Friday, October 3, 2014

The SUV Diaries: A coming of age tale


I took my two little peeps on a road trip today.  I was pretty proud of the fact I said we were going to leave at 9.30am and we actually did!  Wouldn’t happen on a school day, holidays are the tits!

Letting your eldest sit in the front however, opens you up to being critiqued by a minor;

Why are you going around that car / Shouldn’t you have indicated then / I don’t think you’re supposed to do that

I pulled out a Dad line:

“When you get your license you can make comment as much as you like, until then zip your lip sonny”
He countered with an irritatingly teenagery line:

“Yeah well, when I get my license I think I’ll drive better than this.”
Touche.

I only braked sharply on purpose a couple of times, the hopes of only giving him a minor case of whiplash.But instead I got more lip; 
“gee Mum, are you sure you’re right to drive, ooh ow, you did it again.”
Completely baseless criticisms aside, I discovered it’s really awesome to sing super loudly all together to the same song! 

We worked our way through Charlie’s playlist on his iPod.  Disturbingly I somehow know all the words to Beauty and the Beat – and not just the Justin part (which I am freaking pitch perfect at, everyone agreed), but I can Nicki Minaj it up with any 5 year old that may care to take me on. 
“Beauty from the streets, we don’t get deceased every time a beauty on the beats….” Boom, take that Beliebers!  (oooohhhhhh body rock…… let me feel your body rock…)
I had forgotten that I had (thankfully) interspersed some of my music onto Charlie’s play list, it was magic to my ears when some Beastie Boys piped up.  What was not magic to my ears was listening to them bickering about what the ‘sound’ was in the middle of Shake your Rump

“It’s someone doing a wee’
“No it’s someone filling a bottle with oil”
“Nah it really is someone doing a wee”
“No, oil into a bottle”
‘Wee”
“Oil”
“Wee”
 
It took all of my inner strength and fortitude as a parent to not scream at them;

“It’s a bong, it’s a fucking bong ok, someone is smoking a bong, do you guys even listen to the lyrics???”
But thankfully some Rita Ora or something came on and we sang about someone’s ex girlfriend resting in peace even though she wasn’t actually dead.  Good times.

It felt refreshing to have some semi grown up time with them, car trips used to be about making sure we had enough wipes and nappies in arms reach, snacks a plenty and making road kill sacrifices to the sleep gods in an effort to persuade them to send our babies off to the land of nod. But being older and able to hold their bladders, they can chat and sing and play car games the whole way. It was, dare I say it, fun!
Of course that was only on the way down…..  no one really wanted to get back into the car to return.  Suddenly promises of me harmonising with the Beibs wasn’t as enticing as it was earlier and I still feel a little insulted that they asked me to turn the music up and my voice down.
Anywho, I made them run around like loons at our destination, in an effort to wear them out enough so they go to bed at a reasonable time tonight (school holidays shouldn’t ruin my evening adult time, but it just does…..)
Unfortunately I forgot to take into consideration the one and a half hour drive home………
 
 
Dammit, yes she slept the whole way back.  She is now rejuvenated and will be up until at least 10pm.