Sarah gets Amy to the car and Amy won't get in her car seat so I ask Sarah to return her to the house. Sarah goes to the house and comes back with Amy. I blow my stack declaring "we are supposed to be at the bus stop now. Get her in her seat!" Sarah says, "Well go." And I reply, "I can't. My kids aren't buckled." I used stronger language and that was wrong and inappropriate. I feel badly over my loss of temper. I am weak.
Amy settles. We drive to Sarah's friend's house and pick up two more passengers while Noah's friend and older brother head up to the bus stop on foot. I drop Noah at his stop and offer the older brother the opportunity to ride in the car with 3 girls. In hindsight, I should have said, "There are three girls in this car!" Nudge Nudge. Either way I am pretty sure he would have said no and I really don't want to encourage the boys until they get their half brain allotment at age 25. So I drive the girls to their stop and drop them off.
Sarah is either too angry to speak or simply fails to remember to say goodbye to Amy or Amy is admanant that she is supposed to be with the big girls today so we have hysterics as I pull away from the stop.
As I pull up to Noah's stop, Amy calms. I get her out of the car and she grabs her Dora backpack and stands with the boys. We hear a train in the distance and Amy lights up and says, "I heard a noise. A train!"
Note that the shoes are on backwards but she did them herself and stood at the door ready to go.
The bus pulls up and Amy declares, "Bus! Noah bus!" The four school children load up and I tell Amy to say, "bye bye" and she tears up. She then wants to play hide and go seek in the yard where the bus stops so she covers her eyes and walks toward a tree. Being on the slow and stupid side I pick her up and throw her in the car rather than letting her get to the tree, count to five, then run to the car. Learn. Learn. Learn!
In the car she refuses to get into her car seat so I close the door and get in the front seat to read the paper while she decides what she will do. She decided rapidly and promptly opened the door. Ok. New trick. So I find the child lock and turn it on (the older kids will love that) and I read the paper some more. I ponder just making the short drive with her unbuckled but that would be asking for trouble. I'm sure I let Murph down when I made that decision. So I wrestle her into the seat and she screams and cries. Once home I figure she will pop from the seat. I unbuckle the chest buckle and notice the enourmous amount of mucus pouring down her face so I go up front to get my previously Amy soiled hanky and she decides to rebuckle herself. Ok. Now she doesn't want to get out? They get their "let's screw with the male's head gene" early don't they?
We finally get into the house and she is not happy but not unhappy either. I think her cold just has her really down. Plus her normal daytime playmates are not around anymore.
