This is Cheaty (Cheety?) and Snow Leopard. Every morning they come to the bus stop with us.
Stuffed animals aren’t allowed in school, so when Anna gets on the bus she shoves them into my hands and hugs me goodbye all in one sweet, frantic THE-BUS-IS-HERE! motion.
As the bus pulls away, I hold Snow Leopard high and Thomas holds Cheaty. We both have our assignments. My job is to wave Snow Leopard’s little paw while Thomas holds Cheaty above his head and wiggles Cheaty’s ear.
I’m so glad Thomas’s bus comes after Anna’s so we can pull this off. He never complains or questions it. He stops what he’s doing, runs to me to get Cheaty, and without fail he is in position before her bus pulls away.
It’s a little indulgent, I know. I feel it especially when I’m walking home from the bus stop without the kids, but with an arm-full of stuffed animals. Indulgent, sure, but if this little routine Anna devised helps her feel loved as the bus takes her to school, I’ll do it every morning until she begs me to stop, please, MOTHER! My friends are making fun of me! (I’ll wag that little paw with particular vigor then.)
Thomas helps me out most mornings, but Tom has done it, as well as bus stop friends and parents when I needed an extra hand.
We fill our role — emphatically wiggling a paw or ear to send a message all the way across the street, up to that big bus, and to my little girl, “I love you! I love you! I love you!” All the while positively shouting to the rest of the world, “Why, yes, she is the baby of the family, and YES! she ABSOLUTELY does have me wrapped around her little snow leopard paw!”
