I’ve been bus-sing with the kids every day and getting a lot of stares.

Every day, we walk to the bus stop behind our place to take a public bus. The wait is usually short if we catch it on time; we’d have to wait in the sweltering heat for a good 12 minutes before the next one comes if we don’t. The ride is 15 minutes and the walk to kindy is usually another 8 minutes.

I do this fives times a week, rain or shine, to save money on school bus. I’ve recently started babywearing Nat and bringing him along because the house needs to be cleaned, his lunch needs to be cooked and he can no longer entertain himself while the helper does all that because of his severe separation anxiety. He starts wailing when we leave, and the helper can do nothing except to carry him till I return.

So picture a frazzled mother with a baby in a carrier, a bag on her shoulders, two schoolbags on her arms, holding hands with two children. When I get up the bus, my son taps the EZ link card for me and we struggle to find our balance on a moving vehicle to get a seat – er, no – three seats.

When we get our seats, I’ve to constantly stop the kids from morphing into gibbons.

Then when I look around, I see everyone staring at me. We usually sit at the back where the seats face each other, and I find myself an object of scrutiny by many pairs of eyes.

They look at me. They look at the children. They look at the baby. Then they look at me again.

On rare occasions, some elderly folk would give me a sympathetic smile, but most of the time, everyone just stares at us.

Do you know how impossible it is to get children to sit still and keep quiet for more than 5 minutes? You should have seen the kids on their first few rides – they were too loud, too fidgety and too noisy. They sang ‘Wheels on the Bus’ the whole time, and I could do nothing to contain their excitement.

What’s even more embarrassing: once the bus driver stopped the bus and scolded Ben for kneeling on his seat, instead of sitting down properly.

So here, I have a proposal for the authorities and the bus companies. How about having a little play area for young children on the bus and have just a couple of them ply through some major routes at specific times, say late mornings, after peak hours?

Or how about having some of our buses turn into some major playground fun like the Kids Play Bus in Ireland? Way too cool huh!

A small kids’ corner will certainly be free entertainment for anyone on the bus. It’s better than frantically scrolling our phones and doing damage to our eyes. It gives tired mothers some breathing time and perhaps, even ten minutes of shut-eye. It gives the young ones an outlet to expend their energy while on the move.

Heck, I don’t even mind paying more to get up on this bus.

Just suggesting.