It Looked Easier on Daniel Tiger

My husband Ryan takes the bus to work. This is amazing for me because it allows the kids and I to take our one car (that’s a topic for another post) exciting places, like the grocery store.

When I was in elementary school my brothers and I, along with a handful of other kids, would ride the city bus home. In college I frequently rode public transit during my off campus semesters. Even as a newly-wed in Denver, I had the option of taking the light rail.

But these days, as a stay at home mom in the suburbs, the biggest connection I have to public transit is usually the trolley in Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood.

Surely I can do this with kids

I recently decided to look into taking the bus with the kids instead of always driving. Here’s what I found:

• Some of the places we go, such as my daughter’s preschool, have no public transit options available.
  
  
• Some places, such as the library where I take my younger daughter while the older one is at preschool, have bus service that interferes with other things in our schedule, such as picking the older one back up from preschool.
  
  
• Some places have public transit options but the idea of that outing on a bus with kids has me in the fetal position. For example, according to Google, I could take the bus with the kids to the grocery store. See what I mean about the fetal position?
  
  But, one place the kids and I needed to go was accessible by bus, worked with our schedule and didn’t terrify me. It was the annual trick or treating event at Ryan’s work. I decided we would take the bus, even if it meant riding in our costumes.

I hope I’m not alone when I say we have three working strollers at our disposal. They all play a different yet vital role, right?

For public transit, taking the small umbrella stroller would be easiest to navigate. But, our chances of catching the bus if we had to walk there at 3- year-old speed was slim. So we took our minivan stroller.

The wheels on the bus do eventually stop

I had assumed the bus would be fairly empty and we would have lots of opportunity for photo ops. I was wrong. Our route at that time of day was full of riders, mostly kids coming home from school. A kind man gave me a hand getting the stroller on the bus and another kind rider gave us their seat.

Balancing Curious George on one knee and the Man with the Yellow Hat on the other, I realized this was not at all what I had envisioned. I unzipped George’s costume so the kid wouldn’t overheat with all the bodies on the bus and hoped that our generously sized stroller wouldn’t fall off the storage platform and hit any of the standing riders.

When we got downtown, I realized I hadn’t actually looked at where we were supposed to get off. So, when someone signaled a stop in the general area we needed to be, I decided to get off there too.

The bus etiquette I remembered, even though it’s been a long time since I needed to use it, dictates that I get off using the rear door. We were sitting almost directly across from this door so that would have been great, except that our minivan stroller was in the cargo area next to the front door.

So, like salmon fighting upstream to lay their eggs (why is everything about children so difficult at times?), I carried my trick or treaters towards the front of the bus, through the wall of standing riders and past an elderly lady who was getting off the bus using the correct door.

This process took me so long that the bus actually started going again while I was still trying to get to the front door. Thankfully one of the middle-schoolers spoke up for me and yelled “Wait! We got ourselves a mama! She has kids!”

The bus stopped and I finally got out. Thankfully, the elderly lady who had used the correct door offered to watch my kids that I had plopped on the sidewalk while I went back into the bus to grab our stroller. As I assembled our minivan and got the kids situated, she asked me “Do you ride the bus very often?”

The girls had a great time collecting candy for us to eat (let’s be honest, most of their haul was a choking hazard to them). And of course the bus ride home, where I wasn’t wrangling both kids by myself, was serenely quiet and empty.

I learned a few things from my bus adventure.

1. Taking the bus, alone, with two young children can be challenging. Some parents do this every day. I’m lucky that this is only one of my options instead of my only option.
   
   
2. I felt a bit beat up after our ride in. But, I feel a bit beat up after going to the gym sometimes, too. I think the more we ride the bus together, the easier it will be. It’s not doable for all our outings but can be done for some of them.
   
   
3. I don’t care what people say about kids these days, if it hadn’t been for that middle-schooler, I would probably still be on the bus, trying to make my way to the door.