There they are. How adorable! Don't let their sweet little faces fool you. There are times when I KNOW why some animals eat their young. Yesterday's terror ride home from Salt Lake City is a prime example of this.
Yesterday's trip to Salt Lake City for my step-daughter's (2nd ex-husband's daughter) birthday party was TYPICAL. Let me explain what a typical hour-long excursion in the family car actually means by describing our little "adventure".
First, neither of the girls wanted to leave the party when I said it was time to go. Of course they didn't. They were having too much fun playing pool and basketball with their sister and "cousins". I was grateful to Grandma Sindy, who managed to somehow talk both girls into the car and get them buckled into their car seats without too much of a commotion.
I turned the key in the ignition, and all hell broke loose. Maya started crying and screaming and whining and basically having a tantrum of two-year-old proportions (she's almost NINE mind you) because she didn't want to leave. Then Penelope started screaming at me to make Maya stop her tantrum. The little car was engulfed in noises that resembled two feral cats fighting in a small, steel culvert; the girls simultaneously screaming, "I DON'T WANT TO LEAVE!!!!!" and "MAKE HER STOP SCREAMING!!!!" I just gripped the steering wheel and kept driving, carefully ducking the small objects being thrown at me from the back seat, and keeping control of the car while it was being jostled around by Maya's kicking and hitting her door.
Penelope eventually gave up and got quiet. Maya, on the other hand, changed up her tactics and started screaming that she wanted her blanket... the blanket I had, of course, removed from the back seat earlier THAT DAY to throw in with the laundry. Her cries then cycled between "I DON'T WANT TO LEAVE!!!!" and "I WANT MY BLANKET!!!!" This continued for, oh, I don't know, about TWENTY MINUTES. I had driven in silence after my initial, "SHUT UP!" because I KNEW from past experience that NOTHING I said or did would make a lick of difference.
When I just couldn't take anymore, and I was on the verge of becoming my father, and just reaching back there with my free hand and swinging at anything that moved, I grabbed my little MP3 player that, thankfully, was in the console, and stuffed the earbuds in my ears. I cranked the volume as high as it would go. And what to my wondering ears did I hear?
What a drag it is getting old
"Kids are different today"
I hear every mother say
Mother needs something today to calm her down
And though she's not really ill
There's a little yellow pill
She goes running for the shelter of a mother's little helper
I just had to laugh to myself. I couldn't help it. Of course, understanding the telepathy of my life, my MP3 player would be playing exactly what I needed to hear. I don't have any "little yellow pills" or even any bottles of murky firewater to calm me down, but what I do have is Mick, Keith, Charlie and Ronnie. Thank God for The Rolling Stones! Sing it with me, brothahs and sistahs! Amen!
No comments:
Post a Comment