Sliding Doors parenting version

Before she falls asleep Sadie asks to hear the song "Pillow Talk," over and over. Her face is carved from porcelain, and she cradles a small blanket to her face and stares out the window, softly mouthing the words to the song as she drifts into a peaceful sleep. When she awakes, she asks to hear it a few more times. The song is fast becoming the sound track to this long drive up the Eastern seaboard. At times, her brother is dancing in the seat next to her, clapping his hands in time with the song. I'm snapping my fingers and Stephanie is even getting the lyrics right, which is a minor type of miracle in and of itself. Once, when we think he's fallen asleep, we hear a noise that sounds like muffled clapping, and we see him in the backseat, keeping time with the music, using his chunky little legs as drums. When the song concludes, he says, "Yay...car" Because he's always talking about cars.

As songs go, you could do a lot worse than listening to this roughly 17 times in a day.



Another Day:

It was sweet when she fell asleep to it in the morning. By the third time we heard the song, it occurs to us that it's not a love song but about a couple breaking up. A man or woman lying in bed thinking of someone else. A song as old as time. And here we thought it sounded so cute. By the afternoon it doesn't matter how sweet the song is. I just want her to sleep. I don't want to listen to the song again. I don't want to listen to anything that she's asking for, dammit. I just want them to sleep. I want a moment to finish the story we've just been listening to from the New Yorker about sadness, and death, and humor. I want to do something like a normal adult, like the normal adult that I once was. What I don't want to do is queue up this song for the 900th time.

Cars

After eleven hours in the car he still greets me with a smile. His face has been smudged with peanut butter and jelly, and his round little belly is covered in the crumbs from dinner, which he generously sheds on my shirt. "The car," he says, because that's pretty much what he always says, "pointing at a car near us."

At the Panera bread we stop in a small garden out front and after he points at the cars I ask him where the flowers are. He turns around and walks straight towards the roses. I didn't know he knew what I was saying. We teach them to smell them. He bends down at the waist, makes a quick sniffing noise like a dog and then pulls away laughing. We're not sure if the roses and pansies and strip of green grass are beautiful, or if we've just been in the car for ten hours, but she's sitting among the flowers with a smile on her face that would melt your heart. Everything about her is so dynamic. Her face is the sort of barometer that country music singers write songs about. Right now, it's set to serene.

Another Day:

Could he find something less ubiquitous to be interested in? After eleven hours I pull him out of the car, and he points to a car and says, "The car." It's fine, really, but I'm ready for him to be out of this phase. For a while we thought car might stand for a number of things, but really, car just stands for car. It's his preference to wander out into traffic and point them out to you as if he hadn't noticed that you'd just taken him from a car that you were driving. He's adorable, but sometimes I wish he'd talk about something else. Just once, I'd like him to say, "Books," or, "Persuasive Essays," but I suppose I'll spend the next few months saying, "Yes, I see the car," and quietly lowering my IQ.

Surviving

At the end of the day we've made up the entire eastern seaboard, started a sound track for our trip, danced, laughed, and eaten a lot of Goldfish. Not the real kind. The children were better than I thought they'd be, especially considering the iPad movies weren't working, and we had to rely on good old fashioned things like etch a sketch's and books and stickers to pass the time. Little Ian was a trooper, sneaking in a quick nap before spending the next ten hours clapping or cackling to himself. He's either very good-natured or very simple minded. Either way, I'll take it.

Surviving.

How many years will go by like this?  How many hours do you have to give over to talking about princesses and songs and explaining the meaning of words like agreement? Is it possible that I'll ever have an intelligent conversation again? By the time my children are old enough to have one I'll have forgotten everything that once made me interesting.