Alexis has a portable DVD player, but we very rarely let her use it. Frankly, I don't give a damn if she's bored in the car. Back in my day (you know, before dirt was invented) I was happy to be bored. It meant no child labor laws were being broken. However, when we are about to be in the car for six hours, I'm all, "My sanity! My sanity! HERE! HAVE A DVD PLAYER!"
Self-preservation is key.
So, as we packed up the car to make the drive to Indiana, the DVD player was given a First Class seat. I might have whispered sweet nothings to it as I thought about the silence it was sure to deliver. See, when you severely limit your kid's access to TV in the car, sometimes they dedicate their lives to trying to make sure you forget that they have it. Alexis generally refuses to break the silence when she has her portable DVD player out of fear that I'll be all, "Wait? Are you talking? NO MOVIES FOR YOU." It's been that way during every trip we've taken for as long as I can remember.
Which, of course, means that my happy streak has come to an end.
For some reason, the little nerd decided that she would use our most recent drive to Indiana as an opportunity to bone up on her sign language skills. She has a whole bunch of Signing Time DVDs and as an itty bitty baby used to have every sign from every single one of them memorized. Somewhere during the metamorphosis between toddler and kid, she forgot a lot of those signs. She's been learning a few of them in school lately, so it occurred to her that it might be fun to re-remember everything she once knew.
As we started to leave Pittsburgh in our rear-view mirror, Alexis stuck the first DVD into the player and hit the play button. Sweet, sweet silence envoloped me. A tear came to my eye as I thought about how wondrous the next several hours were going to be.
"Momma! Look! I can sign brush!" Alexis slapped the silence away as she tried to get me to look at what she was doing.
I turned around and mumbled something that sort of resembled acknowledgement.
Moments later, "Momma! Look! I can sign pants!" the short person declared.
Another mumbly sort of sound fell out of my mouth.
"Momma! Look! This is how you say dress!" Alexis said.
She continued on and on, each time declaring her knowledge of the word with a level of enthusiasm usually reserved for Sidney Crosby's return to the ice. She was SO. FREAKIN. EXCITED.
For two hours.
For two hours, the kid pestered and bugged and harassed me to pay attention to her every move. FOR TWO HOURS. When I was expecting silence.
Is it legal to strap kids to the roof of a car? I'm asking for a friend who happens to have a 6-hour drive back to Pittsburgh in her future.
