Bus Stop Frustrations
With all my fears last year about sending Darcy to school on the bus, things went unbelievably smoothly. We only ran into one slight problem with the spot where we meet the bus at the beginning of the school day.
One day after dropping the kids off, the lady who owns the nearby house stopped our neighbour and I to ask them to keep the kids off her grass. Fair enough. It's her grass, I'm sure she didn't ask to have a school bus stop there so we did our best to keep the kids off the grass. We never heard anything more from her so we figured she was OK with the way things were going. One day during the summer our family was out for a walk and we stopped and had a lengthy conversation with her and she even joked that it was good for us to see that she was more than just the, "cranky lady from the bus stop". Those are her words. I was expecting things to go on as they were when school began again this year. Apparently I missed something.
On the first day of school we were all gathered on the sidewalk in front of her house. There were four members of our family, Darcy's friend Quinn and his Dad and another Mom with a baby in a stroller waiting for her son to get off the bus. The sidewalk was pretty crowded. We soon noticed this woman pacing back and forth on her front steps. Soon she came down the steps with her Jack Russell Terrier on his leash. She came right for us. Quinn politely asked if he could pet the dog. Her response was a very sharp, "No! He bites!". She walked right through our group (forcing some of us to step on her grass to get out of her way, I might add) a couple of times. Very nice.
The next day we went back and she had put up some lawn edging around the perimeter of her yard. She didn't have quite enough, so she placed a big pile of branches where the edging didn't cover. Again, fair enough. However, that wasn't all. She also had a sprinkler going on her yard, you know the kind that looks like a fan and goes back and forth over the yard. She had it turned on so high that the whole sidewalk in front of her house was getting wet so we had to stand around the corner and risk not being seen by the bus, or else get soaking wet.
Today was pretty mild in comparison, there was no dog and no sprinkler, just her lawn edging. She did come out and stand on her porch though, staring at us all. Quinn touched the lawn edging and I thought he might get yelled at for that, but she didn't say anything. I was suprised she didn't go then and turn the sprinkler on.
We have no idea what has triggered her escalated response. The full day kids also wait there in the mornings (our pick-up is at noon) so I wonder if something happened with them during their first week of school when we hadn't started yet and she's taking it out on all of us.
One thing I forgot to mention is that when we did have that nice talk with her during the summer, she told us that is a retired teacher! She even used to teach at Darcy's school. Man, am I ever glad she's not there anymore.
So we're not sure what to do about this, or if there's anything we can do. We do our best to respect her property but that's clearly not enough. She's got to wage some sort of sitcom-type war against the five-year olds who have the misfortune of needing to stand in front of her house for 5-10 minutes a day. Stay tuned for more bus stop adventures!
One day after dropping the kids off, the lady who owns the nearby house stopped our neighbour and I to ask them to keep the kids off her grass. Fair enough. It's her grass, I'm sure she didn't ask to have a school bus stop there so we did our best to keep the kids off the grass. We never heard anything more from her so we figured she was OK with the way things were going. One day during the summer our family was out for a walk and we stopped and had a lengthy conversation with her and she even joked that it was good for us to see that she was more than just the, "cranky lady from the bus stop". Those are her words. I was expecting things to go on as they were when school began again this year. Apparently I missed something.
On the first day of school we were all gathered on the sidewalk in front of her house. There were four members of our family, Darcy's friend Quinn and his Dad and another Mom with a baby in a stroller waiting for her son to get off the bus. The sidewalk was pretty crowded. We soon noticed this woman pacing back and forth on her front steps. Soon she came down the steps with her Jack Russell Terrier on his leash. She came right for us. Quinn politely asked if he could pet the dog. Her response was a very sharp, "No! He bites!". She walked right through our group (forcing some of us to step on her grass to get out of her way, I might add) a couple of times. Very nice.
The next day we went back and she had put up some lawn edging around the perimeter of her yard. She didn't have quite enough, so she placed a big pile of branches where the edging didn't cover. Again, fair enough. However, that wasn't all. She also had a sprinkler going on her yard, you know the kind that looks like a fan and goes back and forth over the yard. She had it turned on so high that the whole sidewalk in front of her house was getting wet so we had to stand around the corner and risk not being seen by the bus, or else get soaking wet.
Today was pretty mild in comparison, there was no dog and no sprinkler, just her lawn edging. She did come out and stand on her porch though, staring at us all. Quinn touched the lawn edging and I thought he might get yelled at for that, but she didn't say anything. I was suprised she didn't go then and turn the sprinkler on.
We have no idea what has triggered her escalated response. The full day kids also wait there in the mornings (our pick-up is at noon) so I wonder if something happened with them during their first week of school when we hadn't started yet and she's taking it out on all of us.
One thing I forgot to mention is that when we did have that nice talk with her during the summer, she told us that is a retired teacher! She even used to teach at Darcy's school. Man, am I ever glad she's not there anymore.
So we're not sure what to do about this, or if there's anything we can do. We do our best to respect her property but that's clearly not enough. She's got to wage some sort of sitcom-type war against the five-year olds who have the misfortune of needing to stand in front of her house for 5-10 minutes a day. Stay tuned for more bus stop adventures!
posted by Sue Matthews at 1:28 PM
4 Comments:
Shouldn't she be taking this up with the bus company or the school--whoever determined the stop location? Poor kids (and parents).
Obviously a little Jekyll-Hyde going on there!
I can see her point (our corner has a city bus stop, always people and their garbage around our yard) but she's going way too far with it.
Could you talk with the bus driver and see if there's a different spot just outside her property line?? That's ridiculous!!! Some people...
Crazy Lady has too much time on her hands. Be super nice to her. Wave whenever you see her, introduce the kids to her, wish her a nice day, etc. Go over the top. Maybe she needs a friend.
OK, someone needs to CHILL....
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