Kindergarten NIGHTMARE!

Okay so here's why I am justified in being terrified to send my 5 year old alone on the bus...

So yesterday, I walked Spencer to the bus in the morning as usual. Watched him get on and drive away. Now- we have gone over AND over the fact that he DOES NOT EVER get off the bus until he is at school; and when he is coming home, he DOES NOT EVER get off the bus until he is at our stop. He KNOWS the rules!

So anyway, a while after I send him off on the bus... Preston, Lauryn, and I head off to run some errands. While I was at the store my phone rings and it's my friend who lives down the street. She says, "Hi Beth. Ummm... I just wanted to let you know that I was just over at the school dropping my little boy off, and I saw Spencer in the very back of the school just sitting there all by himself (my heart JUMPS out of my chest, and I am desperately waiting for her to finish whatever she is about to tell me). So I went over to him and said 'Hi Spencer... aren't you supposed to be in Mrs. Wells class?' Spencer nodded his head (like Spencer does). So I said 'Well I know where Mrs. Wells class is so can I walk you there?'"

So my friend takes Spencer to his class. I about died when she told me this. Then she goes on to tell me that this same thing happened to her little boy last year when he was in Kindergarten. Apparently, all of the kids (big and little) get off the same bus together, and the Kindergartners are supposed to go one way, and the big kids go the other way to the back of the school and line up to wait for their teachers. Spencer just got turned around in the shuffle, and went with the big kids to the back of the school. NO ONE noticed him or helped him. So he just waited until all of the big kids had gone to class, and then he realized something was wrong. So he just sat there, wondering what to do. THIS IS WHY I DO NOT FEEL COMFORTABLE SENDING MY SMALL CHILD OFF TO SCHOOL ALONE!!! If my friend hadn't found him, knowing Spencer, he would have just walked over to the playground and played for hours (missing his bus to come home) and I wouldn't have known anything was wrong until he didn't get OFF the bus coming home(instant heart-attack). OR... his teacher would have called me an hour into Kindergarten and asked why Spencer wasn't at school, and I would have then GONE HYSTERICAL and there would have been an Amber Alert out for my son.

After thanking my friend REPEATEDLY (who was only at the school because her little boy was having a rough morning and didn't want to ride the bus, so she agreed to take him to school-SO Inspired!), I went and picked Spencer up from the bus stop and we spent the entire afternoon discussing that he MUST stay with the Kindergartners, and go inside the Kindergarten door. NOT to the back of the school. AND if he gets lost again, he needs to:

-find a grown-up
-tell them his name
-tell them that he is in Mrs. Wells class
-ask them to help him find his class

I should have gone over these rules with him way before this happened, but I am just so grateful it turned out ok. We'll see how today goes:)...