The first day of school was a big success, except for the part where I nearly killed the parish priest in the carpool line. Not on purpose! Good lord no.

“Smile and maybe she’ll stop taking our picture.”

The story is this: at the boys’ school, you cannot use the drive up carpool pickup until your youngest child is in first grade. The little kids have to be walked in, because they’re in another part of the building; in the afternoon, you pick everyone up in the gym. So that’s what we’ve done for three years now, and for that entire time, Henry has been dying to be dropped off.

This year, Charlie is in first grade, which means that everyone is eligible for carpool. Yesterday, because it was the first day, I walked the boys in, mostly so I could see their friends and my friends and just have that Moment. Of course, as soon as we hit the gym doors, the boys ran off to sit with their classes and waved me away because OMG MOM YOU’RE TOTALLY EMBARRASSING ME (well, no one said that, but the sentiment was clear).

“I don’t know what first grade is all about, but I’m pretty sure it will be awesome.”

When I left them yesterday, I reminded them probably 20 times to GO TO THE CARPOOL LINE at the end of the day, but I was pretty sure someone (Henry) would forget. So I was ready for that, mostly. Only not really.

Carpool at our school is a pretty informal system; the kids are all lined up on the sidewalk in front of the school and they’re responsible for watching for their ride. Various adults, including the principal and the priest, walk them out to the cars so that no one gets hurt. It’s all very friendly and calm.

Except when your kid goes to the wrong place.

The new first grade teacher escorted Charlie to the car, but since she’s new, she didn’t know who Henry was, although she did seem to know that I was missing a kid. She went to find him but in the mean time, Henry’s second grade teacher came over to tell me that Henry had gotten in the wrong line and gone to the gym with the aftercare kids. Of course! After all, that’s what he’s always done! So I said okay, I’ll just pull around and park and go get him. And everyone waved and smiled and laughed about those silly kids going the wrong place! Ha ha!

Henry would like you to know that none of this is his fault.

But! Just as I start to pull away Henry comes out of the building; he had figured out that he was in the wrong place and had come back. (”I didn’t forget that I was going to carpool,” he explained, “I just got in the wrong line.”) So the priest, who is the nicest man you could ever meet, runs after me and kind of jumps in front of my (very slowly moving) car.

And I came this close to hitting him. Seriously. Can you go to hell for something like that?

We’re going to try the carpool line again today, but if I nearly kill another priest, I’ll be walking everyone in and out of school until they graduate. The end.