As one of the more common breeds of spineless parents I am a huge fan of giving in the demands of my two-year-old. She’s an F5 cyclone of a girl full of wildly fluctuating emotions and I’m the house made out of straw.
Once upon a time, there was a brave mother and father who decided to maneuver three suitcases, one backpack, two car seats, one Pack ’n Play, and two young children—including a cranky toddler—all the way to Disneyland.
Two minutes. Are two minutes too much to ask? Two minutes to talk with a grownup without having to worry about you? But no. I take my eyes off you for two lousy minutes and next thing I know you’re huddled under the slide, sobbing like somebody stole your cupcake.
We are driving home from dinner at a friend’s house one evening when our four-year-old, Sawyer*, who loves music, spontaneously breaks into song. “I gotta big butt, I gotta big butt . . .”
Breathing is difficult today. In the waiting room we sit, my sick four-year-old and I. For a w.hole nineteen minutes now the paper-white silence has been punctuated by the cold of the man a.cross from us.