Kids in the Driver's Seat
quality time
MOMENTS THAT MATTER
Lately my kids have been really into "driving" my car. They pull into the driveway after my husband picks them up from daycare and immediately want to climb into my car. Invariably, my daughter asks me to retrieve several of her stuffed animals so she can strap them into the car seats, mimicking our morning and evening routines. They turn on the hazards, get the CD player cranked up--I never quite know what I'm going to find when I get back into the car in the morning--and just play. As I've discussed in previous posts, I have a very long commute, so my car is the last place I want to be after the work day. But the weather here has been beautiful lately, so I pull up a lawn chair, sit outside, and keep an eye on my tiny drivers.
As little kids, my brother and I did the very same thing. I remember, like it was yesterday, climbing over the seats in "Prince," my mother's old Valiant, and later in her gold Pontiac LeMans. (It was the eighties, but my mom was driving cars decades old.) I remember the shape and size of the radio dials, the long, crooked arm of the turn signal, and the cracked dashboard. It's magical for me, to watch my kids doing the same thing together, as though there is some genetic code for playing in your mother's car.
"prince" valiant
MY MOM'S KNIGHT IN SHINING ARMOR
Children require a lot of work (and lately, mine have also required listening to a lot of screaming...my son is turning two in a few days and is trying out his terrible), but they also have an amazing ability to appreciate the everyday, and in this way they are so wise. They enjoy things I detest: washing dishes, making lunches, operating a motor vehicle. Part of the reason they enjoy these things so much, I realize, is because I do them so much. They want to be like mama. For me, driving a car is about stress, wasted time, and expense. For them, it's about taking on life roles they see as powerful and exciting. They might just as well be playing in a spaceship.
For children, everything is new. That creates struggle--as when my son becomes so frustrated trying to pull on his socks that he finally throws his head back and screams--but it also creates such an amazing appreciation for the moments that make up life. I see this too when I take my son for a walk in the neighborhood. We live on a loop that's maybe a quarter of a mile long, but walking this loop with my son can take an hour. He sees everything--really sees it--investigates everything, is curious about everything and everyone. With him, I notice the wonders that have been there all along.
How differently things look through their eyes.
muscle memory
THE 1972 PONTIAC LEMANS, GOLD, LIKE MY MOM'S
That crack in the dashboard? I'm sure it drove my mother crazy. I'm sure it meant a lot of things to her--money troubles almost certainly being on of them. But watching my children gleefully pushing buttons and turning the steering wheel of my car back and forth, grinning at me through the windshield, I understand what it meant to me: love for my mother, love for my brother, love for life.
Have your kids caused you to see the world in a new way? Share your comments here.
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