Riding the City Bus

After weeks of hard work on his "Cole Did NOT Poop His Pants Today" chart, Cole finally reached his goal and earned the trip of his dreams: riding on the City Bus to and from the library.

Four Three year olds have strange dreams.

I could have waited for a day when Lance could have gone with us, but that would be in the distant future and didn't seem too fair to Cole.  So I bit the bullet and decided to go this afternoon.

One mom and four crazy kids (including one toddler who, instead of napping this afternoon, decided to make poop art in her crib) on an epic adventure.  What could go wrong?

We picked up the bus in front of the Pink Walrus.  Cole and Tess were so excited!  The ride was fine and pleasant even.  And then we got to the bus transfer station.

The kids weren't too happy about having to wait.  And they were even more unhappy when we MISSED OUR TRANSFER.

I wasn't too happy, either.

Seriously, the bus driver totally ignored our waving and whatnot, and I know we were in the right spot.  Oh well.  Rather than wait another 30 minutes for the next bus (and possibly miss that, too), I decided we would just walk the rest of the way to the library.  It was literally only half a mile.  (Truly - I just looked it up on Google Maps.)

But my kids acted as if it were a forced death march.

Add that to the fact that I had to carry Tess most of the way (I expected that), and it wasn't so fun.  Boy was I glad when we got to the library!

The kids weren't.  They were grouchy and angry and punchy.  Literally.  Spencer and Josh got into a rumble in the kids section.

I was not pleased.

Grumpily, we got our books, checked them out, and then went outside to wait for the bus.  Again.  I passed out fruit snacks and the kids played in the shade and everyone was happy again.  Mostly.

The ride home was pretty uneventful.  Some strange lady stared at us most of the way, and another strange lady kept talking - LOUDLY - on her cell phone about "channeling her true inner self" and "chakras" and other such lameness that did not need to be broadcast to the entire bus.

We finally made it back to our car at the Pink Walrus.  As we drove home, everyone - except Cole - agreed that we liked driving in our minivan better than the bus.

Cole asked if we could go on the bus again.  Right then.