Riding the Bus

When the Preschool handed me the paperwork to fill out for Gorden to ride the bus, I handed it back to them. "I'm pretty sure he will not want to do that," I told them. Its no problem for me to take him and pick him up. He's pretty leery about things he hasn't done before and he usually doesn't want to be around strangers. Also Gorden really likes to feel safe and secure and I figured the bus wouldn't feel very safe to him, since he wouldn't be in his car seat and busses generally are kind of bumpy ride.

So the first day of Preschool comes and I take him and walk him inside to find his teacher/class in the cafeteria where all the kids meet. When I come back to pick him up, Gorden sees me and turns and walks the other way! It was really wierd. It was actually kind of embarrassing because his teacher and her two aides each saw. Then Miss Trisha told me that he said he wants to ride the bus. All but two other kids had gotten on the busses. There are only THREE kids whose parents pick them up! I went and found Gorden and asked him if he wanted to ride the bus and if that's why he wasn't coming with me, and he said he did. So I convinced him to go home with me that day since I had already driven our car and we had to take it home. That made sense to him, but he didn't like it. So we went to the office and filled out the bus slip for him to ride. They said it'd take a couple of days to process so he wouldn't be able to ride the next day but by Monday it should be fine. The next day when I came to pick him up we found out which bus will be his and met the driver and got on for a minute to see other other kids and the seatbelts and all that. He was excited about it! Then we followed the bus on its entire route until Gorden's stop, so that he would be familiar with everywhere it was going to go before he got to his house. There's about a 10-12 minute ride before his stop. The next day the driver called me to tell me where to drop him off and what time, and I told her he'd just be riding one way and that I was going to take him to school until he was okay with everything (until I was okay with everything!). (The pick up and drop off drivers and bus numbers are different.)

So Monday I took him to school and he rode the bus home. HE LOVED IT! He was so happy and thought it was great. He sat by Edmond from his class and was pretty excited about Edmond being on his same bus. He said that the next day he didn't want me to take him to school though, he could ride the bus there also. So we took him to the bus stop and met another little boy there, James, and his mom. They ran around and played until the bus came. Then when the bus driver opened the doors he introduced himself and she said her name, Miss Michelle, and I totally thought of that scene from Forrest Gump! Then Gorden just got right on with no hesitation and a huge smile! He's so big!!!

These are just a few pictures I took one day walking home.