My mom is going away for 10 days and I’ve needed to organise transport for the boys while she’s gone, with the view that this would happen more and more often now because my parents want to travel more.  So, Beauty is going to walk to pick up Connor, because the school is about 2 blocks away…but Bradley was an issue.

So after much debate about afterschool vs transport, we’ve decided that a school transport system is the way to go for now, and we got the names of a few places from the school.

I met with the dude that we finally a. chose and b. managed to get hold of (the others didn’t even return our calls), this morning at the school.

I hope we chose right. He looks ok.  His car/van looks ok.  What he told me about his service sounds ok.

But it’s a leap of faith.  I have to trust that he’s been truthful.  I hope and pray that he was.

It’s a parenting debacle.  This trust issue is huge.  You trust that when you go back to work after maternity leave, that the person looking after your baby is trustworthy.  You trust that the school you organise for your kids is trustworthy.  And now I’m trusting that the person driving my child is trustworthy.

It’s BIG!

And the worry is not unfounded either.

This dude was telling me this morning about some of the stories he’s heard… or at least I pray he’s heard and it’s not about him. Firstly not all the parents actually meet him before they arrange transport… they do everything via email and phone… sounds a little odd to me especially when your child is 5 or 6 years old… sure you’d want to meet the person who is going to collect and deliver your precious child.   Then he told me about some of the other  services where the service is outsourced to a third party, and your child ends up being carted by a person driving a car with smooth tyres and without seat belts.

Now I had that on my mind the whole day, and then I got to my mom’s house and we were discussing this whole thing, and she told me what she’d seen that afternoon when picking up Bradley from school.  A car stopped next to her, and this lady started piling kids into her car.  It was a white VW and there were too many kids for the car, so they were all squashed on the back seat.  Then she tells the one kid to get into the boot, and tells the other kids to keep quiet until they get out of the school premises.  She piles the bags around the child so the security guard (I’m assuming here) can’t see what she’s done.. and she drives off.

Holy moly that has freaked me out!! I wish my mom had gotten the woman’s number plates because, by God, I’m going to tell Bradley’s teacher about it on Tuesday.  That cannot be allowed to happen!

I just pray that this dude I’ve organised is ok.