Chip and Dale Designs

CARTOONS WILL NEVER BE THE SAME

Everyone with kids knows the joys of long trips with kids in a car. To a kid, anything over 10 blocks is a long trip. Out of town car rides are long dark adventures. The constant cries of Are we there yet, I gotta pee, or Sean is touching me, make traveling such a delight.

 

                                                     

When our kids were infants, we could double wrap them in diapers, strap them into car seats, give them a sippy cup and we were off. Once they outgrew the car seats, pet taxis worked well but then they outgrew those crates as well. Of course we did get some stares when we would stop at rest areas and took the kids out of their crates for walks on their leashes.  But hey, other parents did it too!! 

 

                                                  

Now we have tried to make traveling as entertaining as possible for our kids. We would play educational games such as the alphabet game, license plates and state capitals, road kill bingo and so on. My husband would regale the kids with stories about the historical significance of areas or about local  crimes and monsters or some other such trivia.

 

On this particular trip, we were traveling along Interstate 70 through the mountains of Colorado. I was driving and hubby was taking in the scenery.  Mountain driving in Colorado is always tricky, what with other careless drivers, critters such as elk, long horn sheep, deer and bears, plus the numerous falling rocks and landslides and the occasional avalanche in the winter.

Amber was sleeping soundly in the back seat, the drugs having finally kicked in. Sean was stirring restlessly, so I suggested we play a version of the alphabet game, using the name of a cartoon character for each letter of the alphabet. A- Adam Ant, B- Bugs Bunny, C-Casper the Ghost, etc. etc. etc.

Things were going fine. We were winging through the alphabet and the miles were whizzing by. Cartoon characters were reviving childhood memories of hours in front of the television. Then it was Sean’s turn. His letter was Y.

 The letter is Y. I got one yelled Sean. “YOSODOMY SAM!”

 

 

Like I said, driving through the mountains is hard enough. Now I am laughing so hard I am crying. Tears are streaming down my face as I hurtled down the interstate at 70, okay 85 miles an hours. I can’t even see the road. My husband has his head sticking out the window and he is gasping for breath. His ears are flopping in the breeze.

Sean is sitting innocently in the back seat asking “What? What? What is so funny?”

I finally regain control of myself. A quick glance in the rearview mirror showed that I only ran a few cars off the road. Hubby pulls his head back in the car and regains his breath. He looks over at me and congratulates me on not wrecking the car.

I am thinking I will never be able to watch a Bugs Bunny cartoon again, especially one with poor old Sam in it.

Then hubby says he would really, really like to see that cartoon. And the laughter started all over again.