waiting for the bus

only one more week of this. i'll miss it. sitting on the bench under the tree. sometimes mabel sits with me. sometimes she dances in the yard. she steps from stepstone-to-stepstone counting in chinese each hop. she picks up sticks and they become magic wands. "Poof! Mommy's a bird!."
we hear the squeaky sound of the bus coming up the street. it stops here. she waves and hops on. i blow a kiss and off she goes. and i go back to work.