Blogging

I have thought about blogging for some time now, but every time I think "I should write a blog" I immediately counter that thought with "but I'm not funny." I love to laugh and laugh often as anyone in my family will tell you, and I find a lot of things very funny (especially my Uncle David), but I am not particularly witty myself.
My favorite blogs, which I will link to just as soon as my very funny and very articulate friends give me permission, are hilarious. I find myself nodding along and laughing, which tends to make me look really crazy since I generally catch up on reading those blogs on my beloved blackberry while I am waiting in Carpool Line. Which brings me to the reason I decided to actually write a blog----Carpool.
I drive a lot of carpool.
And there is something about the confines of the car that brings about really great conversation. When I was a kid I used to love going places in the car alone with my mother and/or father and now I love the drives that we take from here when we go visit my parents because it is 3 hours and 15 minutes (without traffic and when I drive, about 3 3/4 hours when Yehuda drives) of uninterrupted time spent talking to Yehuda and my kids. Some of the most intense, fascinating, and important conversations that I have ever had with my parents and with Yehuda have been while driving. So carpool. It takes up a lot of my day, but most of the time I really like it.
This year, my kids are in the same school (yay for less shlepping! Boo for more tuition!) so I drive carpool 5 times a week, split up between 3 different carpools. One morning carpool, one 1:30 dismissal carpool with 3 other moms, and one 3:30 dismissal carpool with 1 of the same moms and 2 additional different moms. I have a handy-dandy color coded schedule hanging in my kitchen, as well as each one dutifully noted in my blackberry because I do not want to be that mom who forgets to drive carpool (ever again, I mean).
School is only a 10 minute drive from my house, but somehow the whole process, from making sure I have the correct car seats and boosters in the correct spots, loading and buckling and taking off coats and putting on coats, and finding the tiny little car-marker-ball-sticker-scrap of paper or snack that has fallen somewhere in the car but the child will scream for the duration of the ride unless I find it RIGHT NOW, choosing the right music (No, NOT this one!) waiting in the carpool line, waiting to turn, waiting for the train that inevitably decides to pass just as I pull up to move, and so on, you get the picture, is about 45 minutes each ride.
The worst is the dreaded Thursday Afternoon 3:30 dismissal which involves me getting in a long line of minivans, showing my carpool number (35) to one of the carpool directors, waiting until they start dismissal, because even though school actually ends at 3:30, if you don’t get in line by 3:15, you will be in the 2nd, or even worse, the 3rd shift in which case you won’t be home until 5 PM, waiting for them to call Carpool 35 over the loudspeaker, waiting for each of the 4 kids to mosey on out of the building and sloooowly amble over to where I am frantically waving my hands, making sure each kid has their coat, bag, lunch box, (yes, I am pretty sure your mom sent you with a jacket today, seeing as it is 20 degrees outside) saying “Buckle up quickly” over and over again and then waiting in the line behind all of the other moms and dads doing the same thing, just slower, then driving each kid home. Plus there is Thursday Sports Club for Yaakov and Sunday Ballet for Amira, in addition to all the general errands I so enjoy and when you add that all up, that’s a lot of time spent in the car.
So, the bottom line is, while I may not be particularly funny, my kids are and my kids’ friends are, especially when in the car and thus, here we are, with a blog.