We are a week from the election now. Someone calls here at least once a day. Tonight, Paul’s party of choice called, wanting to be sure he goes to vote. Umm, hello, but if you want to remind him of something, you do not tell him a week in advance. A reminder is a day before, at most, otherwise he’s not going to remember. Of course, since I know you will be calling back every day until the election, I’m sure you’ve got that covered.

The caller id says “MN Campaign for”, which is kind of fun since the relevant part of the caller id is missing. So, I answer the phone and say that Paul’s not here right now. The girl on the end of the line then goes into that she was just calling to make sure he’s going to vote, blah de blah… And I said, “Look, you’ve got his vote, and I’m going to vote for whomever stops calling here.” She laughed, and of course, I was only half joking.

I’m so tired of it. How much money has been donated and spent that could have done so much good elsewhere? What if every person or organization that has given money to a campaign instead gave half to the campaign and half to a good cause? What if they matched it one to one? How many mailers do you think I need to get in the mail that tell me women make less than men in the same job? And do you think I didn’t know that before you killed a couple trees to tell me?

Well, it seems we finally have the bus stop problem straightened out.

A few weeks ago, I called the school transportation office about moving the kids’ bus stop. Our cul de sac meets up with a busy road and the bus stop was placed at the intersection. This is where it’s always been, which is fine, except that this year they are coming into our street to turn the bus around. We have a mailbox station/bus shelter where the cul de sac circles around, so why not actually use the dumb thing as a bus stop? So, I called and asked if the kids could be picked up there. I didn’t hear back and figured they had forgotten or perhaps had people with legitimate problems to deal with, so I called again last week to find out if someone had a chance to consider this.

The man I spoke with told me that the bus driver told him she was already picking up the kids there. I told him she was not, and when the kids had asked her about it she told them that they could not be picked up there because that was not their stop. He confirmed that I wanted them to be picked up at the mailbox/bus shelter station at the end of the street. I suggested that perhaps she had a different opinion of where the end of the street was, even though there is no shelter there. He said he would follow up with the bus driver and that the kids should wait at the shelter.

So, Monday morning, the kids wait at the shelter and Monday morning the bus driver again tells them it is not their stop and they need to wait at the intersection. Monday afternoon she again drops them off at the intersection, then drives by them (twice!) as she turns the bus around in our street. I tell our oldest that she probably just didn’t get the message yet with the weekend and all, so on Tuesday they again wait at the shelter to be picked up.

Of course, Tuesday is a repeat of Monday. So, once again I call the transportation office and explain it all to the woman who answers the phone. She takes my number, confirms the street/stop (and it’s clear she already knows about this) and tells me Jeff will call me back if there’s a problem. I ask where I should tell the kids to wait for the bus. She tells me that if Jeff said they should wait at the shelter, that’s where they should wait.

I tell my oldest that if the bus driver gives him grief, all he is to say is that this is where the school transportation office said the stop is and to be sure not to say or do anything that will give her reason to get him in trouble. Wednesday morning the bus driver tells him it’s not his stop, he tells her what I told him. It seems she talks to someone during the day on Wednesday because that afternoon she’s mad but does drop them off at the bus shelter.

I just don’t understand why she wanted to pick them up and drop them off at the intersection of a 40mph road when she was already coming into our street to turn the bus around anyway!?! Is it that much fun to make all the other traffic stop for you?

Two more weeks and it will be over. Thank goodness. I’m soooo tired of it all. My husband told me we will be moving to Canada if Obama doesn’t win. We will not be moving to Canada. I told him his children will miss him. Apparently I am part of the Obama target market. I have gotten 3 mailings in the last week. Stop killing my trees!!

I’ve been struggling for a while with what I want to be when I grow up. (My whole life, perhaps??) I currently am a stay home mom, run a little online fabric shop, do some back-end web development, and occasionally sell cloth diapers online. Before I became a stay home mom, I was a web developer/applications programmer in an IT department out in the “real world.” Sometimes I wonder if I could go back to that.

Don’t get me wrong. I love my kids. I love that my daughter’s learning to read. I love that I’m here when my oldest gets home from school to hear about the cooking of eggs in FACS class (pretty sure this is what we used to call home ec.), the drug of the week/month in Health class (“Mom, did you know that meth is really, really bad?”), and the bus driver who seems to be trying to carve out her one little spot in the world where she has total control (assigned seats, anyone?). I love that my youngest thinks any kind of truck coming down our street is just fabulous, and that a good day is spent playing pretend kitchen, marching like a duck, vacuuming, and making a lego house for dinosaurs.

Sometimes, I just wonder if I could go back. Would anyone even want me back? Or would they just laugh and say, yeah, what you knew how to do was nice five years ago, but we’re onto newer and better things. Five years ago.

What a bummer! As it turns out, you cannot simply buy a new minivan because the battery on the current one died. (I’ll admit to considering this yesterday.) So, this morning, I pulled out the trusty AAA card and called to get a jump start for the minivan.

I called around 9, and apparently they don’t have anyone really local to us in the service provider network because the sent someone from a business half an hour away, so he arrived around 10:15. My daughter was at preschool already and didn’t need to be picked up until 11:30, so this was fine, if you ignore the anxiety it caused my youngest. He was waiting for the tow truck. There are few things more wonderful in the world of a two year old than a big truck. Garbage truck, FedEx truck, UPS truck, anything hauling a bobcat, the kid loves trucks. Now, imagine his disappointment when the guy arrives in a minivan! We already have one of those, and there is nothing cool about it.

My husband is working from home. I’ll be honest – I’m a bit leery of the whole thing. He may claim to be an introvert, but I’ve seen him at work. He does well with other people, and he likes to manage people. Can you do that remotely? Sure, but it’s not the same. I know, I know. I’m a strong proponent of telecommuting, actually. I used to do it. We’ll see.

I must admit, though, it was nice having him home this morning when I went to take our daughter to preschool and the battery was dead on the minivan. (Note – little girls who are strong enough to open car doors are not necessarily strong enough to close them and henceforth will not be opening doors to get things out of the car alone. This is the second time in just a couple weeks that this happened.)

So, here we are again. I did this once before and lost interest after a while. We’ll see how long this lasts.