Interesting start to the week

Yesterday morning was not particularly rough or chaotic.  Mondays always stink, of course, and the girls were a little lethargic but otherwise it was a pretty standard morning.  I decided, sort of last minute, to add a decorative white chocolate swirl to the cookies Beth was taking in to school for her birthday, so I was a little behind on dressing Ruth, Lucy and myself, but that often happens for various reasons anyway.

When it came time to wait for the bus, I sat in the van with the door open, feeding Ruth a banana while Lucy played in the back seat.  Ruth was just wearing a t-shirt and diaper and Lucy was sporting a very old nightgown that is at least 3 sizes too big for her.  I was wearing my pjs as well, an old pair of pants littered with swiss cheese holes and a flimsy t-shirt with a collar that has been pulled down too many times to be public-appropriate but again - we were just sitting in the car, waiting for the bus.

When the bus finally came, it bombed by the house as if we'd never existed.  Beth, Claire and Abbie all immediately began to yell in panic, and then we heard the unmistakable sound of the bus coming to a sudden halt down the road.  I jumped out of the car and yelled, "Don't run out in the road!  Wait, wait!" to the girls, but they were all flailing and yelling themselves and they didn't hear me.  Before I could reach them (they were halfway down the driveway) they started to run - down the busy highway- towards the bus.

I charged after them, with Ruth dangling like a football in one arm and a banana in the other, trying to will the cars on the road to stop (why weren't the cars stopping?) with my mind.  The girls rounded the corner of our neighbors yard, still flailing and hopping around like puppies, and I yelled to them "Stay in the grass!  STAY IN THE GRASS!"

As I was rounding the corner myself, I heard a shriek of terror coming from our yard.  Poor Lucy didn't understand what was happening; all she knew was that we were sitting in the car one moment, running wild and screaming the next.  I looked around my neighbor's hedge to see Lucy, looking exactly like Newt from Aliens,

crying in terror and running directly for the road, where she must have assumed we'd gone.  "No, Lucy, stop, STOP!" I started to yell, torn between guiding the older girls along the road towards the bus (which, to be clear, was nowhere near our house) and turning back to bodily stop Lucy's panic-stricken progress towards the road.  In the end, realizing that traffic had finally, finally stopped for the bus, I shouted a last instruction to the older girls and then turned back to Lucy, who ran to my side, shaky and teary.  The older girls made it onto the bus without further incident, and as the bus door hissed shut and I breathed a sigh of relief it finally dawned on me what sort of picture we presented to the many, many cars who were now stopped on the road, giving them ample opportunity to take in the sight.

With as much dignity as I could, I got a firm grip on my banana, pulled Ruth's shirt down to cover her belly, put my arm around my little wild-child and, hoping against hope that the holes in my pants were not where I thought they were, turned my back to the gaping onlookers and returned home.