Thursday, October 23, 2008

You are the grown-up

I have been repeating my new mantra for the past 45 minutes.

You are the grown-up. You are the grown-up.

Will is not napping. She wants to play in the crib. She wants out of the crib. She wants me out of the room, but herself out of the crib. She screams as I try to put on her pants and her socks. She screams as I wrestle her into the stroller and into her coat.

You can't scream too. I tell myself. You are the grown-up.

Just as I turn the stroller around and towards the street, a man on a motorcycle zooms by. I start down the driveway and he does a u-turn at the end of the street and zooms by us again.

Hooligan. I think, even though the sight has silenced Will's crying. Grow up.

I push Will in the shortest possible block and she passes out on the home stretch before the turn back onto our street. The man is sitting on his motorcycle at the corner, getting ready to kick start the engine. I'm worried that he will wake up the child, but as we rush passed I get a closer look.

He's at least sixty, sitting there on the bike, his feet clothed in argyle socks and navy blue crocs.

Um, seriously? Gramps? You are the grown-up.

No comments: