Take 90 West: My Name is Lisa And I Follow School Buses.

School started this week for us. Fiona (9) and Choppy (8) started on Monday. The school district here does a soft start for the kindergartners (yes I spell-checked and it's right, even though it looks wrong!), so half of the kindergarten classes started on Tuesday and the other half on Wednesday. Taco (5) was in the Wednesday group. Gracie(3) even had her first day of preschool today. We were all up early and dressed and had plenty of time for some pictures before the bus came at 8:07.

Here's my big kindergartner boarding the bus. He didn't cry or hesitate, he just seemed very quiet and serious. Me, on the other hand....I cried enough for both of us. On my way back home from the bus stop, and in the car frantically following the bus to make sure that it didn't make some unscheduled stop in which my child would hop off thinking he was at school when really he was just at Dunkin' Donuts getting the bus driver a large coffee and a chocolate donut.

I made it to school in plenty of time to drag Gracie by the arm with one hand and balance my camera and video recorder with the other. We watched Taco get off the bus and head for the doors and lo and behold, he knew where he was going!! I think he must've listened at least once to the 1,587 times I reminded him of how to get to his classroom. "Just get off the bus and follow all the kids...don't get off the bus and follow your sisters over to ABC school where the big kids go....stay with the other younger kids that will be walking to XYZ school with you and go in the doors that have the RED pawprints on the door which match the RED tag on your backpack. Then look for your teacher as you are walking down the hallway and she has a big star hanging on the door so when you see that door with the star go in and make sure your teacher sees you so she knows you are there." My husband told me I sounded like the teacher from Charlie Brown, but as I stealthily followed Taco thru the crowds of K-2 students and other neurotic parents of kindergartners like myself, I am proud to say that he actually found his way. He didn't see me and I was content to know that he made it on his own. Watch out world!

Before we could leave though, I did stick my head in the door of his classroom to see what he was doing and like the prepared student that he was obviously groomed to be, he was unpacking his lunch from his backpack. I wiped the tears away, took a couple aspirin for the mild chest pains I was having, and sped off in the car to get Gracie to preschool only 5 minutes late!

I rushed her in to her teachers, luckily they were the same as last year so my over protective parenting skills needed no explaining, and told them we were late because I had to follow the bus to school and make sure all was right in Taco's kindergarten world so that I could go on with some semblance of sanity in my day. They laughed and Gracie jumped right in to play with her friends. Thankfully, no tears on her part, or mine. And I was not the only one that was late because I was tailing a bus.

And after we got home from preschool we had lunch and went for a swim and my Gracie was lucky enough to be able to lay down on the couch and take a nap. Which her mom also desperately needed, but was too busy pacing back and forth by the front door waiting for the bus to come.