My children have this weird tendency when we get in the car: they talk. A lot. They never stop. Ever (unless they fall asleep). Often the talking involves arguing and fussing at each other which can be exhausting at times. Honeybun has also taken a strong interest in reading and letters which is fantastic. She’ll ask me how to spell things I see (“Mommy, how do you spell light?”) or will read me the letters on signs and ask me what they say. She also likes to make up her own words and asks me what they spell (“Mommy, what does A-B-F-R-T-E-D-Q-W-R…”) which I’m pretty good at but after about 8 letters I usually lose track of where we were and we both get frustrated.
But our car time has also provided some conversations and comments that I will never forget like the time on a long drive when Honeybun brought up when my sister and I danced in Peter Pan. Honeybun was asking me about when we did the show: “Mommy, was Auntie the crocodile?” “Yes.” “Was she scary? Did Captain Hook not like her?” “She was a funny crocodile, but yes, the girl who did Captain Hook pretended to be scared of her.” “What did you do mommy?” “Well, I was an Indian and,” “Were you Tiger Lily?” “No, I was Tiger Lily’s friend.” “Oh. Were you a Las Vegas boy too?” The conversation pretty much ended there as hubby and I were laughing too hard to continue.
Lately though, if you were to record our car conversations you would probably think we were crazy (or bathroom obsessed…which my recent posts won’t disprove). Our most often conversation lately stems from a few weeks back when we were getting on the highway and Sugarplum exclaimed “Mommy! Daddy’s car made a Wee!” It took us a few seconds to realize she was not talking about the car’s potty habits but rather that we had done a cloverleaf and she was talking about the “Whheee!” we often exclaim when making u-turns (which is a regular requirement when making your way around South Florida).
Then again last week while driving with my sister, we did a sharp curve and a tiny little “whee!” came from Sugarplum’s car seat. Which prompted me to point out that the road was very curvy up ahead. I told the girls “Look, we’re going to make a whee-whee up here,” meaning we were going to curve one way and then quickly back the other. Honeybun then noticed another “whee-whee” coming and pointed it out. This conversation went on the rest of the car trip and the girls thought it was so funny. When we picked hubby up from the airport the next day, Honeybun was so excited to tell him “we made so many whee-whees in Auntie’s car yesterday!”
Our “whee” conversations have continued and the girls have made a game out of wheeing at most corners but at least they’re not arguing most of the time!
