Caught in a Lie

I have the morning carpool shift today, 3 kids need to be dropped off on Douglas St., 1 on Garfield. It is pouring rain. On the way the windshield steams up. It is July 23 but I am cold. I turn on the defroster and the car warms up. I strain to hear my son from his seat in the back of the car.

mom?
yes?
mom?
yes?
mom, did you know wine is made from grape juice?
no, really?
yes, it's grape juice but they put something in it so it doesn't taste good.
(older sister) yeah, it's called alcohol.


When I drop them off, the kids have to leap over several inches of water to land on the sidewalk. After I drop off my last camper my husband calls me. Wants to know where I am. He didn't realize the rounds took so long. I rush off to take over the care of our baby girl so he can go to work. When I get there he wants a ride to the train. The rain is still heavy. Even though I'm ashamed that I didn't think to offer to take him I complain about having to do another drop off.

This will be my fifth drop off today.
Don't you mean third?
No, you're the fifth person I'm dropping off this morning. It's just semantics.
Yes, but you didn't stop in five places.
Well, what if I dropped one child off every ten feet. Would that be one drop off or three?
Ok, in that case I had 168 breakfasts this morning.
Wow, that's a lot of breakfasts.
I had one breakfast for each cheerio.
You must be really full.

Back at home, Nora schlumps around the house whining. For some reason she's become more frightened of everything lately. She freaks out when a fat little fruit fly buzzes by her, and at the beach she won't approach the waves anymore. She turns on the radio really loud by accident and runs screeching across the room. I want to hunker down with her in a warm corner of the house and read a pile of books. I imagine how pleasant and cozy it will be, how she'll be fascinated and pacified by the books. How impressed she'll be by my reading skills. We get a pile and lie on the bed. I grab one to read to her. No, she wants to read it herself. Fine. She cowers over it. What does it say, she wants to know. Well, I can't see it because she won't let me hold it. Finally I realize that the way to deal with this situation is to tickle her. How do I know this? Because that's what would happen on TV.

According to Dr. Weinberger, the kids' pediatrician, people can't tickle themselves, it doesn't work. I really have no idea why. If I could tickle myself right now, it would be a good thing.