A feckless moment!

Wednesday, in honor of my 14th anniversary, Wifey and I decide to go out to coffee together first thing in the morning. She was coming into town anyway to work in the office, so I told her I would take the kids to school, since I wasn't going in directly to the office; I wasn't in my usual hurry.  I got the kids all loaded up in my pickup and while giving them my usual schtick and jive, this time about not being able to find the way to their school, since I'd not taken them before, and hoping to not forget to stop and let them out, etc. I didn't hardly realize it, but the 2 youngest boys were eating it up, believing it. So after it dawned on me that they were believing it, I took a "wrong" turn, avoiding the highway, and went a way that they had never gone before.

This was a total blast because the boys were in the back, nervous as cats at a rocking chair factory, telling each other "Ohhh, I don't want to be late!" and "I just want to go to school!" and me in the front, pouring fuel on the fire: "hmmm, none of this looks familiar..."  and "This doesn't look right at all..."  and, of course: "I know what we can do; we will just follow the first school bus we find to IT'S school, and you can just go to school THERE!" The girls were hip, though, throwing in their own comments like: "I'm pretty sure I recognize that house from last time we went to Missouri..."  and "We are soooo lost!"

Anyway, we drove right there, maybe 5 minutes slower than they usually take, and by then I had them thoroughly convinced that we were approaching Wichita, and that I was going to push them out the door at the first school we found.  I thought the jig was up as we approached their school, but I guess they didn't recognize it since we approached it from the North instead of the South, the younger one sees all the kids unloading from school buses, and says: "Hey, Daddy, that school says 'Yoder!' Oh! Ooohh!"  (the realization dawns...)

Poor kids... But darn, I do love to be a daddy.

As a side note, here is a picture of my youngest after he walked into our creek that was completely covered in leaves.  He wasn't very happy about the picture...