Call It What You Want...

As much as I hated it, I had to strap an adorable little boy back into the carseat today for a trip to meet Daddy at work to sign papers for the new mortgage.

We wanted to have him sign the papers, too, but considerate Mommy provided him a pile of toys from his backpack to play with instead. What did he do? First indicated there might be a pants problem by pulling a clean diaper out of the backpack and playing with it. (Daddy fixed it once the papers were signed.)Then he wandered around the room to check out the electrical outlet and slobber on the window. (Wonder how long until the window cleaners notice that?) Was a good little boy, doing his thing.

Then it was time to get back into the car. And the poor little boy, after a little over a week of lots of time in the car, rebelled. He screamed his sharp, piercing little scream. He arched his back. We got him into the seat, gave him a kiss, and shut the door.

And he started to cry. And scream. And scream. And cry. And shriek. And scream. This continued all the way home. His favorite CDs (feathers and Do-Si-Do from Kindermusik) have wandered out of the car after the trip. The pacifier that usually lives in the backpack and was used on the trip had made a dive yesterday out of the car and onto a rather excessively dirty garage floor for me to clean it by sticking it in my own mouth, and so was waiting for a dishwasher bath. Even his favorite radio music from when he was (really) little (hard rock) didn't sooth the savage beast.

He screamed for 45 minutes solid. You'd think it'd have worn him out enough to fall asleep, but no. That kid's got some lungs on him. I finally decided that if the music wasn't going to make him feel better, I'd just listen to something I like and turned on an Aengus Finnan CD. At least when I could hear it over the shrieks, it was nice. Quiet and calm. Like I said, when I could hear it.

Back home, it was straight to bed (not even a story). And please not the car, not again, Mommy. So we didn't go to the store. Daddy did it later (bless him).