I'm shaking the bushes, but so far am coming up birdless, and I have to (presumably) leave for the campus in 7 hours.
For one, I was not the one in the M who did that kind of relationship building with the school parents, she was, so I don't really know people I can suddenly ask to care for my children. For another, where we moved -- at STBXMRSSP's insistence 5 years ago -- there are no "young" families; all the folks hereabouts are empty-nesters, so the kids don't have a social network in place (this is a much bigger problem that I have to address this year). My friends all live considerably far away in Greater Coastal City and, more to the point, they don't know my kids -- and my kids don't know them.
This came up in a convo with a woman whose daughter was in day-care with my son the other day (and who is just starting recovery from a double-mastectomy) -- when STBXMRSSP is on one of her trans-oceanic f**kfests, what happens if I'm in a traffic accident? My parents are in Midwestern city, 8 hours away by plane. STBXMRSSP's surviving parent is in Upstate City, at least 3 hours away by plane, spends a considerable amount of his time in his European City apartment, and doesn't even have a cell phone. Her sister -- early 40s, childless, no interest in children -- lives in Asian City, literally on the other side of the globe. All I can think to do is leave instructions with the school that, in the event their mother is unreachable and I am injured/dead/dying, they be made wards of the state pending notification of next-of-kin.
