We are taking a vacation this summer by car which will encompass 5 states and several thousand miles with 2 kids. Yeah, this could get interesting but we've done it several times before and survived with sanity intact ........ ok, partially intact. If nothing else, we will make lots of memories.
We took our first road trip with our son when he was just 14 months old. We were moving 700 miles, so it was going to be a pretty interesting trip with a very active toddler strapped into a carseat for 2 days worth of driving.
We left the deep south late in the afternoon, headed for our new home in Texas. I had our son strapped in his carseat in my minivan, with my husband following us in his pickup truck.
Our son was having a grand time making the pulling down motion and getting the truckers to honk their horns. Scared the beejeevies out of me a few times, but that's better than listening to a crying child for 700 miles. As we crossed the Alabama/Mississippi border, the sun set and darkness started to creep in on us. This was the part of the trip my husband and I were the most nervous about. Pitch black, a baby who's afraid of the dark, and strapped in a carseat for hours. Yeah, this could get dicey and very uncomfortable ....... for both of us.
The darkness really set in and boy, you couldn't see a thing outside of the car windows. It was very creepy, even for me. But having driven this before, and knowing how dark it gets, I had thought ahead and brought our son a little kid-proof flashlight to entertain him and light his little area. I had shown him how to use it the day before, so when I reached back and handed it to him, he giggled with excitement. Haha! "How smart am I?" I thought to myself. "Why - I am BRILLIANT!!!!". Famous last words.
Our son was having a grand time trying to find alligators, bears, and lions outside the car windows as we drove through the forest. That was fun for a while but when he didn't find any wild animals, he quickly lost interest. He started looking all around the car with the flashlight, entertained with how the light could bounce around on the ceiling and floorboards of the minivan. After a while, he quieted down and relaxed with the darkness that enveloped our car.
I noticed as we continued to drive that several passing cars must have some tired drivers, as they kept hitting those grooves in the pavement which alert you to your vehicle leaving the roadway. After a number of vehicles had crossed onto the grooves as they passed us, it dawned on me that something might be wrong with my car and maybe they were giving us a wide berth. As the next car drove past, I looked in my side mirror and discovered the reason. Our sweet, beautiful, little innocent baby boy, in his eagerness to see who was driving the car passing us, was shining his flashlight directly into the unsuspecting driver's eyes and creating a beam of death!
Considering that we were in the middle of a forest preserve with all sorts of wild animals, I was not stopping to take back the flashlight for fear of being eaten by the alligators, bears, or lions my son had been looking for. All I could do at that point was to ask my son in my nicest June Cleaver-like voice, to please not blind the helpless unsuspecting drivers with his flashlight because he will cause them to all crash and die.
We reached our hotel and my husband walked over to our minivan laughing hysterically. Before I could say a word, he told me that our son had been blinding drivers for over 100 miles before I'd noticed. Welcome to the great time-honored American family road trip where the best laid plans usually go awry.........
by: Christie Bielss
While waiting for my kids to get out from school, I've noticed there are 4 types of drivers in the school pick-up line. The First-in-Liner, the Waiter, the Slacker, and the dreaded Aggressor.
The First-in-Liner is the parent who is always at the school first to pick up their child. The First-in-Liner arrives an hour early and can usually be observed taking a quick afternoon nap while waiting for the children to be released. When you pull up behind them, they wake up just long enough to give you the perfunctory nod of approval in the rearview mirror for having become second in line. It doesn't matter how early you get to school to try and beat the First-in-Liner, they always beat you to the punch. It's like they have a 6th sense which notifies them of a potential interloper. They will end their day especially early just so Sally-Jo can't usurp their place in line.
Then you have the Waiter. This is not the person who serves you in a restaurant, it's the person who arrives early enough to be between 4th and 30th place in line. These are the people that the Slacker and Aggressor find most annoying due to the vast amount of space they leave between themselves and the vehicle in front of them. They are also the ones that park their vehicle and walk over to their friend's driver's side window and strike up a conversation. Their conversation will continue, much to the Aggressor's annoyance, even when the kids have been released and the pick-up line is moving. On many occasions, they are the ones who get honked at by an Aggressor because the pick-up line will have moved up 4-5 car lengths while the Waiter sits there oblivious to the world moving around them.
Next up is the Slacker. This is the driver who, after the first week of school, has decided they do not want to wait through the pick-up line right at release time and are always the last ones to arrive. This driver is the reason why so many notes come home from school asking parents to be "prompt" when picking up their kids. The Slacker's kid is always the one you see sitting on the school steps with their head in their hands, grumbling about how every other parent can make it on time but their own. When their ride does finally arrive, you can hear the child asking their parent "So, what made you late today?".
And last, but not least, is the Aggressor. There are 2 forms of Aggressor and both are the most disliked drivers of them all. First up is the one who drives around the cars in the pick-up line and finds the spot that one of the Slackers has left wide open. With cat-like reflexes, they whip their vehicle into the open spot and then give a little wave in their rearview mirror thanking the Slacker for having given them a great spot in line while saying "Serves you right Slacker!". The Slacker, and everyone behind the Slacker, is then left muttering under their breath about what kind of person would cut in line at their age.
The other Aggressor is the one that everyone finds annoying. This Aggressor will honk their horn and yell at the Waiter to get them to move their car forward 6 inches. When this Aggressor gets up to the area for their child to climb into their vehicle, this driver doesn't even wait for the vehicle door to be closed before they floorboard the gas pedal while yelling for their child to put their seatbelt on and hold on because they've got to beat the "idiots" to the exit or, heaven forbid, they'll be stuck there for another 3 minutes.
As for me, I'm none of the above. I've decided it's way more fun to watch these daily battles from the safety of my car, which is parked in the school parking lot. Which one are (or were) you?
by: Christie Bielss
