It’s a small miracle that we arrive in time to see the big green bus pull into Holy Angels School in Arcadia, my 7-year-old clutching his Pokemon backpack containing his lunch (hot dog bread from JJ Bakery, a small bag of Goldfish, and a note: “Happy field day!”).
Every minute of every day with my little ones seemed to require tons of everyday miracles.
That we all get up on time and leave the house by 7:10 a.m. That no one leaves the house without shoes or forgets a shared toy or a book from the library. Most of the time the baby is wearing his Disney nightgown, taken out of bed at the last minute and put in his car seat in the minivan.
My constant companions are 10, 7, and 2 years old, and for the most part, they’re great company, even if their music includes a lot of Disney hits and I find myself craving, no, craving, 8 hours of continuous sleep, and having an unblemished top from food (mostly mine, I’ve never claimed to be a tidy eater).
These are the days that the lovely grandmas at Michaels or Target tell me I should cherish, and for the most part, I do.
Today is Wonder Boy’s first outing, a day at the San Gabriel Mission Playhouse to see “If You Give a Mouse a Cookie.” We accompany his big brother to the fifth-grade line and follow a group of kids to the bus.
This is how I remember it: I’m standing next to the green bus, laughing, watching other mothers as children of all sizes and speeds climb the front steps, waiting to see if their faces appear in one of the windows.
As parents, we all know these children, they were all our children: chubby cheeks, wide gap-toothed grins that I recognized years later on the faces of my teenagers when they shyly came up to me and said hello.
But this morning, they’re in second grade, giggling with excitement about getting on a bus (without seatbelts!) and leaving school. My two-year-old squeals when she spots her brother’s face in the back of the bus.
“Budder is here,” she says, grabbing the phone sticking out of my jeans pocket. She knows what to do. I love that he gives her that smile at that moment.
We waved to him until the bus left school, turned right onto Holly Avenue, then left onto Huntington Avenue. We drove home until it was time for pickup at 3:00.
Back then, our lives were filled with errands and chores and Otter Pops and Disney Channel and “Mamamama, look!” and “What did you do in school today?” At 6, Daddy comes home and I joke about the arsenic hour and we play or read or watch TV until dinner, then it’s bath time and bedtime stories and snuggles. Then it all starts again.
The toddler who took this photo is now 14, and her older brother is a sophomore in college. And I wish, for a moment, I had a child small enough to carry on my hip again, and another to wave wildly to as he rides the bus with his friends.
Anissa V. Rivera, columnist, “Mom’s the Word,” Pasadena Star-News, San Gabriel Valley Tribune, Whittier Daily News, Azusa Herald, Glendora Press and West Covina Highlander, San Dimas/La Verne Highlander. Southern California News Group, 181 W. Huntington Drive, Suite 209 Monrovia, CA 91016. 626-497-4869.
