Those gifted kids are big babies!

Here in the middle of the third week of school I think I've finally got a bit of a routine going as far as transportation goes.

7:15 AM - Watch Bug board school bus
7:20 AM - Drop Goober at Pre K
7:25 AM - Drop Munchkin at school
7:35 AM - Home and back in bed starting work

The afternoon is a little more chaotic.

2:15 PM - Walk 1/2 mile to Munchkin's bus stop
2:25 PM - Grab Munchkin and walk 1/2 mile + 20 feet to Bug's bus stop
2:30 PM - Wave as Bug's bus passes us on the street
2:35 PM - Arrive at Bug's stop and wait as bus loops around entire huge neighborhood and gets back to his stop because school district doesn't believe an 8 year old can walk 20 feet on a sidewalk to his home all by himself. Whatever.
2:45 PM - Melt into pool of sweat on sidewalk. Get Bug and walk the 20 feet home as a group.

Then we do our homework and I clean up the house a bit and before I know it it's 5:00 and time to drive up to the pre-school and grab Goober. At home I throw together dinner and we all eat.

I'm sort of starting to see some organization here! Exciting, indeed.

Today, I was feeling a little under the weather and I took the van to pick the kids up at their bus stops.

Both stops are pretty active ones. Traffic is fairly light and similar at both stops and about 10 to 15 kids get off at both stops. Both stops are for elementary school children.

At Munchkin's stop all the SUVs and minivans line up on both sides of the road, the bus pulls up, the parents all sit in the vehicles with them running, and the kids go right to their respective cars and get in all by themselves.

At Bug's stop all the SUVs and minivans line up on both sides of the road, the bus pulls up, the parents all spring joyously from their vehicles and grab their children by the hand and walk them to their cars making sure each child is buckled securely before leaving the stop.

I was sort of surprised when all the parents got out of their cars to walk their children from the bus. These are not kindergartners, either. Most kids appear to be at least in 2nd grade or older. The difference, however, is that these children are all in the gifted program.

At first I figured it was just a product of parents being sheep. You know, one mom got out of the van to run to the bus and all other parents followed suit because we all have that innate fear inside of us that we're not doing a good job and that we need to be veritable June Cleavers.

But then I wondered if it had something to do with the type of parents that end up with gifted children. Are parents of gifted kids more coddling than parents of non-gifted kids? Are parents of gifted kids more protective? Are they better? Are they more hands on?

I'm not more of a coddler and I'm definitely not more protective. I'm of the mind that if they're screaming they're still breathing. Does that make me a better or worse parent? I don't know... I think it just means I'm raising my children more independently. I hope that they don't expect to be babied for every little boo boo they get in life, yanno?

So Bug ran to the car all by himself. He made it just fine.