Little L had been excited about riding a school bus ever since we told her which kindergarten she'd be going to last February.

Her school draws kids from all over the Twin Cities, and they offer bus routes - one stop in each neighborhood. Lots of families drive their kids the ten minutes to the bus stop near them rather than the 30 minutes to school.

But the bus stop in our neighborhood? Right down the block. A two-minute walk, if you're stopping to examine every squirrel and leaf along the way (which, you know, we are).

So when the email came about the buses, I signed Little L right up. She had a vision of herself riding the school bus, and we figured it would help her get out the door in the morning.

We were lucky to meet a first-grade girl in our neighborhood who goes to Little L's school this past summer. This may seem like a no-brainer, but in our Minneapolis neighborhood, there are at least five main elementary schools that kids attend.

The day before kindergarten started, Axel, Little L, and I paraded to the bus stop. The rest of the school started that day, and we wanted to figure out which corner of the five-way intersection was the actual bus stop.

We were pleased to see Little L's new first-grade friend, Little N, and her parents, as well as two older students and their dad. We got to know the families at our bus stop during the half hour we waited for the bus to arrive that first day, Little L asked me to hold onto her so that the bus driver didn't "make her get on."

After the kids boarded the bus, the driver turned, and the bus headed down our street. Right past our house. This bus thing was so cool.

On the first morning of kindergarten. Little L was bouncing with energy as she sat on the kitchen floor pulling on her new pink socks so that she could "be by Mama" as I cleaned up from our first-day-of-school breakfast. We didn't even need to rush Little L. She didn't want to be late for the bus.

The three of us paraded down the street, Little L clad in her pink sequined unicorn backpack, which paired nicely with Little N's blue sequined koala backpack. Clearly we'd all been shopping at Target.

We crossed the street twice to the corner where the bus had pulled up the day before. It was a long wait with gnats swarming our heads. Eventually I realized Little L and her stop-mates would probably be a bit late for school. Late for her first day of kindergarten. But we didn't falter.

Around 8:15, the bus came. I expected Little L to turn to me, clutching my shirt, or perhaps I'd need to coax her onto the bus.

Instead, she ran over to board the bus with the other kids. "Honey, can I get a hug?" I had to ask, following her. She turned her body halfway towards me to let me squeeze her.

She was off.

Little L waved to us from the bus window that first day, and every day since. She sits on the side of the bus that our house is on. Sometimes, if I take her to the stop, Axel stands in the window and waves to her. Sometimes it's just Oso.

That first day afternoon, both Axel and I greeted Little L as she descended the steps of the school bus. She was hot and sweaty and got out her water bottle and started chugging.

"How was your day, honey?" I smoothed her frazzled hair.

"I just wish we could have school on the bus. I wish the teacher could be on the bus and we could ride around on the bus all day."

Little L's enthusiasm for the bus ride has largely remained the same. She and Little N have a fun time playing "floor is lava" while they wait, and Axel and I play "Guess What Time the Bus Will Come" with the parents and the older kids.

Little N doesn't always take the bus, though. She stays for after school activities three days a week. I was worried that this would diminish Little L's love of the bus. To the contrary. Little L immediately made two bus friends: "Little S and the Second Grader." It took her a couple months to find out The Second Grader's name. They often sit together, smashed three to a seat. Later, she befriended another kindergarten boy, Little F.

There's even a special process for taking the bus. At the beginning of the year, the Red Bus Lady would come to the kindergarten room, pick up Little L, then go to the other kindergartners and pick up the other kids for the Red Bus. But now, it seems, they just let the kindergartners go on their own.

"We just run to the bus, Mama, even though you're not supposed to run," Little L says.

One day at dinner Little L told us that when she got to the red bus after school that day, the Red Bus Lady said, "There you are, Little L. I've been waiting for you all day."

My heart melted towards this mysterious woman who I've never met (I imagine her dressed all in red).

