Blogging about life in Minnesota, raising our six kids with Down syndrome while battling Breast Cancer.

Be the kind of woman that when your feet hit the floor in the morning the devil says, "Oh shit! She's up!"

Thursday, November 13, 2014

Good morning parents! Its BUS time!

Excuse me while I step onto my soapbox for a few minutes.  Note: This post is in reference to special ed. transportation. If you don't have a kid in special ed, this transportation works differently than regular ed transportation. Buses usually go right to a kid's driveway, and they wait for a few minutes if the kid is not there on time.

Guess what? School started 2 1/2 months ago. We're in a routine. We know the times for everything, including what time the bus comes. We are not perfect parents, by any means, but one thing we are, is ON TIME for the freaking bus!  We have five kids to get ready and four buses coming to our house every morning, and every morning each of our kids is waiting for the bus ON TIME. Every day. It has been no less than 5 years since anyone in this house missed a bus, and that was when we had only one kid here.

The bus drivers are required to be at the bus garage 30 minutes before starting their routes, and the entire fleet pulls out of the lot in the same order, at the same time, every morning.

But at least three days a week our buses are late - x 4 buses - because other people can't get their kids out the door on time. Guess what! Maybe you need to start your morning routine earlier? While you are rushing your kid around, scrambling to throw on their winter gear while the bus is already at your driveway, other people's kids are standing at their designated bus stops in the cold. They were on time. You are not.

I have dealt with lots of behavior stuff in the past, particularly with Angela, that centered around the anxiety of having that dang bus come to the house. For two years we opted to drive her instead, removing the anxiety completely. That worked great for her, and she still arrived to school on time. Sometimes we pulled into the school lot at the same time as the bus she would have ridden. Part of my reason for doing that was it is not considerate of the bus driver or all the other kids on the bus - or the parents who got them there - when they're sitting waiting for my kid every day. So we opted to drive her instead.

So here we are, another morning standing in the cold and snow waiting for a bus that is almost 15 minutes late because the same parents are late….again…. Once in awhile its not a big deal, but EVERY SINGLE DAY???? Umm no. Get up earlier, get your kid ready earlier, and get yourself to the bus on time like everyone else does.

End of rant. I will now take my superior ass to Abel's bus, the one where HE is the problem child and the other parents are mad at us.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

I really hate standing there waiting in the cold. It's only going to get worse. At least for us, I can see the bus coming down the street from the kitchen window and then head outside at the last second before it stops at the end of the driveway. I am concerned because Owen eats breakfast at school this year with his peers; it's part of his peer time with gen. ed. If they are late everyday, how in the world is he getting time to even eat breakfast? I guess I need to talk to S. to see if he is doing OK with this.

Tamara said...

We might be the first stop. Our bus comes five minutes earlier than the time they gave me at the beginning of the year every day. We send him out when we see it. We may be a bit late, but we're consistent.