The Bus

Because Jack and I will both be starting kindergarten on the same day this year (today!), I will miss the kids’ first day of school preparations.  I am going to have to trust Dave to see that the outfits I lay out get put on, that Maddie’s hair gets brushed, that no one forgets a shiny, new backpack, and that First Day of School Pictures are taken.  Mostly I am sad to be missing all of these things, all of the excitement and anticipation of the First Day.

But I am glad that I will not be there to see the kids get on the bus.

I don’t know what it is about The Bus that clenches me with anxiety, maybe it’s my own bad school bus experiences as a teen, maybe it’s knowing they are sitting mostly unsupervised with unknown kids learning interesting new words and topics I would not normally be sharing with them, and maybe it’s the symbolic ripping-my-child-from-my-arms-and-taking-them-into-the-deep-dark-world without me that gets to me.

When Maddie got on the bus in kindergarten, I held it together until I made it back to my house and then I sobbed for ten minutes. 

On Friday I took the kids to our school’s Open House where we met their teachers and inspected their classrooms, reunited with old friends and smiled at the new kids, and tried to mentally resign ourselves to the fact that summer was pretty much tiptoe-ing out the back door whereas school was sneaking up, ready to pounce on us, to drag us kicking and screaming into the chalk dust.

Just as we were about to leave we heard the announcement that a school bus was in the front driveway for anyone wishing to ride it.  Jack was excited.  Maddie was ambivalent.  Ben was annoyed.  And so we went.

It was easy to pick out the kindergartners.

And then there was Mr. Annoyed:

The bus ride, of course, is meant to calm any fears the kindergartners may have about riding the bus, but these kids didn’t seem to need any comforting.

 

The ride was too short for Jack.

It was over pretty quickly and we headed down those huge steps and went home.  I’m sure all the kindergartners on the bus left feeling excited about their new adventure.

I just wish it worked as well for moms.