Driving and bedtime

Now that my six-month driving restriction has come to an end, I am finally able to drive the girls around town again. Although I do resolve to try and continue going on foot to places that are within a reasonable walking distance, I have been able to bid adieu to the sixxy-nine bus and all the carpool arrangements for Julia's school drop-offs and pick-ups, which is a weight off my shoulders. The kids seem to have mixed feelings about me being back behind the wheel. Julia has decided to play "59 Bus" whenever I'm driving, in her wistful remembrance of our six months of bus adventures.

JULIA: Mama, you see this black thing right here? Well, when you're driving, did you know that I pretend to push it like it's the stop button on the 59 bus?
ME: Oh, you do?
JULIA: Yeah. Like, I pretend it's our stop button, and you're the bus driver! And Mama, I just pressed the stop button, because I know we're almost at the Y, and that's our stop, so I pushed the button so that you know I need to get off there.

Madeleine, on the other hand, seems completely baffled by the whole concept of me driving the car. I suppose if you think about it, a six-month period of time is a much more significant chunk of a two-year-old's lifespan than it is of an adult's. Not to mention that her memories of life before she was roughly one and a half are probably pretty fuzzy. Whatever the explanation, she clearly does not think I belong behind the wheel. She felt compelled to ask me, as I drove to church yesterday morning, "Mommy, can you read this to me?" She appeared to be utterly devastated by the fact that I couldn't read her a My Little Pony book because I was driving the car. Furthermore, about every five or ten minutes of our car rides, we wind up having some version of the following conversation:

MADELEINE: Mommy? Can you sit in your OWN seat?
ME: I am in my own seat, honey. I'm in the driver's seat because I'm driving the car.
MADELEINE: Mommy? But can you sit in your OWN seat?
ME: Which seat would you like me to sit in, honey?
MADELEINE: (pointing to the passenger seat) That one.
ME: I can't sit in that seat, sweetie, because I need to drive the car. I need to sit in THIS seat.
MADELEINE: Mommy? Can you sit in your OWN seat?
ME: This IS my own seat, honey.
MADELEINE: (pause) Mommy? But can you sit in your OWN seat?

She's going to be one of those kids who completely flips out when some kid at school sits outside of his or her assigned seat, I can already tell.

On an entirely different subject, last night as Ethan and I put Julia to bed, she gave him a kiss, then asked for "Nosies." "Nosies" has been going on since Julia was a baby, a basic nose nuzzle that at some point she labeled with the above name. What's new, however, is the branching-out to a different body part that is nuzzled. As she told me some weeks ago, "Mama! Daddy and I made up 'HEADIES,' which is like 'Nosies' but you do it with your FOREHEADS!" So after they exchanged "Nosies" last night, Julia asked for "Headies," and attempting to add some comedy to the routine, I then asked her for "Earries" and rubbed my ear against hers.

Squealing with delight, she turned to me and decided to take the comedy a step further. "TONGUIES!" she shrieked, reaching out for me.

Yikes. Yeah, no thanks.

"Oh, well, we can't do tonguies, because then we would be sharing our mouth germs with each other," I told her, then was able to fulfill her requests for "eye-ies," and "eyebrowies" before we headed out of her room.

Sadly, I won't be able to stop her from trying out tonguies someday when she's older, but at least for the moment, grossness averted.