Skip to main content

I'm Driving in my car



    




I drive a mini van. That is probably not a surprise seeing as I'm an overly involved mother of three. It's almost required - I mean imagine a farmer primarily driving a Smart Car or a Mini Cooper. Those vehicles would not be up to the jobs the farmer would need done, right? Now imagine an overly involved mother of three primarily driving a smart car or a mini - they're not up to the jobs I have needed done. 


I have been the car pool mom, field-trip mom, camp transportation mom, shuttle to-and-fro mom and assorted other 'moms' that required seating for seven. My van (or vans since I've had more than one) have held passengers singing songs by Pete Seeger, Barney, Raffi, Hilary Duff, 98 Degrees and many others. The van has seen Chinese fire drills, games of 20 questions, whispered secrets, giggles and many other games or sounds of children. Lately, all of that has changed - the songs are usually by bands I don't know with lyrics I don't occasionally understand and sometimes they are played through headphones heard only by the teen wearing them.(After shouts to turn it down!!) And if there are games played they are played solo on a cell phone or iPod. My van doesn't usually hold more than one or two other passengers. More often than not, they are driving their own car and it's NOT the van.


The van is a perfect metaphor for how my role as parent has changed. 


When we first got this van - it seemed like a luxury with automatic doors, separate sound controls, leather seats and amenities that are now considered more obsolete. Now, the automatic doors don't always work, there is a new stereo because the old one broke so the rear sound controls don't work and the leather seats have tears. There are groans when I suggest we take the van - mostly from John! I have said that I would drive it into the ground - at 151,000 miles we are getting pretty close.


So that has had me pondering what my next vehicle should be - in the past I've let my 'job' define the car. Well that 'job' has changed from hauling many children to . . . well you know. It is most often just me. Sometimes Delaney. And occasionally a friend or two. I no longer require room for seven. I have found that I love tooling around town in our 'summer only' car - a red mustang convertible but we don't drive it in the rain or when it might rain! (In Michigan that certainly limits the days it's driven.) It's fun to put the top down and stereo up and rev the engine. But I need something a little (not a lot) more practical. And I have always wanted a Volkswagen Beetle - yellow, convertible and all me! So that just may be the car of the future - at least my future. I won't sulk gently into the empty nest but instead I'll rev my engine and slowly race into time for me.


And you thought I was going to make you all weepy about the kids leaving home and my van being empty. Not today, maybe tomorrow.

Comments

Post a Comment

It's not a popularity contest, but ...

Friday Night Lights

Friday night lights were blazing last week - when for the first time in the history of our little town, the Saugatuck Indians clinched the district title! You can see the sheer joy on Matthew's face and the pride in his father's eyes in the picture above. Leading up to and during the game, there were several things that made the victory even more sweet. The first being that the sports writers in the area, to a person, all predicted the opponents, Climax-Scotts, to win. They'd had a perfect season - until Friday. The second was that we had to travel quite a distance (nearly 90 minutes) to get to the game. And the weather was frigid and snow was blowing - thankfully it was blowing towards the Climax-Scotts stands and was at our backs. And then our quarterback injured his shoulder and had to sit out for a good portion of the game. Thankfully, the replacement quarterback (a sophomore called up for the playoffs from the junior varsity team) did not let the stress effect his ...
3 comments
Read more

The amazement of children

I am a kid magnet. Especially little ones in strollers, my fellow four-wheelers. They will look at me, then my 'stroller', then back at me. And I waste no time in striking up a discussion with these fellow captives of the four-wheel system that has us at the mercy of whomever may be pushing us around. For those that are verbal, I like to compare our 'strollers'. One such young man, at the March in D.C. pointed out that I had two really big wheels and two really small ones, but his transport's wheels were all the same size and then he counted (it was adorable watching him squirm around in the stroller to look at the wheels behind him!) eight wheels. "Pus," he lisped what I assume was 'plus', "I have a hood." He proudly grabbed the stroller canopy and pulled it forward and backward. Yep, he had a much superior ride and I told him so. Then he said, with not a hint of awkwardness, "You're big for a stroller." His mother was ab...
Post a Comment
Read more

You don't know me . . .

I stopped blogging for awhile. I know some might think that I was being lazy, or overly-involved in some community or school venture or in the middle of some really good books or projects. While all of those are true, that's not the main reason. I stopped because it felt strange to be somewhere and have someone refer to something I wrote. It was like they knew a secret about me (though secrets are not usually published on the Web) that I hadn't shared with them. Though in reality I had shared because I wrote it on the blog.  Truth be told, I don't know who reads this - I have a smattering of followers but a lot more readers. Blogger lets me see how many page views for each posting and I can even tell the referral site. The most I have had for any post was 152 and I've had readers from as far away as New Zealand (thank you Gretchen) and Alaska. Most readers are referred through Facebook. I know that if I were more diligent, I could market the crap out of the blog ...
Post a Comment
Read more