Let’s just make it a Funny Friday Renault Alliance Trilogy!

 

We had that car FOREVER!  It became the “junk car” that dad drove around town so as to not tie up the family van.  It was also the car that we used to search for our runaway dog in so many times that she would recognize its “sound” and would come running to get in for a ride. SMH…..

 

A few notes about our home:  

I have always left our inside front door open during the day.  I felt that signified that we were home and was more welcoming to folks if they wanted to stop by to visit. I know the Jehovah’s Witnesses always liked it.  Also, the driveway to our house is quite steep then levels off to two flat parking spots.  It is a bear to navigate in the winter weather.

 

Long around 1998-99, we had two kids in school all day, a ½ day kindergartener and a toddler.  A lady in our church, who watched her grandson on a regular basis, needed someone to babysit for him.  He was the “stair step” in age between my two at home.  No problem – bring him over.  He had been at our home many times and our kids played together at church regularly.

 

As a SAHM, I rarely sat around and watched TV and ate Bon Bons.  I had a household to run, laundry to do, dinner to make, homework to be prepared for, not to mention whatever activity I was responsible for at church that week.  Add to it two GS troops , cub scouts activities, PTO activities… I rarely had time to sleep let alone “Bon Bon”.

 

The activity level at our house was always high.

 

Outside swinging, playing in the sandbox, climbing in the fort,. Inside making a train with the dining room chairs, making a fort with furniture and sheets, pretending the dog was a horse (bless her heart… no wonder she would periodically run away – she needed some alone time!) and playing whatever “toys” interested them on that particular day. After all, our house was decorated with “Early Toys-r-Us!!

 

As the afternoon progressed, the kids had been playing great, they had lunch and were back to playing with the wide assortment available to them.  At this point in our life, we had a playroom in the basement – we typically saved bedrooms for sleeping and quiet activities – so the three of them had been “all over the house” playing.  

 

I was in the kitchen.

 

I might also mention, that I was never the mother who actually played with my kids.  I worked around the house – they did their thing, I did mine.  That is not to say we didn’t interact regularly- we did – it is to say that I felt it important that they be able to be independent. We were all close by, I just didn’t mandate their playtime.

 

I was in the kitchen.

 

At some point, the worst possible thing for a parent happened.  

 

I realized that it was too quiet.

 

Yup – you parents know what I am talking about!  You say to yourself…”What are they doing?” “Where did they go?” “When was the last time I saw them?”

The hunt was on!  I looked in the living room. I looked in the basement.

 

I am calling all three of their names!!!

 

I looked in the garage. I went into the back yard.

 

NOTHING!

 

I come back into the house and head toward the stairs to check bedrooms – even though they know that is off limits.  Mostly because I cannot see or hear them up there.  As I walk past our open front door, I catch something out of the corner of my eye.

 

OMGEEEEE….

 

Our Renault is  across the street, with its back end embedded in the neighbor’s huge shrubbery!  How in the world did that car roll down the driveway????

 

Then I see them… and what I see are three very excited small children in the front seat of the car, waving to me as if they were in a parade!  

 

WHAT???

.

How did they get out the door and in the car and then get that car to roll down the driveway, across a very busy main street in our town?

 

I may have failed to mention that the car was a 5 speed.  

 

Apparently, these three thought they should go “play” in the car and then thought it would be fun to pretend to drive. So together, at least the older two, one of which was the child I was babysitting, were excited to use the stick shift and the clutch – working as a team.  Funny how it “popped” into neutral and the car began its descent down the steep driveway, picking up speed as it went, across two lanes of traffic on what is usually a very busy street, jumped a curb very near to a fire hydrant and came to a stop in the middle of the neighbor’s shrubs. I can’t imagine the squeals of excitement that ensued! I have no idea how long they had been sitting in the car….

 

Years later, they tell me it was a pretty exciting ride!  

 

I bet!

 

The rest of the story is a blur of running back in the house for keys, running down the driveway and across the street to the car, driving the car out of the shrubs, across the street and back UP the driveway.  Then ushering children into the house amidst a lot of “what do you think you were doing” and “you never play in a car” conversations.

 

This is when I received my “Mother of the year”  award.

 

 

 

 

A short time later, my young guest was picked up by his grandmother (an over protective one at that) and you can bet your life savings that I NEVER said a word to her about this adventure in my little black car!  And I never will…