Observations of a Bus Mom

This post has been edited in case any of the mentioned neighbors happen upon it :)
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I feel like I'm living in my own little episode of "Desperate Housewives" - but the bus version. You should know before reading this that we live in a pretty nice neighborhood. We live on the edge of town, away from the ghetto. Just to give you a frame of reference for the interesting stuff below. Every morning I walk Brooke to the bus stop, which is just at our corner that we are one-lot-away from, and this is what I observe:

There's me- the neurotic mom who is detail oriented and tries really hard to make sure everything is taken care of in a very timely fashion. We're always ready for the bus 10 minutes early, and stall in our house until it's closer to the time we should walk to the corner. There's me- making sure my girl is happy and settled and ready for her day, anxious to put her on the bus, wave to the wonderful bus driver, and walk back to the house to get my other beautiful girl out of bed.

There's my neighbor across the street. She's the mother of four children and two stupid little yapyap dogs. She calls them stupid herself, it's not just me. She trudges out (sometimes after the bus has pulled up) to get her two elementary kids on the bus. Often times she is checking backpacks, reviewing spelling words, or helping one of them with homework on the front porch. Her life is chaos compared to mine. One of the stupid dogs barks when they leave the house, which might wake up her 4 yr old, so she is always carrying one of these white fluffballs to the bus stop to keep her quiet. (which brooke loves by the way. And if I have Hannah with me? she goes nuts). Anyways, this neighbor is just busy busy. Being around her makes me tired. She always seems to roll with it pretty well, good thing God gave her 4 kids and not me!

As I leave my house, I watch a neighbor a few doors up the street leave to walk her 1st grader to the other corner a block away. I silently thank God that they go to that corner, because that neighbor is the token screwed-up/has issues chick of the neighborhood. We're talking drug addictions, police stand offs right on my street with her druggie boyfriend, numerous domestic violence calls because of fights with her husband when he is around, and the mom being caught in people's houses/garages under the guise of "looking for her dog" when actually she was trying to get her hands on some good prescription drugs. Yeah, she's a mess. Her youngest seems like a sweet kid, but we try to avoid the topic of Brooke playing with her because we just don't want anything to do with the family. Again, I'm glad she walks to the other corner. See, it doesn't seem to matter what your neighborhood, because issues, problems and addictions show up everywhere.

New to the series is the mom of three kids. She just moved here about 2 weeks before school to live with her now-fiancee. Her youngest is in Brooke's class.... and he is a little fireball of barely-contained energy. Sweet kid but he needs some attention and settling. They joined the bus just last week. She loads her three kids up in her beat up Ford Taurus, and drives them from their house 2 blocks away to sit in the car at our corner till the bus comes. Today she sat there, with the car running, for 7 minutes. If she's going to load the kids in the car and get out anyways, why doesn't she just drive them to school? The school is about 5 minutes away, less time than she sat there waiting today. I just don't get it.