They start out so small and helpless, the clichés are true. And just as everyone tells you, they grow up way too fast—though there are days when it seems like it really could stand to go a little faster. So I was prepared, thanks to every veteran parent I had ever met (because they all feel compelled to make the same comment, “They grow up so fast!”) for the day my first born went to school. And by prepared, I mean that I knew it was coming and was not at all ready for it.
Megan? My little Meg, already old enough to be answering to the man? Already sentenced to the seemingly endless era of school buses, sticky cafeteria tables, runny noses and bathroom passes? Already thrust into a world of report cards and rules for the sake of rules and teachers pets? Surely not! But alors, she was five this spring, and all signed up, her shots up to date, her records signed and turned into the office at Northside Elementary. I had turned my first daughter over to the authority the Rogers Public School System, to the tune of “The End” by the Doors.
Monday morning came too quickly. We’d met her teacher the Friday before, asked about half the questions I’d intended to have answered and promised ourselves to get the answers for the rest later in the day. I had a new baby and a fifteen month old, so going with John to drop Megan off was pretty much out of the question. Besides, we figured, why subject her to the embarrassment of a sobbing mother out in the hallway, when I knew full well she’d be just fine? (that’s the trouble with Meg—she has always been more emotionally equipped to handle her growth than I am) So I stayed at home and cuddled the babies who were still managing somehow to maintain baby-hood, and tried my best to cherish that, rather than dwell on the child I was unleashing on the unsuspecting Mrs. Simpson.
My concerns were that Megan would have a bully, or the teacher wouldn’t like her, or she would fail to follow directions. I’d done everything I could to get her ready for school. She knew to raise her hand before speaking. She knew she had to do what the teacher told her to do. She knew that some kids could be mean, but she was ready to forgive them and make them her buddy anyway—to Megan, strangers were just friends she hadn’t made yet, and no one really wanted to hurt her feelings. They were just having a bad day. She could read, she recognized her numbers and could count to a hundred. She was ready for anything.
The day swept by, though I’d expected it to crawl. My midwife had an appointment with us around the time Megan was due to get off the bus, so John went outside to meet her. We had been warned that the bus might be late, so when three-thirty rolled by, a full twenty-minutes after the school bus was due to arrive, and there was still no sign of Megan, I didn’t panic. My midwife checked my newborn’s weight and other vitals, and I chattered while keeping my cool. But when John came back inside to announce that the school bus came, went, and failed to deposit my daughter, I sort of flipped a little.
Just a little, not a whole lot. I wasn’t crying or anything, but I did tell John to call the school, not that there was any need for the command. He was already halfway through dialing his teacher’s number, Mrs. Simpson assuring us that Megan had been escorted to her bus and that she had, indeed, boarded the vessel. So where was she? Half a dozen phone calls later, our imagination was beginning to unravel the scenario: Megan always falls asleep on the car ride to pick me up from work, which was about the same time of day. She’d probably fallen asleep on the bus and either was still aboard, or had simply stepped off at the wrong stop and was now wandering lost, somewhere in the north end of Rogers, frightened, shivering, hungry… She had probably already signed a contract with some crook to pick pockets to feed herself until she was old enough to work as a hooker.
Fifteen agonizing minutes later, Megan announced herself with the tap-tap-tap of her little fist at the front door. The bus driver had completed his route and found Megan still in her seat, pretty much oblivious. He saw her address on the name tag her teacher had affixed to a string around her neck, standard practice for the kindergarteners, and turned the bus back to our neighborhood to deliver her at the corner.
She had forgotten her backpack, but other than that she was fine. She was also completely in disbelief that she had missed her stop. I spent a solid ten minutes trying to explain the situation to her. “Megan, you weren’t looking and you didn’t see Dad waiting for you, and you didn’t get off the school bus. You have to pay close attention so you get off the bus in front of our house.”
She scoffed, unfazed. “But Mom, I did get off the school bus in front of our house. I’m here, right?”
So this is one of those adventures parents have when their kids get big enough to go places without you. I laughed about it later—about ten minutes down the road, honestly, because it was a pretty funny scenario. But you can bet I haven’t missed meeting her bus every afternoon since. Maybe she wasn’t ready for anything, but she’d been close, and she’d handled herself much more calmly than I had. After all, she had gotten off the bus…eventually, right?
