I am not an organized person, but schedules I can do and do well. I write it down immediately in my calendar and I count backwards to figure out when I need to start getting ready and/or corralling kids. I’m rarely late on my own, though 3 kids and a husband who don’t know or care about my schedule often change that.

All this to say, if you tell me a time I’ll be there. Or, in the case of a morning bus stop, I’ll have my kid there. Our bus stop time is 8:20am, as per the postcard mailed prior to school. It states all times plus or minus 5 minutes so the time in my head and on my calendar is 8:15am. The bus has come earlier and earlier each week since school begain. Recently it has occasionally driven by as early as 8:10 with my child not on it. The last two times this has happened I have left messages with the transportation director.

Today I also called the scheduler/dispatcher. I just received a return call from my daughter’s bus driver letting me know that the bus stop time was changed several weeks ago to 8:12am. Doing the math? That means the bus can come as early as 8:07—a full 13 minutes earlier than the officially scheduled time. When asked why no one was notified of the time change, he said “They don’t usually do that.”

What the heck?! Needless to say, our entire morning routine will have to be revamped around the idea that the bus could come long before it should. Kids will be getting up earlier, getting less sleep and being crankier at home. This makes for a lovely start to each morning, not to mention the rest of the day! However, had they simply called or sent out a second postcard with the time change I would be much less cranky myself.

Or not. I really like sleep.