"Mama, you know what?" Little L told me one day, as we were having a post-school snack at the dining room table. Her lunchtime is 10:30AM, and even though they have afternoon snack, Little L walks into the house at 4PM ravenous. Sometimes she eats four yogurt pouches and two pieces of peanut butter toast. On the weekends, I have to remember that if we don't eat by 11AM, she's going to start complaining of hunger.

She tugged at the tab on the yogurt pouch to open it. "My bus goes by my preschool."

"What?" I wiped up a splatter of yogurt water from the table with a napkin. "By the side of the building or the playground area?"

Her eyes lit up. "By the playground! I just saw it from the bus window."

I could feel my eyes getting wet. "That is so cool, sweetie." Leaving her preschool had been an emotional undertaking. Since it's a Montessori school, she could have stayed on for kindergarten. But she got a place in the lottery at the immersion school we were looking at and we thought it made more sense to start a language in kindergarten. Plus most of her friends were going on to elementary schools for kindergarten.

But her preschool had been a magical place. She'd made friends, good friends, and been surrounded by teachers who cared about her. And now, here she was, off in the world, riding around town on the bus with her new friends. And there, out the window, she sees her preschool.

"I didn't even know, love," I say, dabbing at my eye with a napkin. It's not all that surprising - it's not even a mile from us. "That's so fun that you saw it!"

On the other hand, I should mention that sometimes the bus is late. Some of the other parents at the bus stop complain about the bus, and as winter temperatures have dropped, more often than not we're the only ones out there waiting in the morning. "We have to be here at 7:35, but it doesn't even come until 7:50." Driving might just be easier, they say. We've internally adjusted the schedule and we arrive about ten minutes before the bus actually comes. We have faith that in the off-chance it comes early ("on-time") one day, Mr. J. will wait the three minutes the bus manual promises.

Let's do some math: Little L is almost always on the bus before 8AM. I leave for the afternoon bus stop to get her at 3:55. That is almost eight solid hours - an entire work-day.

Let's say you drive your kid instead. Well, you can drop them off between 8 and 8:30. Maybe you can get them there by 8:15, because they know the cutoff isn't 8, so they're in no hurry to get those socks on. By the time you drive to work or back home, it's 8:30. Pick-up is 3:15 to 3:30, but I'm told there's a huge line of cars. So you need to leave home by 3-ish, depending on where you live, to make sure you can park or go through the line or however it's done. You've got from 8:30-3. Six and a half-hours.

For all you math nerds, that's an hour and a half difference every day. Seven and a half hours a week. That is almost an entire day of childcare, and they're giving bus rides away for free!

So do I mind standing out waiting for the bus for an extra ten minutes every morning? Definitely not. Did I have to bundle up in multiple layers this week in the subzero temperatures? Of course.

Most importantly, Little L loves the bus. She had a dream that her teacher was on the bus and they were having class while riding around town. She and her bus friends plan their birthday parties on the ride home, talking about the gifts they'll give each other and the outfits they'll wear. Little L is currently sewing a pillow for Little S's upcoming party because Little S wants "something with thread."

The bus is not without its problems. We've driven her to school a handful of times when we received a text that the bus was running twenty minutes later than usual. Last week, we received a text that the red bus will have a seating chart until further notice to help with behavior issues. When the bus arrived that afternoon, I asked Mr. J. if Little L had been listening, and to my relief, the answer was yes.

Does Little L mind the seating chart? She sits right up front with her friend Little F, right across the aisle from Little S. Her one complaint is that the window she's assigned to "has lines on it." I saw what she meant the other day; the window is full of streaks. Hopefully the kids will shape up and she'll be able to choose a non-streaked window again sometime soon. Otherwise, I could always send her with a bottle of Windex and some paper towels.

"Mama, my bus goes down this street," Little L occasionally tells me when we're driving to the store or the toy library. I smile, happy for my little girl, while simultaneously wondering how she got this big. How her kindergarten year is half over already. How it took me this long to publish this blog post.

And yet, I can't let the nostalgia overshadow the joy. She's out in the world. She's making friends, seeing things.

Here comes the bus, and Little L is on it.