I’m not hopelessly uncool. I’m sporty. I know this because it says so right there on the side of my big boxy mini-van. “Grand Caravan SPORT.”

 I had never wanted a van. I was not a van person. I shuddered at the very thought of a giant, boxy vehicle roughly the length and width of a football field. Then I watched the rivets that adjoin the side panels in a garbage truck pass inches beyond my nose while my daughter, then three, wailed in terror from the rear seat. At that moment, as my cute little sporty sedan was dragged sideways in a sickening crunch of metal, I wanted an enormous, air-bag laden vehicle in the worst way.

We went van shopping that weekend.

I’m fond of reminding anyone who will listen that I was cool once. I have photos to prove it. In my semi-reckless youth I drove a seemingly endless cycle of bright red sports cars. The wind in my hair via tee-tops was something I was always willing to pay extra for. I can’t remember if any of those cars had airbags and anti-lock brakes, but I know for a fact that every last one of them had a kickin’ sound system.

Confession. Now, with six cylinders of raw, child-transporting power, comfortable seating for seven, a bird’s-eye view of the road, and enough drink holders to keep a soccer team thoroughly hydrated, I don’t think I could ever give up the van.

Seemingly overnight we went from a family of four that fit nicely in a four door car, to a family that cannot travel with anything less than an entourage and enough equipment to sustain ourselves comfortably for a week.

The momvan has dedicated cup holders for ten - count ‘em - beverages in a vehicle that doesn’t even hold ten people. That, my friends, is pure design genius!

Heroic. Four wheel drive. Forget about it. I have taken that van up a 1200 foot long unplowed driveway. No problem. Of course, Mr. Wonderful claims that the funny dragging noise it makes now might be a result of that, but I say I made it up the driveway and nobody had to get out and push. That’s a win in my book.

Comfort, convenience, and gigantic cargo hold?

The momvan truly has it all.

Well, with one exception. The only thing my momvan doesn’t have is a single ounce of respect.

When was the last time you heard someone describe their fantasy car as a minivan with storage drawers and integrated child seats? I’ll tell you when: never.

I love my van. It anticipates my every need and offers it up at my fingertips. Sunglasses cubby? Check. Drawers and cargo holders? Check. Stereo system with a radio that plays both FM AND AM? Check. Two or three separate friends call to request that I pick up their respective children from school? I’ve got it covered.

Superman had a phone booth? Supermom has a van.

I had pretty much hidden my secret adoration of my minivan from public view until I recently read that auto manufacturers are seriously considering doing away with the mini-van in favor of “cooler” vehicles such as SUV-Van hybrids (see also: station wagon).

As if station wagons were ever even remotely cool. 

My momvan can do just about anything that your truck can do - pull a trailer, carry lumber, move furniture. Better yet, I can bring my kids and a couple of their friends with me when I do it. We can even have a nice cold drink – or ten.

I’d like to see Carol Brady pull that trick in her station wagon. I mean, with the implementation of seatbelt and car seat laws as yet unheard of in the 1970’s, how many kids does a station wagon safely haul these days anyway? Three? Please. Three’s not even a crowd. 

When you can get half the soccer team in there, then we’ll talk.

Yes, it’s a grocery getter.

Yes, it’s a kid cargo hold.

And yes, it’s the sweetest ride on the road.

If you dare say otherwise, I’m cool with that. I’ve got a half-dozen kids and an mp3 playing Hannah Montana plugged in onboard.

Trust me, I can’t hear you anyway

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  It kills you to see them grow up.  But I guess it would kill you quicker if they didn’t. 

 ~ Barbara Kingsolver, Animal Dreams 

The nice thing about getting married is that you inherit a whole new set of people to fret about.  

My niece, for example, is aflutter about learning to drive. According to the State Department of Motor Vehicles she will be eligible to drive within the next thirty days. This is impossible, of course, because she is only eighteen months old. Okay, sure, the calendar says she is going to turn sixteen soon, but I know she’s only eighteen months old because I just met her yesterday, or so it seems, when my husband-then-boyfriend took me to meet his sister and her “baby.” She was a cherubic toddler resplendent in a bride’s costume for Halloween, I was the new-girlfriend unaware of my future as a bride. Now the years have telescoped in on themselves to bring us to this place where she will, inexplicably, be sixteen years old and entrusted with a driver’s license. 

I think I just gave her a Barney the Dinosaur toy telephone last Christmas didn’t I? Oh no, that’s right. Last Christmas was the Victoria’s Secret tote. We’ve come a long way baby, indeed.  

Practice. Nieces, I think, are good practice for daughters. There a million little things – and big things – a meddlesome aunt like myself would love to foist off on my unsuspecting niece. In 700 words, however, things get boiled down to the basics and I can pretty much sum it up nicely in two: be safe.  

