Our October Calendar
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This is the calendar that lives on our refrigerator, under the magnet shaped like a pizza slice. Melissa and Evan each have a copy in their rooms, at both houses. I started color-coding it the first year because Evan was six and couldn't read the words yet, but he could tell blue from pink. Now everybody uses the colors, including Karl, who can't find his own car keys.

• Fri. Oct. 1, 15 and 29 · Karl picks both kids up at school at 3:15. Their mom drops the backpacks and Biscuit's shoebox at our side door on her way home from work.
• Sat. Oct. 2, 16 and 30 · Evan's soccer, 9:00 a.m. He plays defense, which mostly means he picks clover until the ball comes. We bring the orange slices on the 16th.
• Sun. Oct. 3 and 17 · Back to their mom's at 6:00.
• Wednesdays · Karl picks them up at 5:30, supper at our house, the Wednesday Question, homework at the kitchen table, back home by 8:00.
• Sat. Oct. 9 * · Karl's birthday. Not our weekend, so the kids are calling him at noon. (I happen to know they've been rehearsing a song.)
• Thu. Oct. 14 * · Fall parent-teacher conferences. Karl and the kids' mom go to both of them together. They've done that since the divorce, and the teachers say they wish more parents did. I stay home and make supper. Some day I may go along, but that's for all three of us grown-ups to decide, not just me.
• Fri. Oct. 15 * · Karl's birthday cake, a week late, decorated by Melissa and Evan. Last year it said HAPY BIRTHDAY DAD in green gel. We kept the picture.
• Wed. Oct. 27 * · Pumpkins for the porch. Two from the farm stand, newspaper on the kitchen table, and a lot of seeds on the floor.
• Sat. Oct. 30 * · Costume check. Melissa is going as a witch (her third year; she says it's "classic"). Evan is going as a hamster. Biscuit has not been consulted.
• Sun. Oct. 31 * · Halloween. Odd years are their mom's year for trick-or-treat, so the kids go back at 4:00 instead of 6:00, in time for supper and costumes at their own house. Karl and I will be on our porch handing out candy next to their pumpkins. We'll miss them, but they'll be back on Wednesday with a full report and, if we're lucky, a few Tootsie Rolls.

The handoffs used to be the worst part of every weekend: everybody in the driveway, the kids stuck in the middle, somebody always forgetting a shoe. Here's what we do now. Most of it came from our stepfamily group, and some of it came from the kids' mom, who has good ideas.

1. Pick up from school when we can. No goodbyes on the doorstep. The kids walk out of school and into the weekend, and nobody has to watch anybody leave.
2. Same time, every time. Six o'clock on Sunday means six o'clock, not six-twenty. Kids relax when the grown-ups are predictable.
3. Two of everything we can. Toothbrushes, pajamas, a winter coat, a swimsuit, a hairbrush, a set of Legos. The backpack is for homework and favorite things, not a week of laundry.
4. The notebook. A spiral notebook rides back and forth in Melissa's backpack: homework due, permission slips, soccer times, and a note if somebody had a fever or a bad dream. It saves a lot of phone calls, and nobody has to say anything in front of the kids.
5. Grown-up business stays with the grown-ups. Schedule changes, money, school things: Karl and their mom handle those on the phone on Tuesday nights, or lately by e-mail. Never at the curb, and never through the kids. ("Tell your dad..." is banned at both houses.)
6. Changes go on the calendar in pencil, and in pen once both houses agree.
7. Give them an hour. When they come in on Friday, we don't ask a lot of questions. They need time to switch houses in their heads. Usually after the pizza they tell us everything anyway.
8. Biscuit rides in the front seat. Strapped in, shoebox level. Evan's orders.

It isn't perfect. Somebody still forgets a shoe about once a month. But nobody cries in the driveway anymore, and that was the goal.