ten points approaching in the rear view mirror

It is hard to express how happy the yellow car game makes me. I suspect beyond the obvious, how a 10 yr old child happily announcing "yellow car!" like an over sugar fed toddler exemplifies all that is pure and good about childhood -is the fact that I am able to witness it.

If you have kids, or drive kids, or ever were a kid, then you know the game I mean at least in its general form: spot a specific type/color of car for said amount of points. In the yellow car game cars are worth 1 point bus/trucks 10.

The funny thing is it is super good for Beach's bum eye to be searching for moving objects. Spotting sights out the car window is her single biggest challenge. It has caused more tears than all insults combined. When the yellow car game started I was pleased to find her enjoying the work. But as the days wore on I found myself looking forward to the moment she would call out the first yellow car. 
There was something very comforting about the game. Something familiar too. It was as if through the act of car spotting childhood was a feeling you could catch. I was starting to realize how much of Beach's childhood I have a front row seat for. More than with any of her brother's or sister. 

Then there was the moment we were driving to gym and the school buses were pouring onto the freeway. A whole army of points gathering like ants marching up the interstate. At each entrance more and more got on. And as Boo was racking up points I was too. 

1 pt for being beside her listening to her thoughts as they popped from her head to her mouth. 1 pt for knowing what and how much she had for lunch. 1 pt for changing the lesson to follow up on a question she asked. 1 pt for knowing what parts of her school day she struggled in and which parts she excelled. 1 pt for the half hour we laid in my bed reading picture books. 1 pt for doing math in our pajamas.

As I was adding up our day a school bus sped by us. Little faces dimmed by the tinted glass peered out. "Did I already count that one?" she asked "It's hard to know they all look the same..." 

10,000 pts for driving old little red for 3 years when I could have dumped Beach in school and gone back to work and bought myself something shinny and new to drive.  10,000 pts for second hand shopping to make one income work. 10,000 pts for bravery and standing up for what I know to best for my child. 10,000 pts to each of us for determination and stamina. 

Little red is on the chopping the block as much as I look forward to getting a new car I already miss her. Her locks are failing, the keys fall out of the ignition when you are driving, her bilker has issues, one door doesn't open from the inside, the auto windows switches are failing, my dog ate part of the seat, a cv boot is about to go... Last night was the second night in a row she was ransacked because already there is no room for her in the driveway (BC's new van). Don't worry there is nothing in there to take. We stopped leaving valuables in her after she was stolen. 

Nothing lasts forever, not the innocence of believing you will find your car where & how you left, not the parts that make little red cars go, not the thrill of spotting yellow buses, and certainly not childhood.

Little red is like the yellow car game, and the yellow car game is like Life. The how or what doesn't matter as much as the why and the who.

   

"Perhaps our next car could be yellow" I say to Beach. 

"That's just silly," Beach says, "no one drives yellow cars."