There is a time in life when no words strike more fear than, “The bus is coming!”

Many were the winter days as we grew up — when all of us kids (six, at the time) thumbed our noses at Mom’s breakfast in exchange for sleep, then stood in the porch like a common street gang in our school uniforms and winter gear, bullying each other and waiting for the bus to show up at the corner. It gave us a half mile of time to walk to the end of the lane.

It was where the chaos of our day began, and Mom got a reprieve until 4:00.

In those days (I’m old enough to say that now), kids often rode the bus through high school. It’s kind of a shame today’s kids don’t get to experience that as it was then.

Oh, the things we used to do and learn on the bus. We played cards and knew the exasperation of having to retrieve the pile from the floor after the bus hit a bump; we played the hand-slap chicken game across the aisle and behind the seat; we learned to cuss, gossip, used our hot breath and fingernails to create timeless art on frost-covered bus windows, and it was a place where stories were told, and double-dog-dare-like challenges ran wild.

Mom always said once each of us began riding the school bus, we were never the same. It’s probably why she was relieved to know that, while attending a Catholic school in our early years, the priest drove the bus and we had to say the rosary (led by one of the older boys) starting as soon as the bus pulled away from the building after school.

And it wasn’t over until the fat lady prayed the last “Glory Be.”

Morning routes brought an end to all talking once we reached city limits. It was one of those times when, as a kid, it was a huge bummer to either be the last ones on or the last ones off. If you were last on, you hardly got to talk to your friends before hitting the city limits; if you were the last ones off, your daily destiny was to endure all the praying until it was over.

Of course, God knew the kids in our family needed to pray; we were always among the last ones off. I often wonder if Mom ever thought us kids should have turned out a little better.

After the rigors of all that prayer, no wonder we came home loud and obnoxious, and shamelessly looted the freezer, with no ice cream scoop left behind.

When I began waiting for the school bus as a mom, it changed the whole trajectory of what I had previously known. Now I was responsible for making sure the kids were ready.

Farm kids start the day early always — even school days. I don’t miss the earliest bus arrival time when our daughter was in first grade; it brazenly showed up at our farm at 7:05 a.m. I’m pretty sure the chickens still had goat breath yet at that hour of the morning.

When our boys were in first grade they put on matching sweaters on school picture day. They looked great until one of them slopped toothpaste on his sweater — just as I heard our daughter utter the words, “The bus is coming!”

There was no time to change, so I embraced the notion that we would have to look at toothpaste on that one-front-toothed smile for years to come. Today it brings back great memories of how harried and precious those days were.

Cleaning up toothpaste from a sweater was one thing; I’m often in wonderment at bus drivers who have to do the ultimate “clean-up on aisle one,” revisiting some kid’s lunch. Yeesh.

Our kids never had to pray on the bus, but still came home ready to rumble. Our boys (especially) single handedly rendered snack cakes in our cupboards nearly extinct, while the fruit drawer was the loneliest place in the house. I could have hidden Christmas presents there.

Mothers have many emotions when they see the school bus coming. I never tired of seeing our kids get on or off the bus every day. I knew how fast those days would go.

But for some, that yellow bus in the afternoon may seem more like a yellow torpedo, releasing all of its re-energized two-legged contents.

I’m pretty sure at that point that mothers are the ones praying after school.

Karen Schwaller writes from her grain and livestock farm near Milford, Iowa. She can be reached at kschwaller@evertek.net