Last night was Alyssa’s and Ryan’s first night at VBS. Since Dan took me over to his brothers’ house for a surprise birthday party, my mom babysat, so she was waiting outside with the kids for the VBS bus. It came, at first went past them, but once she and a neighbor flagged the bus down, the driver stopped, the kids got on, and all was well. The bus driver told my mother what the director of the church’s VBS program told me on the phone the day prior — the kids would be back between 8:50pm and 9:00pm, and the bus would stop in front of our house to let them off.
You can probably see where this is going… when Dan and I got home around 1:30am Monday morning, and I was frazzle with meeting a deadline for a baby shower invitations writing project, my mom informed me that the bus did not in fact let the kids off in front of the house. Rather, the bus pulled up to the T intersection our road makes with a larger, busier road (that road has a speed limit of 40mph, and our road meets it right at the crest of a hill, so people coming from either direction literally cannot see anyone on our road at that stop sign until they’re practically on top of us), and let Alyssa and Ryan get off on their own. Let me emphasize this in bold:
The bus driver allowed a five year old girl and a three year old autistic boy get off of the bus at 9:00pm on the side of a busy road, alone, with no adults or even older children around to make sure that they got home safely.
My mom only found out when Alyssa showed up at our front door around 9:05pm, with Ryan in tow (she’s such a good big sister). She (my mom), meanwhile, had been waiting with the door open for the last twenty minutes. She never thought to walk down our road to the busier road, since it was never said that the bus would stop there and just dump small children off on the side of the road.
Cue my head exploding.
I got in touch with the director of the VBS program and his wife this morning, and while I didn’t rip them new assholes, I did politely but firmly explain the HUGE FUCKING DEAL this kind of thing is (note: I didn’t curse, either). They both apologized a million times, promised to look into it, and then said they’d call me back. They did, and as it turns out, it wasn’t a bus at all, but a large minivan driven by two (stupid, obviously) volunteers with the church. I’m assuming they were called and read the riot act, because the pastor then called me back to apologize some more and swear up and down that it wouldn’t happen again, that the kids *would* be brought back to the house.
Now here’s the thing: I’m not acting entitled. I don’t mind if the bus driver wants to stop the bus down at the T intersection so that he doesn’t have to turn a full-sized bus onto a smaller road. That’s fine. I don’t mind walking down there and waiting to meet the bus. I JUST NEED TO KNOW SO THAT MY TWO SMALL CHILDREN ARE NOT IN A SITUATION WHERE THEY COULD BE PLAYING FROGGER WITH CARS. Gah.
My name is Jenn, and I'm 27 years old. I'm happily married to my best friend and soulmate, Daniel. Together we have a six year old daughter named 
Name: Alyssa
Name: Ryan
Wow.. they must not have ANY common sense to do such a thing. It’s an automatic thing for me to make sure young children get to wherever they need to be in the safest manner possible. Hell I’d even keep the van at the house until I saw the kids get inside safely.
Angela’s last blog entry: SG & Me