wet. After I dropped him in the shower with Derrick I took Rosie down to the park, though Paul came down with me to the oval. When I told him I was intending to walk more than just to the oval he went home. It was nice to have his company for at least a few minutes.

I got ready quickly when I got back because I'd stayed too long, talking to Rick and letting Abby play with Rosie. As soon as Derrick left, though, Paul begged to ride his scooter to school. It didn't take much to convince me to let him and Sylvia go. Yesterday (or maybe Monday?) Sylvia refused to let me inspect her bag (which I now know contained a frog in an ice-cream container that she didn't want me to confiscate). Rather than let me take away her frog, Sylvia and Paul walked to school. They claimed they were "one minute late" though Rick said he'd seen them after 9. Regardless, since they'd made it once and were close to on time I felt like I could probably let them go again, especially since they were on scooters instead of on foot and should have been faster.

I did some dishes, then took Kip to Pri's house, and then headed to work. Just as I was finishing talking to Mark about the work for the day I got a text from the school informing me that they'd recorded an absence for Paul. I was annoyed, but figured they'd walked slowly and spent too much time looking for geckos, and thought I'd give them half an hour more to get to school. Oh, and a few minutes for me to drink some tea.

So, after finishing my tea and talking to Cesca and to Mark about the drama (in my totally undramatic, I'm sure everything's okay but man isn't this annoying way), I called the school. They confirmed that Sylvia and Paul weren't at school, wanted to know where I thought they'd be, and immediately sent a couple of staff members out to look for them. As soon as I informed them that Sylvia and Paul should have been there but weren't it was like they went to defcon 4. They wanted to know where I'd left my kids and where they usually walked, and if they couldn't find my kids they wanted to call the police, and, AND I had to talk to the principal about it.

Fortunately, Sylvia and Paul were easy to find--they were on linear park, just where I expected them to be, and just where I'd told the school to look.

Unfortunately, thanks to this, I now have a meeting Monday morning with one of the school administrators to discuss Sylvia and Paul's path to school. It sucks that when my kids do something bad I'm the one who gets called on the carpet.