You can school here or there, you can school anywhere!

Isn’t Dr. Seuss wonderful? 

Being a one-vehicle family has its upsides and its downsides.  Depending on my mood, it is debatable when we are experiencing one or the other.  For example, when I am being positive, I can say getting up at o-dark-thirty to take Daddy to work so that we can attend KidsROCK classes or run errands affords our family the luxury of starting the day together.  On the other hand, when I have had little sleep, and could sleep another two hours if I had my own car, I am less positive.

This morning, I was just tired enough to be indifferent to our condition as I made my way, bleary-eyed to the van.  We traveled most of the way in silence, made it through the manned front gate, kissed Daddy goodbye and headed back home.  (Oh, we stopped by a certain coffee place and got some pumpkin latte, too.  Mmmm.)

The truth is, my biggest problem with one-vehicle family setup is that I have to often drive in the dark.  I honestly don’t do that well.  My eyes just aren’t good enough and I always drive with tension and prayers.

That is what I was doing when I came upon flashing red lights in my lane.  I slowed, seeing that the oncoming traffic was lined up at a stand still.  In front of the headlights my kids and I could see moving legs.  Lots of moving legs. 

What was going on?  The police car facing me swerved slowly into the correct lane and passed by me.  Then I saw cows.  A whole mess of them filling both lanes of the road, and coming right at us!  It was such a shocking scene that we laughed—only in a small town can traffic be stopped by cattle, right?

But then I had a moment of sincere panic as they closed in around the van.  I flashed my lights and rolled down the window to see if the police officer, now out of his car, would give me instructions.  He flashed his light and spoke gently to the cattle to move them back in the direction from which they came.  He looked my way and told me to move forward slowly. 

I followed his directions, and the cows, down the road a bit—the other side of traffic hadn’t moved at all.  As I came closer to the line of vehicles filled undoubtedly with men and women late for work, another police car was coming at me in my lane.  I came to a halt and the two officers persuaded the cattle into the field from which I can only assume they came.

Excitement over, we made our way home.  But, no self-respecting homeschooler could pass up all the opportunities for learning now!  So we talked about cattle, their temperament, the police, how they might have been notified and what my kids could do if they ran into similar situation (only in a small town!).

We also considered the possible aftermath—what the police would say to the owner of the cattle, and what would need to be done to prevent this from happening again and if the owner deserved some sort of penalty.  We also considered how it happened in the first place and praised the Lord that an accident hadn’t occurred when the escape was discovered.

A nice normal day of car schooling.  :)