Free At Last, Free At Last, Thank God Almighty, I'm Free At Last!

Ok, so by free, I mean free for like three hours a day. At the most. But still, this beats the snot out of last year when I had the wee ones on opposite schedules for preschool. Dumbest move I've ever made -- parents, please don't think it's a good idea to have one child in the am and one in the pm. It's not. Really not.

Mister Man started school last week, and Little Miss headed off this week.

Last Friday (because, ya know, school started on Monday), I got a call letting me know that her bus would be picking her up at 8:05am. I asked what time it would be dropping her off, as my mom needed to know. Uhh, they didn't know. They guesstimated that it would be 55 minutes after her school got out because the bus was picking her up 55 minutes before school started. Solid logic.

At 8:05, we were waiting outside, and I'd completed picture taking. Time out for pictures... Awww, isn't she cute?







At 8:20, the "big kid" bus came by, so I knew there was no excuse about traffic that would keep her bus from arriving. So I called the bus company. And got a busy signal.

*sigh*

I called a friend of mine who was possibly on our route to see if the bus had picked up her son yet. She was driving in, but yes, the bus had stopped by her house ten minutes before.

*sigh*

I finally got through to the bus company and "oh, no -- she's the fourth pickup, so 8:05 is the time the route starts, not when she'll be picked up. She'll be picked up much later. We don't know exactly when yet. But her bus is on its way and should be there any moment now."

Grrrr.

At 8:40, I called them again. The bus really is on its way. They promise. I mention that I have to start work at 9am and would have driven her in had I known that the bus would be this late.

At 8:57, the bus pulls into my driveway. Yes, school starts at 9am.

I ask the bus driver if this is the time I should expect (after three years of not once having either child get to school on time, I've had it. If the bus isn't going to pick her up on time, I'm making an issue of it again. I refuse to lose 15-20 minutes of class time on a daily basis). She says that no, she isn't actually the normal bus driver. She just had the route shoved into her hands at 7:55 and had to figure out where she was going after that. It should be more like 8:20 or 8:25.

Oh, and the Q-vest that I'd specifically talked to the bus company about on Friday to confirm that it would be there on Friday even though I'd marked it on the bus form? Yeah, it wasn't there. Fortunately, the bus driver had a spare harness, but it's too big for her and not what she was supposed to have. In fact, today is Day Five, and the drive her home bus driver still doesn't have one.





But on the plus side, I had a massage on Wednesday morning. Everyone should start ever day like that. Forever. And today, I had an almost two hour brunch with a friend of mine.

I'm liking this freedom. And I promise, next week I'm making it to the gym. At least once.

It's My Turn Next

For whatever reason, we seem to have an overabundance of bus drivers for the wee ones. Granted, the preschool increases enrollment throughout the course of the year, requiring more kids on each bus and eventualy the splitting of routes. Still, we seem to go through more drivers than I'd expect.

I've gotten used to it though, and luckily, most of them have been pretty decent.

Today I got Little Miss off the bus, and she had yet another new bus driver (the fourth of the year -- and I was totally ok with it, as I wasn't a fan of the previous driver).

As I looked at her, something about her looked familiar.

Me: You look vaguely familiar. Do I know you from somewhere?
Bus Driver: Today's my first day driving. I don't think so.
Me: Huh. (At which point, I proceed to unbuckle Little Miss from her carseat and remove her from the bus although technically no one but the bus driver and students are supposed to be on the bus)
Bus Driver: By the way, my name is Barbara.
Me: Looking up at her sharply. It has crystallized. Uhhhh, did you by chance ever work at (name of my current company)?
Bus Driver: Looking oddly at me. Yesssss, why?
Me: OMG, Barbara! I'm Michelle (insert last name here)!
Bus Driver: OMG! What a small world! I was laid off awhile ago, and this was the only job I could find. The economy bites.
Me: No kidding. I'm just waiting until the axe falls on me. Yikes! I'll uhhh see you tomorrow.

Yeah, that wasn't totally awkward. Awkward wasn't my point though.

Wow. Barbara (and no, not her real name) was one of our tech support people. In fact, she was one of two tech support people I preferred to deal with when my computer had issues, as she actually knew what she was doing. She'd been with the company for YEARS. Way longer than me. She's got skills. Education. Experience. And (nothing against bus drivers) driving a school bus part time was the only job she could find. Wow.

As if you needed more proof that the economy is in the toilet.

How Little Minds Work

Little Miss came home with me today instead of riding the bus because it was PTO meeting day, and the PTO meeting ends at the same time as morning preschool. Of course, by the time I got out of the room and outside, she was already on the bus.

I decided to ask her if she wanted to ride the bus home or come with me, figuring I can easily beat the bus home since I'm making no stops. Nope, she wanted to come with me. No issues. We unbuckled her from her car seat, and all three of us (Mister Man attended the PTO meeting with me) trooped off to my car.

About halfway home, Little Miss tells me she has an announcement.

Little Miss: I'm tired of riding the bus.
Me: Oh? (thinking, this is the girl who for two years ran onto Mister Man's bus daily and was so upset that she didn't get to go and practically counted down the days until she got to ride the bus. Hmmm.)
Little Miss: Yes. I just don't like it anymore.
Me: Really? That's too bad. Why don't you like it anymore?
Little Miss: Well, I'm just really not a fan of the color yellow.
Me: I see. So what if the bus were painted purple instead?
Little Miss: Oh! Then I would love to ride the bus again.
Me: Yeah, there's no purple bus in your future, Peanut. You're just going to have to stick with riding the yellow one.
Little Miss: OK.

I'm not sure where she got that from. The whole idea cracks me up, especially since she sits inside the bus where it most definitely is not yellow. Ours are actually not a horrid shade of brick red-y maroon. Now I just have to hope that she's willing to hop on the bus tomorrow morning!