Let me start off by acknowledging that E is going to make fun of me relentlessly after he reads this because he apparently never gets lost.  So I'll get right to that part of the story: I had just enough time to pick up Baby Duck from her half day of kindergarten after my new yoga class.  Then I got cut of by a creepy pedophile van and could not get into the right lane to turn to get to her school.  I took the next turn in order to cut through the neighborhood and get where I needed to go.  Unfortunately, the suburb I live in was built before they made highways or straight city blocks or roads that did not simply loop back on themselves.  This also means that the trees were there since the dawn of time, so the canopy is so dense that no attempt at finding the sun can help you if you have lost your sense of direction.  So yes.  I got turned around and finally came out of the neighborhood much farther from the school than I was with my initial turn.  At this point I am going to be at least five minutes late and I am panicking.  I just know that Baby Duck is going to flip out when I'm not there and think I have forgotten her.  I can imagine her having breakdown in front of the school not knowing what on earth to do.  I find myself fighting tears of my own as I get stuck behind a stinky dump truck going 5 mph down the street to the school.  I feel like the worst mother in the world.  I pull up to the school and leap out of the car to apologize to my daughter (and the lady waiting with her).  To my surprise, there are no tears... not even a look of distress on her adorable face.  I sheepishly begin to explain to the lady that I got lost and couldn't find a street that would cut straight through.  She was very nice and said she had gotten lost a time or two around there herself.  I apologized to Baby Duck.  I told her I was afraid that she would be worried that I wasn't coming and I promised I would not be late like that again.  She just grinned at me and almost rolled her eyes, saying, "Mom, I knew you were coming! It's okay, you can be late.  I had fun!"
     So she's way more self sufficient than I give her credit for.  That's the moral of the story.  That, and when you live in a city full of people who refuse to let off the gas and let you in when you have your blinker on... well, drive a big car.

CL