For about two months now, we’ve been going on a decent schedule vis-a-vis the Monster’s school.  He has some predictability with regards to his morning routine, followed by school, followed by homework, gymnastics or therapy…

And then this morning, the bus had to go and screw things up.

About 6:55 this morning, shortly after I’d gotten out of the shower, the phone rang.  As the wife commented at the time, the only thing it could be at that hour on the home line would be the bus company calling to say that there was an issue.  And indeed… there was an issue.  The issue is a route change – the bus will now be coming at 7:35 AM, rather than 7:48 AM.

So, let’s do the math again, shall we?  The Monster’s school starts at 9.  7:35 means 85 minutes on the bus… for a five year old… who is not fully toilet-trained and is special needs.

Yeah.

The bigger issue, of course, is this suddenly deprived him of thirteen minutes of his morning prep time, sending us into a scramble today to get him up, cleaned up, dressed, fed and ready for the bus.  We were used to having nearly an hour.  They could have called us earlier so we’d have adjusted already… but that would require Durham Bus Services to be competent.  So instead, we raced through the morning preparations, getting his bag and lunch together, and got him as settled as we could before the bus was due to arrive.  The biggest disruption was how he behaved when he could hear the bus but not see it yet… but today was a relatively good day, and we got him out without too many problems.

Obviously, changes to schedules are something that all of us have to deal with in our lives.  I just wish that The Powers That Be would understand that, at this point in his life, schedule adherence and stability is more important when he’s already dealing with so many other things.