A car is an awesome responsibility. Yet, like most teens my niece has undoubtedly heard all the “near miss” and “I can’t believe I walked away from that!” stories that families inevitably tell. Don’t we all grow up hearing about how Uncle Hooty leapt from an out-of-control truck and walked away with only a scratch? We thrill to tales of how grandma once drove cross-country in station wagon packed full of kids, cargo, and a dog on her lap for three-fourths of the trip that blocked her view of the roadway for at least half.  

I am fully guilty for my own “meet cute” automotive story. Mine revolves around the fact that on my way to meet my now-husband for our first date, I completely destroyed not one car – but two. The “cute” part is that I shook off having totaled two vehicles due to nothing more than not paying attention, and asked ever so sweetly if the nice officer would pretty please drop me off at the pre-determined meeting place of my eagerly awaiting first date? (For the record, the nice officer did).  

I want my niece to understand that my “meet cute” story could have ended tragically. That runaway trucks are as likely to kill you as leave you without a scratch. That driving across the country with a dog on your lap is probably a bad idea.  

Do as I say, not as I do, indeed. 

Warn.  Our hearts quicken and throats tighten as we open the newspaper to yet another story of the tragic loss of teen drivers and their passengers.  

We talk and we lecture and we preach and we pray. We tell them to be careful. Be cautious. Be smart. Be safe. We tell them to just say no to every and anything that could cause them harm. Yet teens, by design, seem to live in the moment. You just can’t seem to tell them that life is a great big wonderful ball of risk.  

Humor us, I want to say. You seem – and feel – invincible. Only time, God willing, will show you how fragile life really is. Life is too short, and it can be over in a heartbeat.  Don’t take your safety or your number of days on this Earth for granted. As you head out the door, stop what you are doing, and remind yourself that you love your life, and your family loves you.  

Until then, I worry. While every young driver behind the wheel isn’t your niece, or mine, perhaps we’d all drive just a bit more carefully if we pretended that they were.  

And in the coming months, please drive with special care because mine, after all, is barely two.

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That’s it. I’m done.
There is just only so much I can obsessively worry over and seriously? I’ve hit my limit.

Childhood obesity, white sugar, processed flour, artificial sweeteners, too much tv, not enough reading, lead in toys, toxic mold, toxic new homes, global warming, bullies, low self-esteem, high-self esteem, athletics v. academics, No Child Left Behind, whether seeing your parents naked will result in future therapy and how expensive might that be?

Whew. As someone who literally does “lie awake at night” worrying, this really cannot be good for any of us. Where is the study about what happens to kids with cranky, overwrought parents too tired to think straight? At what point do you have to start paring down your worries? There are only so many hours in the day and frankly, I may have to cast off lead and global warming.

Nutrition and obesity (although both my kids are slim) bears watching. Pedophiles and molestation I’m never going to quit worrying over. My kids will be 40 I’ll still wonder if they should ride their bikes alone. Seriously.

However, when do you just decide to put other worries on the back burner? To just start letting go of pretending we can protect our children from everything?

 Here’s the thing kids. I’ll recycle when I can but I think you are probably right to suspect I may be leaving the world a lesser place than I found it. We all are. Sorry about that but short of keeping my plastics out of the paper bins, I’m not sure what I can realistically do for you there.

The Lead Menace? Yawn. Overrated. Sorry but if lead is so scary why are all our parents and grandparents and the entire Baby Boom generation not brain damaged? Oh wait, scratch that …

 I’m not going to relax on “running with scissors” but I AM going to relax on the numerous things I cannot control RIGHT NOW. Or could lie awake nights fretting over to no avail.

So, um, eat your peas. Sit back from the TV. Read a book once in a while. Don’t chew the windowsills. Stay in my sight AT ALL TIMES and remember I love you even if I forget to worry about everything else under the sun.

And oh, that reminds me, I’ve got to worry about the sun …

So, what have you simply let go of worrying about?

More importantly, how guilty do you think we should feel about it?

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It turns out that I am a moron.

I had no idea but the proof is there. It comes out as soon as I relate how it happened that I dropped my beloved camera into a body of water (heck, who am I kidding? It was a homicide. That camera was pushed!)

I am a parent. A role model. Someone who is presumably modeling responsible, smart behavior for the youth of America. Particularly the two “youth” that live with me. It turns out I am not doing so well with that.

The story goes like this So my camera was stored where it always is, on the shelf above the kitchen sink … and, well, it just goes downhill (downsink?) from there. One wrong move and you are pulling your beloved digital camera from the depths of a sink full of hot, soapy water.

For the record: cameras do not like that. At all.

To add to the “how does she even manage to be walking around upright?” of it all, the camera was actually plugged into a charger at the time and when it went under, I instinctively reached into the water and pulled it out! It’s a wonder I wasn’t electrocuted. 

See? What’d I tell you? Moron! That’s me.

How can I lecture my children about responsibility, taking care of their possessions, and basic household safety if I myself am unable to achieve such lofty aspirations? Not to mention that I can’t have anything nice.

