Get on the Bus!!!!!!

Vica took the bus for the first time today- as per HER request. When I informed MY Mother of this, I could hear the panic in her voice all the way from Florida....


...... Will she be at the bus stop by herself???

....... Yeah Ma, I was thinking I'd just kind of shove her out the door and let her figure out how to get on the bus by herself- her English is getting pretty good!!!!

....... Will the bus leave her off in front of your house???

....... No, it will leave her off right where it picked her up, but her sense of direction is right up there with her English skills, so I figured, what the heck! Let her find her way home and if she doesn't turn up by night fall, I'll send Sophia out looking for her.


While those were the questions posed to me by Grandma-the nervous wreck, I was much nicer in explaining the whole thing to her.

Vica has been pestering me since before she even went to school to take the bus. This morning it was all she could talk about, and when it was time for her to leave, she gave me a big kiss and a hug and bounced out the door. Matt took her down to the corner and he said she jumped right on in the first seat and was READY TO GO!!! I'm the one sitting here, watching the clock- three hours before she even gets out of school to make sure I'm there at the bus stop when she gets off. The great thing is that Vica isn't worried one tiny little bit that I WON'T be there waiting for her.

Natasha, on the other hand, is not pleased at all that she HAS TO stay home with Mama. Of course it doesn't help that her older sister taunts her with things like "Natasha is little, she doesn't ride on the bus" "Vica is a big girl, she goes to school" So, I told Natasha she'd be going to school soon too and that was enough to put a smile on her face again.

Vica had another good day at school yesterday, she got lots of Valentine's from her classmates and she did a little Valentine's Day themed arts and crafts project- and then of course there were the COOKIES- which she could not stop talking about- judging by the amount of chocolate smeared on her face, she really did like them.

So, there I was standing right in front of the main office, waiting for my kid to be dismissed. It's the end of the day, and here she comes with her coat on and backpack in hand, all smiles- Great, off we go!!!

Wrong! Apparently, Mama committed a major mommy faux pas and did not sign Vica out of school before I left with her.

HUH?????????? I was just about home when my cell phone started ringing, when I retrieved the message, it was the school calling me to make sure I had Vica with me because I had failed to obtain the proper security clearance, by the time I made it into the house with two freezing, squirming, kids who are both screaming that they have to PEEEEEEEEEE at the TOP of their lungs, there was another message waiting for me. Okay, whatever, now I try to actually call the school to notify them that I do, in fact have my child and they should recall the National Guard and I think the FBI probably has better things to dowith their time when I get caught in the mother of all voice mail directory nightmares. Fortunately by this time, the school was calling me on my cell phone- AGAIN!! Now, I know that all of my friends and family are letting out a big fat groan right about now, thinking, uh, oh, Lisa flipped and probably won't be asked to join the PTA after all- I handled it completely appropriately, I didn't even raise my voice and I was the one who apologized for the oversight.

I guess you can call it my new found Motherhood Zen-like aura.

Yeah right! You know it took everything I had not to blow my top- but I was actually impressed to see how the system kicks in once the alarm is tripped. It really stood out in stark contrast to the way kids live in Ukraine. There is no such thing as a child car seat, seat belts are even hard to find- kids are all toddling around in cities where the driver, not the pedestrian has the right of way- and no one thinks twice about it. Hard pressed as I am to say anything positive about this, I have to admit that I never once saw a single accident while we were in Ukraine and we did a lot of traveling around by car. Still, I think I like things better the way they are here :)

Now we'll have a week off from school, but luckily Matt is also off at the same time.

Oh, and two bonus points for anyone who knows where the title of today's blog comes from.