topic: Hush Little Baby

Michael: Yesterday at about 4 pm we emerged from an automobile cocoon after a nine-hour car ride. We had visited Grandma, my sister, and a great college friend, which means I had to pack and unpack the car way too many times. Ugh. Packing up the car for a trip with a baby absolutely stinks.

But packing isn’t the worst thing about traveling by car with baby. The worst thing is that while riding you must do whatever accommodates the baby, which actually boils down to a list of must NOT do’s:

You may not listen to the radio whenever you want, for it may wake the baby or prevent it from falling asleep. You may not work on your travel-time record, because the baby will soil itself and no record is worth putting up with that kind of air pollution. You may not exit the highway when the baby is sleeping; for some reason babies wake up when the car stops—and waking baby from his or her nap prematurely is punishable by law in the state of marriage. Also, and perhaps most importantly, when the baby is showing even remote signs of possibly maybe perhaps nodding off (or actually sleeping), you must shut the hell up, all of you.

During this most-recent car ride, after about five hours I was trying to stay awake and so I began to concentrate on recalling the things Anne had said up to that point. She had been snoozing mostly, and so she hadn’t said much. I thought it was kind of funny. I mean, she had literally said about six sentences in five hours! Here they are:

1.) “We need to stop and get some milk for the baby.”
2.) “What took you so long?”
3.) “Guys!” (the boys thought it was ok to talk, but the baby was close to maybe kinda on the verge of perhaps possibly napping)
4.) “Shhh!” (ibid)
5.) “Shhh!” (ibid)
6.) “Shhh!” (ibid)

Once, I tried to start a conversation with Anne. Her reply to my opening remark was not actually verbal—she looked at me wide-eyed and jabbed her index finger forcefully toward the baby, who had, thankfully, finally fallen fast asleep. Then Anne pointed forward through the windshield at a clown riding in the back of a passing Ford. She kind of made a silent giggling motion, and, with a wide, satisfied smile, she leaned back, closed her eyes, and fell asleep.

Anne: