Back Row of the Bus
There are upsides to riding the bus. Now that my kids’ mom moved a couple miles further away, it’s about 2.5-3 hours round trip each leg, pickup and dropoff, but I don’t mind the half of it when I have the kids with me. It’s nice to be able to rock my baby to sleep in the evenings while the 8 year old twins on either side of me cuddle up.
Saturday was so rainy in the morning that I was soaked by the time I made the quarter mile walk to the bus anyway, but when I got to my kids 90 minutes into the journey, they had big, partially broken umbrellas I think I bought at Costco 7 years ago, and as we walked a good stretch to the bus stop and waited about half an hour, they spun their umbrellas and tracked snails the whole time, never thinking to feel sorry for themselves that it was raining. Was there ever a time I was really upset by rain as a kid? If you’re not worried about the carpet, and it’s warm enough, what’s the big deal?
Riding back seat of a bus with a hyperindependent two year old who when he’s not falling sleep in my arms insists on sitting on his own, at the very edge of his seat, and hits my hand out of the way every time I put it in front of him when I feel the bus is about to brake, and two kids who fight over sitting next to me when the 2 year old is taking a seat, this is the easiest part of being a parent—but it’s oddly the stuff you get the most credit for as well. Stranger said, kindly, “you have wonderful kids and your kids have a wonderful dad.” The harder times, the times when wonderful takes actual work, are when someone is having a fit because they don’t want to be up on your shoulders anymore, but if you put them down they’ll run off laughing, and you’re on a busy street and the bus could turn the corner any second. They’ll squirm and hit and kick and people sometimes wonder why you put up with it.
I remember this one time in a Walgreens when my autistic son was about 4 and having a tantrum, and I kneeled down to talk to try to get his attention or in some other way attempt to break whatever thing he was cycling into, and some lady walking by dismissively said “how’s that working for you?”
But I don’t give as much credence to what strangers say or think anymore; I got too overwhelmed trying to keep track of whether I was being criticized by old timers for being presumably too soft, or by Portland liberals for not understanding my children’s experience enough, or what. Too much nonsense. Eventually you figure out that the real problems aren’t your kids anyway. It’s the carpet and that you care about it.