I go stand out on the curb to get Wally from the school bus at about 3:30. I don't know why I go out so early. I guess in the hope that his bus will actually pull up at it's appointed drop off time of 3:31. That never happens. It is usually more like 3:41. But I would hate to not be there the one time that it shows up on time.
So a couple of Friday's ago, I went to stand on the curb, and waited as the minutes ticked by. I got some weird looks from people driving by, (If you didn't know that is the bus stop, you would probably think that a lone woman staring down the street looked a little strange too.) I day-dreamed for a while. I checked the mail. I talked to my neighbor who was headed out for a walk, commenting on how this bus being late business was just getting crazy, by now I was starting to worry. I went inside and got my phone, and when 4:00 rolled around, I was in full blown "mom panic."
I went in again and dug up the bus transportation phone number and called to find out where the missing school bus and by little boy were. I had a long, and very discomforting discussion, during which I had a phone to each ear. It involved a substitute bus driver who would not answer on the radio, being put on hold forever, and then being told that the bus had been spotted, heading back into town, by another bus driver. The driver had skipped Wally's stop, and when he had a left-over kid on the bus,had started back to the school, or bus depot, which I am not sure. I was told to wait on my front lawn, and he would be delivered shortly. Sure enough the bus pulled up just as my neighbor returned from her walk. She couldn't believe it hadn't come yet either!!
Wally got off crying that the bus driver turned the wrong way, and he had tried to tell him that he lived in the house by the circle, in the neighborhood with lots of houses, in Chicago. ( I am sure that those directions would get anyone home safely. Obviously we need to help him memorize his address.) I was just so relieved to see him! It was about 4:40 by now. The thing that made my blood boil was that the bus driver tried to blame it all on Wally, telling me that "He didn't say anything." So I told him right out that Wally is FIVE, and it is not his responsibility to keep track of the substitute bus driver's correctly making all the stops! Other than that I just told him, "Thank you," and then worried about poor Wally, on a bus for over an hour, and part of that time spent alone with a big greasy driver he didn't know. Yikes.
So we headed inside to cope with our little trauma, and I check Wally's back-pack. That morning I had to prep Wally that he was going to have to give the book he checked out of the school media center back that day. Wally gets very attached to these books, and hates to see them go.
Well, he was riding the "sympathy train" all the way home after the bus incident, until I found the book, still in his back-pack! I asked him what happened, and the gist of the story is that when his teacher told him to put the book in the media center case to go back, he snuck it into his bag and brought it home again. I told him that was wrong, and it was like a lie because he was being crafty. He told me, "No, I didn't lie! I just snuck it in there so she wouldn't see." Great. So after much discussions on right and wrong, he told me he wanted to write a note to his teacher. I helped him by spelling out the words, but he did all the writing. And insisted that it say what is does. So I posted that below. What am I going to do with this little boy?!!! He keeps my life interesting, that is for sure. I sure do love him.
