Tuesday, December 9, 2008

Best Mom Tip #3: Pretend you're driving a limo

When my daughter was a few weeks old, my husband and I visited my parents who live about 40 minutes away from our house. My precious infant screamed bloody murder the whole way home. I felt like we were listening to cats being tortured or perhaps the sound of happiness dying. It was horrible.

That was when we began to pretend that our car was equipped with a glass window between the front and back seats like in a limosine. Now when there are awful noises from the back seat--like my daugther complaining that she only got to hear "Frosty the Snowman" 3 times in a row--we press the imaginary button on the dashboard, make a little "rrrrrrrrrrrrrrr" sound like the window is rolling up, and carry on a perfectly normal conversation.

We imagine the rowdy prom kids in the back have begun experimenting with the mini bar and that any minute we'll get pulled over because they're hanging out of the sunroof. On occasion, we've discussed how nice it was of So So Def records to pick up this new artist and his entire drunk entourage from the airport in a limo. If we're feeling a bit risque' we'll try to avoid noticing what is going on with Angelina Jolie and Billy Bob Thornton back there before the awards show.

None of this makes the noise any less invasive, although it does give me a moment to regain my patience. Eventually, I always go back to the contortion moves necessary to find the pacifier and return it to the baby or attempt to pick up the doll that's fallen in the floorboard. We may even listen to Frosty one more time. But for a few minutes, I'm living the glamorous life where the unruly children don't belong to me and the barf and bodily fluids I have to clean up belong to the stars.

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