When College Classes Collide

It can sometimes get a little dicey when both mom and daughter are in college at the same time and there's a toddler in the picture. So far My daughter and I have managed to juggle our schedules efficiently enough so that the baby doesn't get left on the hood of a car or anything while each of us is racing back and forth to classes in Whitewater and Milwaukee. But things got interesting this week when my daughter added a class to her schedule and somehow forgot about it.

To make her school schedule work, my daughter, Carrie, has my 22-month-old grandson, Henry, in daycare on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. (BTW, here is a link to his daycare blog. Too cute! www.ucccblogger.blogspot.com) I usually take him for a few hours on Tuesdays and Thursdays if she needs time to study. Because I have class on Tuesday evenings, I'll pick Henry up early in the morning and return him after lunch, which gives me time to study for my class. It's been working out pretty good for both of us. Until this past Tuesday.

I was at Carrie's to pick up Henry by 7:30 a.m.

"You can bring him back before lunch," my daughter said.

Just before lunch I got a phone call from my daughter. It seems she suddenly remembered she had signed up for a two-credit class in Milwaukee in order to fill out her schedule so that she would be eligible for financial aid, and it sort of slipped her mind.

"What time is your class?" she asked me.

"6:15," I replied.

"What time is yours?"

"3:30," she said.

"Where is it"?

"Milwaukee."

"What time do you leave?"

"5:15."

"I might not be back till 5:45, depending on traffic."

"That's O.K., I can be late. I have to go -- the baby's pulling the T.V. off the console."

As it turned out, she got back to my house by 5:15. But because Henry thought it was absolutely hysterical to keep taking his shirt off and pulling his pants down and running around the house naked and asking to use the potty several times while his mom was trying to get him ready to leave, I was late for class anyway. (For the record, he actually did pee once.)

Ten hours after I had picked up Henry, I was on my way to class. I stopped at McDonald's and grabbed a burger and fries and ate it on the way. I had signed up to have my poem (see last blog entry) work-shopped that night, so it wouldn't have been a good class to miss. When I got to the University, the parking lot where I usually park was blocked off "due to an event." I parked in a metered parking space farther away, where you get 30 minutes for every quarter. Somehow after pumping in six quarters, I only had an hour's worth of time. I pumped in four more, and got an extra 40 minutes. Not good -- my class lasts two hours and fifteen minutes. I ran out of quarters and hobbled off to class. (Oh, did I mention I think I have heel spurs?) I was six minutes late.

Driving home after class my low fuel light came on. Then I remembered I needed to pick up my husband's blood pressure medication he'd been out of for several days.

Would this day ever end?

And the poem? The class thought it was a good poem, but the ending could use some massaging.

And after this day, so could I!