Hey Nonny

The one and only car accident for which I have been responsible happened in 1996 when the family Ford Windstar collided with the garage. The stationary garage. My driving proficiency was slight and my confidence slighter, so steering the unwieldy minivan into tight spaces was more than my (limited) spatial intelligence could manage.

Maybe that's why for years I've had such an aversion to The Minivan. Though the car my parents owned and generously let me drive was clean and safe, it wasn't particularly cool, and incidentally, neither was I. After years of carpools and road trips in the back-back seat, the thought of The Minivan has converged with the smell of socks and Cheerios, with sitting by little people who have no respect for personal space.

But The Minivan has changed. Everyone I know who owns one loves it. There's the space! The doors that open with the push of a button! The re-arrangeable seating! And I've changed too, because those perks are starting to sound pretty sweet to me. The most tempting feature of The Minivan is doors that open parallel to the car. Gone would be my heart palpitations every time a kiddo shoves out the side door, precariously close to the fancypants car in the next parking stall.

By all accounts, The Minivan is awesome. And for a mother of four, inevitable. So why haven't I bit the bullet? I suppose it's part of the whole identity-as-mother/identity-as-individual balance every mom navigates. The bottom line is I'm thankful to have a car and children to fill it with. And if I do take The Minivan plunge, it will likely signify I'm becoming smarter and more practical.

That's an identity I could live with.

I recently learned from Wade, who recently learned from the internets, that we recently passed the date Marty McFly and Doc allegedly* type into the flux capacitor ("Where we're going, we don't need roads"): July 5, 2010.

*There's been some controversy over this. Research here if, like me, you can't find a more productive use of your time.

I don't need a DeLorean for my time travel. Instead, every year as summer afternoons shorten into fall dusks, I make my way up Parley's Canyon, turn off at Kimball Junction, and head to Park City for the Annual Lindsay Family Reunion. When Three Kings Drive, shrouded in hanging pots, curves behind the Alpine Slide toward the golf course, I feel like I've gone back in time.

All at once I'm a little girl watching hot air balloons with her grandma in a red sweater, a mom holding Scotty's hand has he shouts "bus!" for the first time, and a high school graduate pining for her Netherlandian missionary.

I guess thirty years of tradition can take a place out of time. But while some things never seem to change (days filled with Rook games, afternoons at the pool, feeding the ducks), for others alteration is inevitable. Families grow, people move, time passes. This year my parents hosted a Park City reunion of their own, gathering as many of their chicks as they could in a sort of family reunion 2.0.


But the biggest change this summer was Grandpa's absence. Since his passing in June, we've missed his booming laugh, his chocolate malts, his loving tributes to Grandma--but somehow in Park City those things were there, too. I thought of him so much at the Alpine Slide, where every year (in his aversion to heights) he chose to wait at the bottom and cheer us all down the hill. He always watched most anxiously for Grandma, the fastest, gamest octogenarian in a sled.

And that's how I imagine Grandpa now, standing in the twilight at the end of a long journey, waiting and cheering and supporting his family on to a place and a time out of place and time, where our past and our future are bound up in eternal love.

What a family reunion that will be.

Although it’s pretty much delightful, I didn’t always plan on life as an M.O.B. (Mother of Boys). I wasn’t totally prepared for the noise, the dirt, or conversations like the one the other morning wherein Wade and T stood in the kitchen and explained to me the finer points of pee splatter.

But one thing I’m learning to count on is that little boys like to make big plans.

Image from here.

Saturday is Scotty’s favorite day of the week because he can count on a binge of Japanese Anime and going to 7-11 for Bug Juice with his dad. He gets up, makes his bed, and gets dressed in a fraction of the time these tasks usually occupy. He saves his favorite shorts for the occasion. He hesitates when he gets invited to a birthday party on a Saturday afternoon. The kid’s a creature of habit.

T’s plans are more spontaneous, but more involved. This morning we had to practice jumping off his bed and pantomime swimming for when he becomes a sky diver. Every few days he puts a new concoction in the freezer, usually one involving layers of peanut butter, and which I am severely chastised for cleaning out. The other morning he required my watering can because he was making a swimming pool for the ants—and after spending a few hours luring them with cracker crumbs, he had quite a colony ready for the plunge.

For months now, we’ve all been planning a big camping trip. We used it as a bribe to get the kids to eat healthier food. We had a chart on the fridge where we tracked our “superfood” servings for a month. Wade (the master planner) made reservations for 50 campers at the Spruces. We bought eggs and watermelon and plastic food storage bins. Scotty and I practiced dumb camp games and silly songs.

And we had a great time . . .

But in the middle of our second night—after Johnny woke up four times, Thomas battled intermittent night terrors, and Wade quelled Scotty’s panic attack over his swelling bug bites—Thomas sat up, belched, and barfed all over the tent. The second that acid hit the mountain air, Wade said decisively, “We’re going home.”

So we abandoned our plans, along with our camp, and at 3:30 wove our way down Big Cottonwood canyon, vomit punctuating our journey. After his third purge, T said weakly, “I think I’m sick.”

“Nothing like a little barf to ruin your appetite for camping,” I whispered to Wade.

“What do you mean, ruin?” Scotty asked, “This is fun!”

T chimed in, “Yeah, when can we go camping again, Dad?”

So we’re recovering and making some more big plans for another camping trip, later this summer.

After the sleeping bags get back from the cleaners.