With the first day of school looming before us we have a few problems which are still unresolved. One is the lack of our ability to find a solitary sheet of construction paper of the required sizes in all of Tarrant County, Texas.   The other is “The Bus”. 

To Bus or not to Bus. 

If I stand on the corner of our street I can see the roof of the elementary school. We’re not that far away from it. It is a neighborhood school. It is, however, too far to let him walk to school or even ride a bike to school. So, the choice is either have him take the school bus or drop him off on my way to work.

 I resolved that I would just drop him off every morning (“At or after 7:30 am. No child should be dropped off prior to 7:30 am” according to my parent manual) and then head to work. The bus route picks up children at the end of our street, at the intersection of our street and the busy street, at 7:20 am. Really there’s not that much difference in time and if I’m dropping him off he’ll be safe.   

It’s not just the bus stop on a busy street.  I admit that. I can’t help but thinking of Forrest Gump’s first bus ride in the movie. What if everyone tells Will “Seat’s taken!” What if there isn’t a Jenny on the bus for him to sit with? He’s never been on a bus – there aren’t seat belts on those things, right? I don’t know how I feel about putting him on a vehicle with no seat belts with a stranger I don’t know behind the wheel, trying to find a seat with a bunch of kids saying “Can’t sit here.” 

He wants to ride the bus. He tells me that every morning when we pass the school. “I want to ride the bus.” I tell him “I’ll just drop you off, it’s on my way.” He counters with “I want to ride the bus. I’ve never ridden a bus.” I counter with “There aren’t seat belts.” He objects with “It’s just down the street.” I ignore it by turning up the volume on the car radio. (Just a note here, every morning Will wants to listen to Pink Floyd - We Don’t Need No Education. He sings it. He loves it. I cannot wait for that phone call from the administration at his school…)

There’s another problem with the school bus. My mother will tell you about it if you run in to her. She has a few of the facts wrong, but in essence I didn’t do so well on my very first bus ride on my very first day of kindergarten. Mom is correct – I didn’t get off the bus at my stop. The events surrounding why I didn’t get off the bus are up for debate, but what I remember (vividly, like it happened yesterday, not like it was 26 years ago) is that I started to get up to get off at my stop and the bus driver asked me “Is this your house?” and since it was at the top of the street and not in front of my house I said “No, this is not my house” and I was told “Then sit back down!” by a very unfriendly bus driver who was sick of us already. I then got to continue riding the bus while everyone else emptied off. Alone. It is just that sort of trauma that sticks vividly with you for 26 years and makes you very weary of letting your firstborn ride the bus less than 2 miles to his elementary school. 

But surely he won’t have the same traumatic experience. 

The hardest part of his education - so far, I mean, school won’t start until next week and by then I’ll have found a million other things to worry about -  is trying to keep him safe (and away from school bus trauma) while not suffocating him to death with my good intentions. I do know that he’s very excited about riding the school bus. I know that I’m doing a poor job about faking excitement about the school bus.  But I am faking the excitement, and that’s a good start.