Bus to the Library

I

t was a cloudy, chilly Saturday morning. I hoped it wouldn't rain for we had plans for an exciting trip downtown. Pavy and paati (Grandma, that's me) were off to the library. And we were taking the bus! The red bus that we watched everyday passing by on the road below.

In the last couple of months every time Pavy picked up his favorite book " Little Blue Truck" he saw a picture of its companion book "Little blue truck leads the way" on the back cover. He wanted that book too. He looked for it on his visits to the library but it was out - someone had borrowed it. The library had messaged earlier in the week to let us know the book was now available and reserved for Pavy.

Getting ready to head out we gathered up the books Pavy had borrowed and put them into a tote bag. And I added in surprise lunch and snack packs!

Soon we were on our way. We walked down the hill to the busy intersection with traffic lights. Pavy pressed the pedestrian button and we waited. When the stop sign turned to 'go' we crossed the big roads. Now on the other side we walked up the hill to reach the bus stop. Pavy ran and sat on the little bench.

 After a few minutes we saw the red bus coming at a distance. We donned our masks in prep. The bus arrived and yay!! we were on board!

I tapped my bus card on the card reader to pay the fare. The driver looked at Pavy, smiled and said no fare for him. As soon as we settled into our seats Pavy asked for his snacks! Just like his car rides. I told him eating snacks on the bus was not permitted which he seemed ok with. He was too busy looking out anyway. 

The bus stopped at the traffic lights. When it revved up and began moving again Pavy said "bus is going bam boom" - being noisy that is😄

It was a short ride to our stop. Once we got off it was a short walk to the library. Of course our short walk took pretty long as Pavy stopped to watch a couple of police cars passing by, another red bus going in the opposite direction, pet a dog, stopped again to look at sparrows. "Birds are not flying they are hopping about, why? " Then answering his own question,      "They're looking for food maybe."

Finally we reached the library. 

Before going inside, we stopped to return the books Pavy had borrowed. Pavy watched me fumble at the self-check-in slot which closed even as I was sliding books into it. Standing on his toes to reach up he helpfully pressed the button. The slot opened again. 

He grinned at me saying "Paati made a mistake" 😒

Once inside we headed straight for the shelves that had the reserved books. And there it was - "Little blue truck leads the way!" - with a reserved tag tucked into its pages. How exciting! We picked it up and took it to the reading corner in the children's section, sat down and I read it to Pavy.

              

Then we scouted around the children's section for more books. 

The selection process involved taking each book to the reading corner and reading it fully. Unsurprisingly the books mostly themed fire trucks, trucks zooming on highways, and so forth 😀 - trucks Pavy's favourite at the moment! Happy with the books we had Pavy began counting the four we had selected. One, two, three, four......but he didn't stop there! He kept counting.... five, six......he got to sixteen.....when he was distracted and finally stopped!

We checked out our books and we were done at the library. It was close to Pavy's lunch time.  Just outside the library we sat down on the low stone seats by the side of the rear door. I took out Pavy's surprise lunch pack of French toast and fruit. To my delight he devoured it.... then wanted more!

"Who's a hungry caterpillar?" I asked and brought up his snack pack that had dried banana and mango slices, raisins, nuts most of which he ate up. Clearly, he was famished  😍

Now topped up Pavy readily agreed to taking a longer walk to the bus terminus for our ride home. A good call, as it turned out. There were several puddles on the way and Pavy played in each one of them!

At the terminus there were two red buses standing next to each other.  "which one would leave first?" we tried to guess. Shortly we saw the bus on the left start up and come around to us. And we were on board again. As the bus turned on to the main road there was Pavy's library! Pavy waved "bye bye library!"

A little further up Pavy suddenly burst into song, "wheels of the bus go round and round......." then louder, continued....."babies in the bus go wah wah wah.......till I had to whisper,. "paatis on the bus go "shhh shhh shhhh.....": He found that hilarious. We reached our stop, got off and walked up the hill towards home, now both of us singing, " Babies on the bus go wah....... Paatis on the bus go shhhh........ "

Hard to tell who had a more fun bus trip to the library - Pavy or paati!

 Pavy 2 years and 10 months

Redmond, WA, USA 13^th May 2023