On the second morning of middle school, Harper made it all the way to the bus stop at 6:44, looked down at her empty hands and sprinted back up our street for her water bottle. She made the bus, barely. The water bottle, it turned out, was the theme of the week.
Sixth grade started Thursday, August 6, so the first week was really seven school days, Thursday through the following Friday. By the end of it we had rebuilt our mornings from the ground up, and almost nothing from fifth grade survived.
The old morning and the new one
Fifth grade ran on a car line at 7:35. Sixth grade runs on a bus that stops at the corner at 6:47, which moved Harper's whole morning up by close to an hour. Here's a typical office day, before and after:
| Fifth grade | Sixth grade | |
|---|---|---|
| Harper up | 6:30, when I knocked | 5:55, her own alarm |
| Me up | 5:35 | 6:10 |
| Breakfast | 6:45, made by me | 6:05, made by her |
| Out the door | 7:20, to the car line | 6:40, to the corner |
| Me on I-565 | 7:40 | 7:30 |
Yes, the bus got earlier and my alarm got later. I felt guilty about that for about a day and a half. In fifth grade I was up at 5:35 so I could get dressed before running the whole morning: breakfast, hair, lunch, car line, then straight onto I-565. Now Harper runs most of it herself.
Her phone alarm goes off at 5:55 in the kitchen, where the phone charges overnight under the rules we set in July, so she has to get out of bed and walk to the kitchen to turn it off. That was Ben's idea. It's a little diabolical, and it works. She makes her own breakfast, toast with peanut butter or cereal on rotation, gets dressed, grabs the lunch we packed the night before and is at the door by 6:40.
On Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays, I walk her to the corner, see the bus off, then get ready in a quiet house. On office days I leave for Huntsville at 7:30. On Mondays and Wednesdays, Ben's late clinic days, his mornings start later, so he takes the corner. "I'm not walking her to the bus," he told me on Monday, clipping on Moose's leash. "I'm walking the dog. In the same direction." By the second Thursday, Harper asked if I could watch from the carport instead of standing at the stop. I can. I do.
The water bottle count
The tally for seven school days:
- Friday: left on the counter, retrieved at a sprint.
- Tuesday: left on the counter, discovered by me at 6:52, after the bus had gone. She bought a bottle of water at lunch with her own money and described the situation as "fine."
- Thursday: left in the band room overnight. It came home Friday smelling like the band room.
The fixes, as of Friday night: a clip that holds the bottle on the outside of her backpack, a second bottle that stays at school and a three-line checklist taped beside the front door: water bottle, clarinet on band days, gym clothes on gym days. She rolled her eyes at the checklist. She also read it every single morning.
What else we changed by Friday
- Lunch gets packed at night. In fifth grade I packed it at 6:50 a.m. Now it's done at 8 p.m. while the dishwasher runs, and it waits in the fridge with her name on it.
- Clothes get picked the night before. By her, not me. I don't comment, and we don't lose ten minutes at 6:15 to a shirt crisis.
- I don't open my laptop until the bus leaves. On home days I used to check email at 6:30, "just quickly." Now the corner comes first.
- The clarinet case lives by the door on band days. It's a rental at $32 a month, and I'd like it to come home with all of its pieces.
Harper's verdict after seven days: the bus is "loud but fine," her locker is "too high," lunch is "way too short," and band is the best part of the day. She's tired by 8:30 every night, and nobody in this house is complaining about that. As for me, I'm getting 35 more minutes of sleep and a quiet half hour after the bus, which I'm spending, mostly, on a second cup of coffee.
