"Are we there yet?"
"Stop touching me. She won't stop touching me."
"Stop touching me. She won't stop touching me."
"MOM! She won't stop touching me and now she's copying me."
"MOM! She won't stop touching me and now she's copying me."
I see mom studiously keeping her eyes on the road. She is not remembering trips like these from when she was a kid. She has three hundred miles behind her, and another three hundred to go, and the fact that conversations like these are going on in cars all across the country is the last thing on her mind. She is tired, but she is excited, because although one door is closing and she has all her worldly possessions and everything and everyone she holds dear in this SUV with her, another door has opened halfway across the country and for once, she is going to take a chance and RUN, not walk, toward opportunity. She is not running from something, she is running TO something.
"MOM."
"MOM."
"MOM!!!"
"Don't MAKE me pull this car over!"
But they did. I saw them on the side of the Interstate. Mom, boy about twelve, girl about nine. Had it been me, I'd probably been leaning over the back of the seat swatting at little legs and screaming at the top of my lungs and making them sit on their hands for the next hundred miles. Not this mom, though. She calmly got out of the car, got the kids about 20 feet from the road, and made them start doing calisthenics! Jumping jacks, running in place, pushups. I had to pull over on the other side of the interstate to watch in awe as she WORE THEIR ASSES OUT. No switches necessary for her.
I wish I knew who she was. I'd nominate her for Mother of the Year.
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