Conversations

Some of the best conversations I have with my big girls occur in the car on the way to or from preschool. No, it doesn't make me mother of the year. But it seldom fails to entertain, or make me think.

This is where I get the reports on who did what to whom, on whether the classroom problem child pulled a stunt, on what made them smile -- or what they're looking forward to.

Today's ramblings would have made an existentialist proud: We covered everything from death and funerals, sparked by the recent, unexpected loss of their Grandma Janie, to mommy's "boo-boo" (recent surgery that's put me out of the lifting game for six weeks) to the perils of cigarettes to how Santa landed his sleigh in our front yard and ate the cookies we left before he brought in his bag of goodies. Who I announced she's going to ask the Jolly Old Elf this year for a monkey, a giraffe and a lion -- oh my!. Who II, nicknamed Loudly for her lack of volume control at times, announced that the next time she's upset, I'm to tell her, "Cry in your quiet voice." And Baby Who joined in with the primal grunts that have earned her the nickname Puma, for the way she screeches "Noooooooooo!" like a jungle cat when she doesn't want to do what she's told.

These conversations with the Whos often resemble a tennis match, my head bobbing back and forth between them as I try to catch Every Single Word while keeping my eyes simultaneously on the road in front and the rear-view mirror. The other drivers must think I have a nervous tic. I'd rather think of it as the Mommy Mojo, multi-tasking as I bee-bop in my minivan down the highway.

It's not always a peaceful ride, to be sure. Sometimes (gasp!) they fight. Sometimes I'm playing the same song on the CD over and over to keep the peace. Some days, my thoughts are elsewhere -- on the work day ahead, worries at home, the pain people I care about are struggling with, the idiot who cut in front of me. But on a morning like today, when the sun's shining brightly, everyone brushed their teeth, their hair doesn't look like rat slept in it and all are fed and happy, life is so, so sweet.

Even IF daddy put Baby Who's shoes on the wrong feet.