My camera is like an extension of myself. My third eye. My motto has long been If I don’t have a picture of it - it didn’t happen. I felt kind of light-headed and sick contemplating life without a camera. Head between the knees, breathe deeply, stay calm sort of sick. My husband, when told of our recent loss, said only (and with absolutely seriousness) Man am I glad YOU did that and not me or one of the kids. You know what? He’s right. If he or the offspring would have done something “so stupid” I would have gone apesh@#. I know, I’ve seen me do it.

Having worked through the five stages of grief over it in near-record time, I’m off to Best Buy to throw myself on the mercy of some seventeen year old “sales associate” who will put me back in photographic form. I know what I want but in the interest of “setting a good example” (which, by the way, sucks) I’m leaning toward severely restricting what I allow myself to purchase on the theory that one should not be rewarded for careless behavior.

Of course, if I’m truly on the path to being a pathetic excuse for a role model, those high-end SLR’s with the massive telephoto lenses are looking pretty good too.

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Like many of you, I came of age during the last, gasping heyday of American childhood. This was before youth was hermetically sealed for your protection and the fun safely removed from every last little thing.

Granted, I also came of age during a time when it would seem in retrospect that our parents were actively trying to kill us and make it look like an accident.

If we can get past the monumental “what were they thinking?” safety issues such as the legions of us who grew up riding around in vehicles by standing up on the back seat, sitting in our mother’s laps, or in some cases, lying prone across the rear cargo area of the family station wagon, we must still address the variety of injuries obtained during our leisure time.

continue reading…

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On Sunday, my son started crawling. He’d been trying for weeks now, doing the rocking on all fours and swimming motions until he’d get frustrated and start to cry. So, we were thrilled when he finally figured it out; the neurons in his brain all zapped at the same time and he scooted around.

Scratch that.

I was thrilled. My husband? Not so much.

After the initial, “Oh my god, he learned something new” feeling wore off, my husband turned into our house’s President of Homeland Security. Suddenly, EVERYTHING became a death-trap/potential injury. The remote control: dangerous electrical-shorting device. The coffee table: sharply-edged apparatus. Curtains: material which can be used in a noose-like manner. And so on.

While I see his point and understand the importance of child-proofing our place, I guess I’m just a lot more laid-back since I’m the oldest of four siblings and have pretty much seen it all. He, in turn, is the youngest of four siblings and doesn’t have the memory of his sister inserting a penny into an electrical socket the way I do. (And she turned out normal. Well, I not normal, per se, but she is physically fine.)

Like tonight, when I went to answer the door and came back to find my son sucking on the dog’s bone. My husband was ready to call the ER while I shrugged it off.

I’ve tried to tell him this is just the beginning; just wait until he starts walking. But the mere mention of toddling nearly sent my husband to the store to buy bubble wrap to encase our furniture, the television and the cats.

So, enjoy your lives ladies and gents. I’ll be here. At home. Trying to prevent my husband from turning my child into The Baby In The Plastic Bubble.

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A few months after we bought my Suburban, I was driving around at night and felt the need to hit the automatic door lock. It was dark and I didn’t want to take my eyes off of the road, but I couldn’t figure out which end of the oblong button to hit. Both ends, when pushed, made an identical sound. I guess locking and unlocking sounded the same to me at the time. One end was smooth and the other end had raised lines which, I assumed, was the part of the button to press in order to keep myself safe inside the car.

When I got home my husband got a flashlight and pointed out to me that the raised lines were for unlocking the car. I was momentarily confused. Wouldn’t one naturally feel around for the braille-like end of the button in order to lock the doors against external dangers? He told me that, according to most people’s way of thinking, the danger lay in being locked inside a car that was either submerged in water, on fire, or on the verge of exploding after impact. A passenger or driver needed to be able to feel for and find that button in order to escape the car, rather than be sealed inside it. Certainly the car makers felt the same way he did and the fact that he and I viewed danger in such drastically different ways gave me pause.

Though I am not a very traditional female, I was, as the oldest of three daughters, raised to be just such a person. For better or for worse, my upbringing taught me that dangers lay in the external world and safety was to be found while locked inside one’s home or…while driving around at night…inside the car. My husband, the oldest of three sons, told me that it was the ability to escape the car, or any other dangerous situation, that made the most sense to him and…obviously…everyone else who makes cars.

I admit, it makes complete sense to me now, but I’m still amazed at my knee-jerk reaction to the concept of danger, how it comes to us and which way is best to find safety or refuge. Is this a male/female thing? Or just a symptom of the way I was raised? I still think it’s important to be able to lock your doors quickly and it’s also crucial to be able to flee the car at a moment’s notice. But, in an emergency when one acts by instinct and under stress, how are we supposed to tell the difference between the act of locking or unlocking the car? I mean…back in the day it was easy to tell. The knob was either up or it was down. Am I the only person who thinks about this stuff?

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