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Sunday, September 24, 2006

Silence is Golden and Other Observations from the Road

I have always found it interesting that people care whether or not parents let their children watch DVDs in the car. It’s frequently a conversation topic with other moms. I do not own a DVD player, not because of any personal objection to their use, but because I’m too cheap to buy one. However, I certainly have never cared whether or not other parents let their children watch DVDs in their car. After all, I’m not the one trapped inside their car. No one’s asking me to sing endless hours of "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" while twisting myself into odd positions under my seatbelt to retrieve falling toys. I also find it interesting the way some parents pride themselves on not letting their children watch DVDs in the car. It is a reasonable parenting decision either way, but not one that really deserves to be second-guessed or judged by others. I really don’t understand the people who get defensive with me and assure me that “I only let him/her watch it for an hour.” Letting your kids watch a DVD for more than an hour isn't exactly comparable to letting them play in traffic.

My husband and I decided to take a spontaneous trip to Maine this weekend. We have done very few road trips with our older son (OS) in the last couple of years and none with our younger son (YS). In the good old days, OS fell asleep as soon as we turned the ignition and woke up once we had arrived. Unfortunately, OS no longer falls asleep easily in the car. Luckily a friend of mine loaned me a portable DVD player “just in case”. In my husband’s and my haste to get everything together, packed and put in the car, there was a communication mishap and the portable DVD player was packed without any DVDs. “That’s okay,” we told ourselves. “Look at how well behaved our kids are. We don’t need a DVD player!”

Fast forward to an hour later as I contemplated driving with my head stuck out of the window so I didn’t have to hear any whining or crying. I kept on glancing back because I was confident that somehow someone had snuck 15 preschoolers into my back seat. There was no way my two kids could be so loud! My children are well behaved! Nope. Only two car seats present. Well then surely some crazy person had stuck a tape recording of children screaming under my seat. (Despite a thorough search, I couldn’t find one of those either.) Alas the crazy person was me for forgetting the DVDs! OS’s screams to let him out of the car (all I could think was someone please let ME out of the car!) had woken up a very peacefully sleeping YS. My husband had to thread his arm through the very narrow space between the seat and the door in an effort to give YS his pacifier and soothe him. Here is a dialogue of our car trip (repeated 999,998 times):

AE: What’s the exit?
YS: Wah, wah, wah.
OS: Mommy I’m all done!!!!! I want black puppy!!!!!
YS: Wah, wah, wah.
Husband: Exit 44.
YS: Wah, wah, wah.
OS: Mommy, I want black puppy!!!!
YS: Wah, wah, wah.
AE: I missed that. OS, we’ll be there soon. Did you give the baby his pacifier?
YS: Wah, wah, wah.
Husband: I’m trying to! 44. OS, it’s okay. I’m trying to find black puppy (while repeatedly twisting himself in a bizarre position to try and retrieve a free 1 inch plastic puppy toy from the floor only to find out later it was next to OS in the carseat the whole time.)
YS: Wah, wah, wah.
OS: NOOOO!!!! Mommy I’m all done! Out!!!!
YS: Wah, wah, wah.
AE: (spaced for a moment because contemplating sticking head out the window or hitchhiking) Where are we?
YS: Wah, wah, wah.
Husband: blah blah (can’t hear because both kids are screaming)
YS: Wah, wah, wah.
AE: What?
YS: Wah, wah, wah.
Husband: blah blah
YS: Wah, wah, wah.
AE: What?
YS: Wah, wah, wah.
Husband: 26
YS: Wah, wah, wah.
AE: What exit are we looking for?

Thus, after a fun weekend of getting together with friends and staying at a great B&B that’s kid and pet friendly, we discussed the logistics of going home. Specifically did we want to invest $15 for a DVD when we have a million of them at home? After having a flashback to our car ride up, I started to get shaky and feel claustrophobic. I decided right then and there that we definitely did even if it meant we had to go out of our way to get one. However, OS fell asleep in the parking lot when my husband ran into the store to buy a DVD. This lasted for 30 minutes until OS woke up. He seemed okay, so we decided to not stop at the rest stop we saw to set up the DVD player. Yes, you read that right. The only possible explanation I could come up with is that we both were suffering from temporary amnesia. And as you could probably guess there was a HUGE traffic jam about 2 minutes after we passed the rest area. OS started whining and complaining and woke up YS who was hungry. I had to thread my arm between the door and the seat to give YS a bottle. I do have to say that’s one for formula feeding because there’s no way I could have maneuvered my breast to the back seat, and there wasn’t any room in the back for me to sit.

10 hours later (okay, it was probably about 30 minutes), we finally made it to the next exit. After messing around with the DVD player holder (finding 6 DVDs that my friend had apparently left for us to use within the case), and wrapping the straps around the seat in a bizarre manner that I’m quite confident was not in the instruction manual (although if the instructions wanted to have been followed, they should have been in the car with us), and using my barrette, we were able to get the DVD player set up.

Conversation on the way back:
Peaceful SILENCE

A. Elliot’s lesson learned: If you are comfortable letting your kids watch DVDs in the car, have everything setup and ready in advance.

Labels: , , ,

posted by Alex Elliot @ 9:44 PM   1 comments
1 Comments:

  • At 9/26/2006 10:08 AM, Blogger Suzanne said…

    For younger kids, I think a DVD makes sense. But as kids get older, I feel that there is stuff that they miss out on because their eyballs are glued to the TV. I'm not saying that driving through 8 hours of wheat fields in the midwest has so much stimulating scenery, but I am always amazed how many SUVs I see driving by amazing things in NYC, and instead of looking at the cool buildings or statues, the kid's tuned into TV. That makes me sad because I remember how much I loved looking at things whenever my parents drove me into Chicago when I was a kid.

     
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Name:Alex Elliot
Home:MA, United States
About Me:Professional Mom of two cats, a dog, an ant farm, and oh yeah...two boys: a 6 year old and a 3 year old. Also found in my house is my husband who is known on this blog as The Big Giraffe.
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For those of us who didn't get an instruction manual with our babies and for whom parenting hasn't always gone as planned. On a more serious note this blog is about supporting a woman's ability to make her own choices about parenting including the choice, for whatever reason, to bottle feed her babies formula.

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