Teddy's Idea of Heaven

Teddy loves buses. He points out every single bus we see, whether it's a yellow school bus, a city bus or a bus traveling down the highway. He thought the bus rides to the parks at Disney were a fantastic attraction, rather than just a means to get to the fun stuff. He thinks the bus ride is the absolute best part of every field trip. I've often said his ideal field trip is a bus ride to the bus yard to tour all the buses, maybe with a stop at Culvers just for ice cream on the way back to school.

He got about as close to that as he'll probably come this week when he had a half day at school. We're in between consistent childcare, which means Dave and I are flexing our work schedules to be home when Teddy gets home from school. There's not much flexing to do, though, to be home at 12:30 p.m. When I mentioned to his bus driver, Lori, that we were still working on plans for the half day last week, she said that she could watch him because he's the last kid she drops off that day. I chuckled and said that I still want her to like Teddy, and I'm not sure that would be the case if she had him not strapped into a seat for a few hours. She insisted she'd love to watch him, so we agreed for just a couple hours. (Again, it's not that we don't trust her with Teddy, but we seriously still wanted her to like Teddy after the experience.)

So, on Wednesday Teddy rode to the bus station with Lori. When she opened the door, and he realized he was getting out there, he was super excited.

Picture his arms flapping with excitement, too, and bouncing in his seat.

They went inside, said hi to the people at the bus company, and then Ted willingly got into Lori's vehicle. I think the novelty of going with Lori in a different vehicle made it OK because I guarantee you that if I tried to get him to leave all those buses behind, he'd have melted into the ground in a 50-pound pile of Jello.

They came to our house and had fun for a couple hours until Dave got home around 3. I think they had a fantastic time, aside from Teddy scaring Lori by climbing the outside of the stairs holding onto the railing like a mountain goat (except mountain goats don't hold on with their arms). Typical Teddy.

When I loaded Teddy into her van the next morning and thanked her again, she said, "No wonder you stay so skinny!" I laughed and said that Teddy never stops, ever. She laughed and agreed but said how much fun they had.

We couldn't be more grateful to have Lori as our bus driver. She took over two years ago when we were struggling to get Teddy to school on time and has been a Godsend. She's more than a van driver. She's a part of our extended family.