Mothers are the only ones that think nothing is beyond their control when it comes to their children.
~Ali Fazal
The letter from the principal couldn’t have been clearer: The bus will pick up your new kindergartner at the designated bus stop. Parents are not to ride with children on the bus, and under no circumstances are parents to come to the school, whether to drop off their children or to take pictures. Parking is tight, even for teachers, staff, and buses, and additional cars are strictly forbidden at the beginning or end of the school day.
That was all understandable but they didn’t know my five-year-old twins. Shy and sensitive, they hid whenever the doorbell rang. They couldn’t be coaxed out of their hiding places with ice cream, candy, or new toys. Their paternal grandparents didn’t get a good look at them until they were about seven. They clung to me whenever we ventured out in public — one girl per leg. And while my Frankenstein-monster walk was not graceful or elegant, it did have the advantage of providing a combination of resistance training and aerobics for a busy mom.
My fear on that first day of school was that my girls would hide under a bus seat, or somehow get lost or stolen. The first day of school wouldn’t be easy for them (me).
The day came, and it was sunny and beautiful. The girls were adorable in their new dresses and light-up sneakers. Each wore a nametag on a construction-paper cutout of a school bus around her neck.
The bus was late, and they were nervous, but they smiled for the camera. I sat on the front lawn under a shady tree for a minute, and their father finally took his eye off the camera lens and took in what I was wearing.
“Oh, no, you’re not,” he said.
I had on my running gear and favorite long-distance running shoes. The school was a few miles away.
“I am not going to run after the bus, if that’s what you’re thinking,” I said, insulted.
Our conversation was cut short when the bus approached. I watched Morgan and Chloe get on (how could human beings be so impossibly cute?), turn and wave on the top step, and then…
Okay, then I ran like hell. But I ran before the bus, not after the bus, so I wasn’t lying to the husband. Can’t a woman go for a run? I ran faster than I ever ran before.
The bus finally overtook me a few hundred yards before the school building. Panting, I made my way to the front entrance by sprinting from behind one car to another until, hidden safely behind a large SUV, I had a bird’s-eye view of every child that climbed down the bus steps and walked into the school doors. As each bus emptied, it would pull away, and the next bus in the row would pull up to the spot directly in front of the school entrance. I willed my breath to quiet down, the blood in my temples to slow its pulse. My legs felt like jelly, and I concentrated hard on just being still because getting caught would be beyond embarrassing, even for me. Sweat dripped down my forehead and mixed with the sunblock I had thoughtfully applied hours before, stinging my eyes and making them tear up.
A few minutes went by. Two more buses emptied and left, and then there they were! Chloe smiled shyly as the principal gave her a big smile and “Welcome!” Morgan stayed tightly behind, chin down, but she was smiling and holding her sister’s hand.
I said it was the sweat and the sunblock that made me tear up. I was lying about that part.
— Erika Tremper —