Commuting with Two

This morning as we were driving to work, I glanced over my shoulder at William, who had been a bit quiet. He looked up at me and said, "I'm just thinkin' 'bout dirt, Mommy."

I said, "Really? What about dirt?"

He had a small wooden dowel, and he was using that as his "control" and was pretending to drive a bulldozer and push dirt around. He proceeded to explain all of this to me, quite earnestly. I love that he is using his imagination on our commute to work.

There was a time when I had the DVD player hooked up in the car, and it was soooo easy to let him watch vidoes on the way to and from work. But since I let him watch PBS in the morning (usually Between the Lions, SuperWhy, or Martha Speaks), and he also gets to watch something when he does his nebulizer treatment at night, adding videos in the car was just too much of a good thing. So instead, we interact as I drive. And William and Seth interact. (When Seth isn't sleeping.) And while this interaction isn't always pleasant (some of my worst Mommy moments have occurred in the car), and while I don't get any "down time" between work and home, I'm still very glad that I took the DVD player out of the car.

To provide a bit more detail, our commute to and from work is usually from 45 minutes to an hour. In no traffic, it can take as little as 30 minutes. In very heavy traffic, it can take us well over an hour. I always start our commute off listening to NPR. I also make sure that William has his OJ in the morning, and his diluted apple juice for the ride home. (I'm thinking of nixing the afternoon apple juice, though, because he's often times not hungry at 6:30 when I serve dinner.) He also usually eats his breakfast in the car on the way to work--either cinnamon toast, a waffle, or pancakes, with grapes, banana, or some other kind of fruit. When he was younger, I also had to make sure I had his blankie, but he's outgrown that phase for the most part, so we usually leave blankie at home. Also when he was younger, I used to stock the car with various books and toys. He still often brings a car or truck or digger to play with, but for the most part, we just talk the whole time.

When I say "talk," this usually means that William observes out loud, and I comment on all his observations. He often asks questions, like, "What's that digger doing, Mommy?" God forbid I say, "I don't know." If he's in the right kind of mood, saying "I don't know" will induce a meltdown. Usually I can throw the question back at him--"What do you think the digger is doing?" We talk about the trucks and garbage trucks and construction trucks that we see on the road. We talk about the buses. And we look for the "doggie" bus (the Greyhound). We talk about how everyone is going to work, or going home. And the trucks are going to the construction site or back to the garage. And we pass a few construction sites along the way and we look to see if the diggers are working. If they're not, we say that they're "parked." He'll tell me what he ate at school, and who he played with. We talk about what we'll do when we get home.

It usually isn't very long before William asks to listen to music. He was on a Barney kick for a while. And we have a CD with songs that say "William" throughout them, and he liked that for a while. He loves Mary Chapin Carpenter ("Come on, Come on CD), and lately, he likes listening to a bunch of songs we downloaded on my iPhone, including the Cars soundtrack ("Real Gone" and "Life is a Highway"), "I Like to Move It, Move It" from Madagascar, and the ever-popular "I'm Yours" by Jason Mraz.

Some days in the car are more difficult than others. He's irritable and I'm irritable and he pushes my buttons. If i'm not paying close enough attention to him as he talks (as in, if I tune him out, which mothers often do!), he screams, "TALK TO ME!!!!!!" He screeches or kicks the seat or wakes Seth up. He's usually really good with Seth, and if he's screeching and Seth laughs and screeches back, I just let it go. He'll grab toys out of Seth's hands, but if I remind him to take turns, he'll give the toy back, or find something else for Seth to hold. Seth usually doesn't care anyway. If he gets really bad, I turn off the music, and he gets very upset and will stop whatever he's doing. Or I can threaten to give him a timeout when we get home. He responds pretty well to threats, luckily!

Speaking of Seth, he is very different in the car than William was at his age. He is not a pacified by toys or books as William was. He just wants to get the heck out of the car seat, so he mostly whines the whole time. He usually falls asleep in the car, but if he doesn't, he likes to listen to music, and he mostly likes to hold my hand. For most of the car ride, I have by right arm stretched behind me so he can grasp my fingers. My only necessity for car rides with Seth are several extra pacifiers, and my hand. My arm usually aches by the time I get to work, but it's worth it to not hear him whine! Part of the problem may be that I still have him in his infant seat. We're getting a new seat for William in the next few weeks, so Seth will get to ride in the Marathon, which he may find more enjoyable. Probably not, though. We'll see!

So that's our commute. It's often not pretty, but I do feel like it's time that I'm interacting with the boys. Not so much with Seth, yet, but we'll get there! And I'm sure he's getting something from listening to William's and my conversations. And as Seth gets older, the two of them are interacting more and more. On the days that I get home feeling completely drained, and I haven't even started our evening routine of playing, getting dinner, baths, and bed, I think about how the next 4 years will probably fly by. And then I'll be commuting all by myself again. And that will be time I won't be spending with the boys. And that makes me sad enough to appreciate the time I have.