If at First You Don't Succeed...try following the directions

Caitlin took the bus home for the first time today! Strangely, she was the only one on the bus. Let me explain. I arrived at the stop promptly at the appointed time with a squirming newborn in my arms, a curious 3-year-old, a camera ready for the big moment, and no daughter getting off the bus. No one named Caitlin had gotten onto the bus. Her little neighbor friend and church buddy hadn’t seen her. A sea of children's faces greeted me sympathetically as I scanned the seats for Caitlin.

Since kidnapping and running away from home really weren't options I could deal with, I figured we’d had a communication breakdown somewhere, so I called the school while Jim, the bus driver, called around on his radio. Jim asked me to write down my phone number, first with a pencil that was only a hollow tube of wood and then with a pen that had long since given up its ink to the sun gods. Have you ever tried writing with one hand on a loose piece of paper? Not very effective, especially against the door of a bus. Perhaps when he realized that I was trying to choose whether to drop my expensive camera or my baby, he decided he could write down my number. 

We figured out that Caitlin had gotten on the wrong bus--we'll call it bus "R". So Caitlin’s real bus ("P") dropped off the rest of its passengers and found bus R. Jim discovered that he had two passengers, also kindergartners, on his bus who were supposed to be on  bus R. An exchange was set up--two hostages, er, passengers, for one. Caitlin enjoyed a bus transfer (at no additional charge!) and finished her trip as the only kid on a very long bus. 

While waiting to be reunited to Caitlin, I enjoyed one of the two busiest street corners in the neighborhood, Richard gathering up the neighbors’ landscaping materials while I waved to passing cars as if I always stood there holding a baby and looking disheveled (had I tucked my nursing pads back in?? Was yesterday's mascara adding to the dark circles under my eyes? And, yes, I’d managed to get into smaller sized jeans today, but had I been ready to show off my new post-maternity look to the whole neighborhood?) It was a fun 20 minutes.

I wondered if I should still take a picture of Caitlin getting off the bus—suppose she was sobbing and distraught? I decided that the photo was worth the story either way and readied the camera carefully in one hand (mercifully, baby was now sleeping) as Caitlin’s bus came around the corner. The moment arrived, and there was my cowgirl-boots-with-uniform-just-for-fun daughter, cool as a cucumber. She never really knew there had been a mix-up. When asked, she said riding the bus was “Awesome! (cue the Legos Movie).” 

The root of the mix-up seems to be in my sleep-deprived state. Merrill told me that the bus route's name was the animal such-and-such, and I either didn’t hear him, didn’t think it mattered, or thought he was talking about the elementary school’s mascot. Why hadn’t I paid attention to the animal clue? Caitlin (and Richard) watch at least two episodes of Wild Kratts every day (a PBS Kids show about wildlife). They love all creatures great and small. And creepy and slimy. I gathered my own little human creatures, and just as we began the walk home, I remembered the chicken in the oven. The timer had come and gone, but it didn’t really matter. We ate leftovers for dinner when 4:40 met baby’s readiness to eat and I no longer had time to make the broccoli-chicken crepes I’d been dreaming of.

Richard is in a one-on-one, self-guided, home preschool. That means he gets to do what he wants while his mom cares for a new baby and his older sister has all the fun. So when I found him smearing his afternoon snack (a German yogurt-like cheese) all over the counter, I thought, “Why shouldn’t he smear his food all over this perfectly smooth and washable surface? They call it finger-painting in expensive preschool programs.” So I asked him what he was making. “A butterfly.” Very good. We’re learning creative expression. I decided to further the educational moment by quizzing him on where yogurt, cheese, and milk come from. He responded with, “I don’t know.” I hinted that it came from an animal. A light turned on for him: “A warthog!” "Oh, um, no. Try again." "A giraffe?" I guess I won’t be turning his education over to PBS wildlife cartoons after all.