the wheels on the bus go round and round

and round and round and round! Sit back, pop open a cold drink, put up your feet and listen to the tale of Robbie's bus trip that would rival the U.S.S. Minnow and it's three hour tour! Mark took today off so he was here for the fun and excitement too! We walked down to Robbie's bus stop more than five minutes before the bus was supposed to come this morning. There are several kids and parents there already. After about 10 minutes people are looking at watches or their cell phones and muttering things like "I wonder where the bus is????" Not one but TWO buses go by and both times the drivers wave and mouth "Not your bus" as they go by. So we all stand around and wait some more until 15 minutes AFTER the bus was supposed to get there it finally shows up. I should have known things wouldn't go well when I noticed the woman driving wasn't checking kids off a list or anything like that. But did I register that fact at the time? Nooooooooooooooo!

Mark and I walk back to the house and watch some tv for about 20 minutes until it was time to drive up to Robbie's school for a "Tears and Cheers" breakfast. As we're driving past the school to go to another parking lot entrance I say "That's Robbie's bus that just pulled in!" Did I mention this was after school was supposed to start??? We walked Robbie to his room and he tells us how they made "two big circles around our neighborhood" and the bus driver said she was lost. Ok, I'm assuming they were the last or second to last stop due to the timing of the schedule and the school's start time so it's a straight shot down one road and then onto another which is the same road the school is on! But again, I'm giving the woman the benefit of a doubt since it IS the first day of school.

This afternoon we head down to Robbie's bus stop. We and all the other parents wait and wait some more. This time we're seeing EMPTY buses go past but not our children's bus. 40 MINTUES, yes folks, 40 MINUTES later we see a bus coming down the other side of the road. It stops down near the little playground and a kid gets off. Mark exclaims "That's Robbie!" So he's now not only not at his stop but on the other side of the road (which happens to be the side we live on but that's not the point!). As Mark and I are walking down the median to cross over and get Robbie we see and hear kids on the bus pointing to the corner we were just standing on and almost yelling "There, there, there!" So then the woman stops the bus on the wrong side of the street and lets all the kids off. It was a swarm of parents running into the middle of the road (the main thoroughfare through the neighborhood that connects one semi-major road to another). We get to Robbie and ask him why he was let off down there and he said "She was asking us where we were all supposed to get off the bus and I told her this was our house."

Are you still with me? So this woman is asking kids in kindergarten through fourth grade where they're supposed to get off the bus. I called my mom, a veteran school bus driver, and she kept saying "no, no, no" as I was telling the story and I kept saying "Wait! It gets better!"

I asked Robbie if his bus went into any other neighborhoods besides ours and he said "Mom, we went by the same things so many times and she kept saying she was lost....I have NO idea where all we were!" I had to laugh. Poor kid! If Mark had gone to work today he would have beat Robbie home!

I've been humming the theme to Carmen Sandiego the whole time I've been typing his saga. I'm wondering if I should get the kid a GPS unit so he can direct the bus!