I’ve only been AWOL a month, 234 messages behind! Everybody doing well ?
S17 is probably the only senior without the license so I am driving every morning and afternoon. 2 hours of my life gone every school day. That is at most another 8-9 months though. Yesterday, at Senior Parent Night, they said seniors have 152 days of school left, IIRC, So counting it down.
151 days x 2 hours of my life, not including the times he has to go back to school for concerts and other events, then 4 hours for those days.
S19 is on the bus for the foreseeable future as he likely won’t have his license until right before senior year (and no earlier than Dec. 2017). D16 drove him every day last year and they left at 7:55 (i.e., about 10 minutes later than they needed to for both of them to actually be in class at 8:10, although D16 was usually the one marked late). This year, he needs to be out the door at 7:15. It could be worse.
After springing out of bed at 6:30 the first two days, he was still in bed with the cat at 7:05 this morning. Fortunately, his morning routine consists of eating two bites of food, brushing his teeth and putting on clothes and it doesn’t take long.
2 hours a day? Yikes @payn4ward that’s quite the commute to school!
@eh1234 I hear you! I don’t know how these kids wake up so close to the time they need to leave. Our S19 woke up today at 7:00, left at 7:25 and had an AP Comp Sci test at 7:55. I would still be half asleep!
I drive S19 and his friend to a metro stop (15 minute drive). Then they take the train followed by a short bus ride to campus. It’s an hour and a half commute for them each way.
D16 never did manage to get her license (doesn’t like to drive) so I drove her and S19 to school every day. Only 10min and it’s nice to catch up and on my way to work. H does the pick-ups. Junior and senior year, I said I’d only drive her to/from school and I thought she’d get her license and borrow the car but chose to bike and bus instead. S19 also shows no interest in driving and bikes instead. Odd.
S19 seems to be doing ok with his schedule with includes Calc 1, Statistics and Physics. He decided to do the HS musical and is in auditions this week. I’m curious to see what part he gets as I don’t really peg him as a singer. D16 has been sending amusing reports from college and how much she is learning—though classes don’t start until Friday. She is officially on a dry campus but reports that is not in fact the case. Hmm. Also decided to take Russian as her language (distribution requirement). Russian? Didn’t see that coming.
@eandesmom It is about 20 minute drive to school but once near the school, the traffic circle moves very very slowly as it is K-12 school.
We had carpools over the years (7th year) but this year I don’t have carpool.
Wow. @Undercovermom1 Son wins the longest commute.
@payn4ward believe me, I wish it weren’t so! S19 really wanted to attend this school and hasn’t complained about the commute (very much to my surprise). I think most of his schoolmates commute, so it’s just part of their routine.
@liska21 my d19 is also taking stats! Today is the third day of school. So far, she reports that it’s a super easy class. The rest of the class is apparently seniors who went though the math track before common core changes. This means while she had some stats as part of algebra 2 last year, they didn’t. She said the seniors are lost already on the basics.
I’m really missing my D16 as a driver and so is S19. He really can’t complain about the bus as it is a really short ride both directions but with band practice it doesn’t work for the ride home. We are only one mile from school so I figure we are really lucky to get a bus at all. The reason is because we are across a very busy street. But the plus side is, if he misses the bus he can walk. It is up a big hill and carrying a trombone so he has strong motivation not to miss the bus. It was just great to have D16 as a driver because they both did jazz band and marching band so all those extra practices, concerts, games etc. It just annoys me to drop him off an hour before a performance and drive home for a brief time just to drive back to watch. I’ll shut up now. I know that I am extremely lucky to live close and even have those options.
@Undercovermom1 First time popping my head on this thread. My S17 and S19 take the subway to the commuter rail then have a hefty walk. Its an hour each way when everything works just right. And like your S, my guys never complain. Its a commuter high school. All of the complaining comes from mom and me. In the end, it’s making grown-ups out of them.
Ah, commuting. My D19 goes to school 90 minutes away. We have to drive 22 minutes to the place where the bus in our county picks her up. (We pay over $2k a year for the bus, on top of tuition). She doesn’t complain,… well, not a lot. The bummer is there is no activities bus, so DH has to drive to the school just about every day to pick her up. I work 90 minutes away in the other direction so I’m no help at all.
This commuting topic has been so interesting! I’m embarrassed to say that I never really thought too much about all of the different ways kids get to school and how long it takes. I guess that happens when you raise your kids in a boring suburb with very local neighborhood schools. No bus routes at all for K-5. Everyone walks or bikes. Most kids can walk to middle school and many kids to the high school too. Buses run for kids more than one mile away from middle school and high school but zig zag so much…that’s why some parents just suck it up and drive their kids instead.
Looking to make sure both of our kids branch out of these suburban ways when they get to college!! Can’t wait for them to meet all kinds of people from all different places!!
I was hoping that D19 will start driving soon so that I don’t have to drive her or her brother. She is reluctant to drive. OTOH, middle schooler S can’t wait to be that age to start driving! Knowing him, I will be reluctant to allow him to drive if he doesn’t change. LOL
DS19 takes the golf cart and DS17 takes the car. Both of them get to school at least 30 minutes early to bet the traffic and get good parking spaces.
My S19 will get his permit in February then he’ll be driving me to school for practice. He’ll get his license part way through junior year and we’ll all breathe a sigh of relief that we’re done schlepping kids around.
son19 just turned 15, so he has a long way to go before driving. I’m OK with that, Drivers here in MA are insane. I’d rather him have him wait. Many of my older son’s friends crashed their cars their first years driving around here, resulting in some pretty bad accidents- fortunately no serious injuries or death.
Yeah, I am going to be pushing back against D driving herself - 90 minutes at 65 mph on a highway in the predawn hours when the deer leap out all over the place is not my idea of easing into the driving experience…
@mom2twogirls S19 also reports that statistics is easy. But it’s only week 2. At his school, the normal math sequence stats/pre-calc (1 yr), calc 1 (1 yr), calc 2 (1 yr). Some start that junior year, so only go to calc 1 and other start that soph year and go through calc 2. He did pre-calc over the summer and is doing calc 1 now. So he has a lot of math that the others haven’t covered yet. The first few weeks of stats has to cover the pre-calc that they need and that the others don’t have yet. So, yeah, easy and bit repetitive for him at the moment.