Mommy Time

We live in a very isolated rural area, on a relatively undeveloped river. Our private road is over a mile long, and its termination only leads us as far as another unpaved (but county-maintained) road. To say we have a lot of privacy is an understatement.

As is par for living with Rob The Tinkerer, we have several personal transportation devices on our property. Rob has his noisy, gas-guzzling, rugged Cushman Truckster, and I have a quiet, comfy-cushioned golf cart. Either vehicle allows us to be "one" with the roads and trails around here.

I prefer my golf cart simply because it's so dang easy to sneak up on the wildlife with it. We regularly see deer, gopher tortoises, wild turkey, hawk, fox squirrels, and snakes on our road. We love to play "tracker" with the girls and identify the various tracks laid out in the sand and gravel. One of the neatest phenomena is to drive down the road, only to return an hour later and see new animal tracks on top of our old tire tracks.

But by far the best part of our road is its therapeutic value. After a hectic day teaching (me), attending school (Sierra) and daycare (Jenna), repairing computer networks (Rob), going to Chess Club (Sierra) and Choi Kwang-Do practice (Sierra), running to the grocery store, et al, it's an automatic stress reliever to drive home and see the houses and businesses fall away, watch the trees move ever closer to the edge of the road, and possibly spook a deer around the next turn. Even hectic nights within our own home are tempered by the lack of sirens, car horns, and people conversing as they walk the neighborhood sidewalks. We have no sidewalks. We have no neighbors. It's just us.

Jenna tends to get rather cranky in the evenings. This is typical for a two-year-old who has spent her whole day stimulated, over-stimulated, and ultra-stimulated. By the end of dinner, she's a mess. She cries, wails, and carries on like she's going to burst. So I've found that it's quite centering to put her on the golf cart, back out of the carport, and take her on a peaceful ride down the road to set her right.

Her favorite part of the drive is when I finally let her cuddle up on my lap while I'm rolling along the road (keep in mind, we have zero traffic, and my top speed is about 10 mph). She'll snuggle into my shoulder, sucking her favorite fingers, while I lazily make my way down the road. Quite often I'll just stop the cart and take in the sounds around us. They are remarkably few. A cricket here, a cardinal there, a rustling in the bushes off to our left. We stop, and sit, and snuggle, and listen. It's just us. And it's great.

To be fair, Sierra gets her share of Mommy Time as well. Her favorite pastime is cuddling up with me in the recliner as I read her the latest library book she's checked out from school. It's about the only time in her life when she readily and eagerly will turn off the TV to do "something else." We try to explain to her that she has several "something else"s in her room (as is noted by the 27-foot-high pile of toys in her toyboxes) and outside (like her own armada of personal transportation devices like a Barbie Jeep and a battery-powered racecar). But nothing quite holds her attention as much as a good read in that recliner. She looks forward to it all day.

I'm pretty sure Jenna looks forward to our "me-time" rides on the golf cart, too, but until she learns how to better articulate her desires, she'll be screaming for it, as usual.