We’re getting the hang of the new routine, despite a few family-wide panic attacks.

We’ve lived in our home, at the corner of a four way stop, for four years and I’ve known all along that the school bus drives by many many times.

I just didn’t know how many. Six times in the morning and six times in the afternoon. If you think I’m exaggerating, there’s actually a chance I’m under reporting.

Until this year it was a special treat if we saw it go by, but it didn’t affect my life one way or another. Now the distinctive braking of the school bus is enough to send my entire household into a frenzy.

7 a.m.: I’m enjoying my precious one on one time with my coffee. The bus brakes and adrenaline shoots through my body. I talk myself off the ledge. BB’s bus comes at 8:07 a.m.

7:07 a.m.: BB is snuggling with me on the couch. THE BUS! BB is on the verge of a meltdown. I talk her off the ledge.

7:30 a.m.: Captain is in the middle of making breakfast. THE BUS! He looks at me panic stricken. I talk him back.

7:37 a.m.: RB is spooning some cereal into her mouth and the rest into her lap. THE BUS! She yells,

“BUS!”

I remind everyone,

“BB’s bus comes at 8:07 a.m.”

8:00 a.m.: THE BUS! My stomach lurches, Captain braces himself, RB squeals and BB screams,

“Is that my bus?!”

“Technically yes, but remember it loops around the neighborhood and picks you up on the way back?”

“I want to go outside.”

“Ok, but you have time.”

“I want to go outside NOW!”

ME TOO.

After an hour of panicking, I remind everyone, including myself,

“Even if we do miss the bus, we have a car and it’s a 5 minute drive to school.”

Then the whole thing repeats in the afternoon. The bus driver won’t let a kindergartener off of the bus without an adult there to meet them, so it feels even more important to not miss the afternoon bus. BB gets home at 3:25 p.m.

2:30 p.m.: I’m enjoying the quiet when… THE BUS!

Captain is still working from home, so he gets to shout things from the library/office/gym/room-off-of-the-kitchen-where-it’s-a-terrible-place-to-work-with-small-children-around,-but-I-didn’t-pick-it. He yells,

“THE BUS!”

“I know!! It’s not BB’s!”

BB loves the bus. She tells me,

“It’s not like when you were a kid, the seats are really nice.”

Of all the millions of things that are not like when I was a kid, the school bus seats look very similar. And I have had the chance to see them go by many many times.