“If...you give a moose a muffin…..”
“If...you give a mouse a cookie….”
“If ...you give a dog a donut…….”
“If...you give a cat a cupcake….”
To these popular and well loved titles by author Laura Numeroff, I would suggest an addendum, lacking perhaps in alliteration, but leading to an equally logical chain of incremental links:
“If ….you give a boy a Road Atlas…”
Especially if that boy is Levi....
If you give a boy a Road Atlas, he will tell you the next exit. And the exit after that. He will ask you if you’re in Kansas...and a little while later, he will ask you if you’re still in Kansas…
But...he’s just checking on YOUR navigation, because if you give a boy a Road Atlas, he will know how to read the map. He will keep you on your toes, inventing new and intricate routes to your destination, particularly if these routes include cities or states he’d really like to drive through. It can be difficult to stay excited about I -70 across Kansas to Denver….
“If...you give a boy a menu, he’ll order a cheeseburger..”
If you give a boy a cheeseburger, he’ll ask if there’s barbeque sauce.
Especially if that boy is Josh....
This makes meals with Josh both the easiest of times and the hardest of times. Steak houses, burger joints, even Mexican places can be relied upon to have something satisfactory on the menu. Given his preferences, credit Josh with a generosity of culinary adventurism the evening a sudden Vail thunderstorm drove us into the only place that would seat a grandpa, a grandma, and six kids….a German restaurant with an empty second floor.
“If...you add kids to water, pretty soon you have ….fun.”
Kids in ankle-high water moccasins wading through the busy brown water of the Colorado;
kids bumping over the waves in an inner tube.
Kids tippy toeing over the rocks across a mountain stream;
kids skipping stones and heaving sticks;
kids building towers in the middle of the creek;
kids washing pebbles and putting the prettiest ones in their pockets to carry home….Kids, rub a dub dub, half a dozen of them, escaping the mountain chill in the hot tub.
“If…. someone asks what a belly flop looks like…..? ”
Trust me, Josh is your guy. Not only that, but the ensuing splat will be a 10 point 0 on the Richter scale.
“If you give a kid some money, he’ll need a souvenir….or a snack!” Refrigerator magnets are a family tradition; Levi is captivated by Abbie’s Colorado Flag magnet so we make a trip to the gift car on the Leadville & Colorado Southern excursion train.
Because breakfast that morning was early, Gabe and Aaron need a root beer….Gabe is on a growth spurt and has spent most of the trip hungry. This is why we have a snack bag at all times....
Josh, despite remonstrances from his older brother, buys a pocket knife on the train. This is a grandparent sponsored trip and Josh has his own money, so the likelihood that this pocket knife will follow past souvenir pocket knives into the kingdom of lost tools is irrelevant. (At last report, the train pocket knife was not yet lost, even though the recent move from rental to new house may have altered that status: in this case, entirely understandable!)
Aaron broke even on the trip: one College World Series hat became someone else’s souvenir in Eagle, Colorado. It is replaced by one carefully considered cap purchased in Vail.
Not thirty seconds after the conductor on the train cautioned everyone to hold tight to their ticket, Lizzie, leaning out the window to take a picture (with, thankfully, her camera on a lanyard!) watched her ticket flutter away under the train’s wheels. She turned to me, aghast, crying out, ‘I’ve lost my ticket!’ Of course she did! Fortunately, our receipt proved she was accounted for...though this particular blond headed conductor did not look the sort to leave a little girl beside the tracks, 142 miles from Denver…..
The grandparents did their part: six kids got into the rental van in Kansas City, and six kids got back out four days later. During those four days, no one got hurt (really), no one got sick, (well, just a little), no one fought or argued (except when they were really really tired). The cousins were considerate and kind to each other even during the long drive there and back. They helped their grandparents, and they helped each other. I’ll never forget that.
Nor will I forget drying towels at all hours, the blessed luxury of a washer and dryer for six kids and two adults, Blake bringing back frozen pizzas the night we arrived and how we attacked them like they were gourmet, not just DiGiorno. No, no one wanted to sleep with Josh...or Gabe...or even Levi, (snoring? kicking?) but it all worked out with the bonus of a bedtime story or two and the chance for this grandma to “tuck in” all her kids…
There was no time to read, no time to use our phones...except to take pictures to send home! Time was the present and that was busy enough....
There was no time to read, no time to use our phones...except to take pictures to send home! Time was the present and that was busy enough....
For a week afterwards, I woke up feeling I should count noses….
And “If"….I could do it all again, I would!
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