The Way Life Goes

Now that the rainy season has installed itself in earnest there’s an additional layer of aggravation to this gig called Parenthood. Mostly, it has to do with wardrobe issues.

Claire won’t wear a hood, Wynham has put on a sweater and windbreaker with his shorts and flip flops, and Chloé, well, she’s a fashion crisis unto herself. Picture the wooly boots and jeans, so far so good, but that’s topped with a tank tee and a light cotton cardigan and she is NOT going to wear that hideous poncho, even if it came from Ann Taylor.

Then there’s this insanity that takes over the drivers on the morning school route. We’re supposed to be teaching our children the simplest common courtesies, but you’d never know it by the way these folks are behaving behind the wheel (No, honey, that man was not waving hello).

While I’m sitting in the kindergarten car line considering all this, Claire says, “Why is there a big line of water down your window, Mom?” I explain that it’s where the windshield wiper stops. She wants to know why they don’t go the other direction, so the line isn’t right in the driver’s way. I marvel at her observation, and tell her that maybe she should be a car designer when she grows up. She replies, verbatim, “Oh, leave that to the silly engineers, Mom. I’m going to be a horseback-riding veterinarian. That’s just the way life goes.”

Although I question the need for such a broad rationalization for her narrowly defined prediction, I smile at the bigger message. When it comes to the inconveniences of parenting in the rainy season, well, that’s just the way life goes!