I caught myself humbugging the Ice Cream man today.
I look at him so much differently now that I have toddlers.
I heard him driving through our neighborhood exactly 5 minutes into naptime and cursed him under my breath.
"Damn Ice Cream Truck!"
I felt bad sounding so bitter. But I can't help it! I knew what was going to happen! I had just settled into a peaceful house, that is, until I heard the faintness of the music and knew it was going to be over. Because my three year old was going to run out of bed and run to the window to listen to the Music Truck go by. And that would be it. Naptime over.
Yes, around here we call it a "music truck". My 3 and almost-two-year-old still believe it's just a truck that drives around playing music. They haven't a clue it also serves ice cream (and how absurd it would be that a truck would drive around for the sole purpose of playing circus music). But I am going to keep it that way as long as possible until the jig is up. But for now it's not, so it's a "music truck."
But the music truck always comes exactly 5 minutes into naptime and then again about 30 minutes after the kids have gone to bed.
So that my children hear it, wake up, want to go see it and then do not want to return to bed. Because all they want to do is listen to the music while it drives around our neighborhood, and the neighborhood next to us and the one behind us and the one over there, where the music is still faint, but a little three-year-old's ears can still hear it. He will listen until it has completely disappeared and gone away and if ears could squint, that's what he'd be doing just to listen until its very last second.
I realize that after lunch around 1, and after dinner between 7 and 8 p.m. might be a better time for the Ice Cream Man to, perhaps, sell some ice-cream and I sympathize with the fact that he's a business on wheels in probably a very difficult economy for ice cream trucks and probably even more difficult as it'll be cold out soon and no one will want ice cream because they'll be busy drinking hot chocolate, but still. These times really don't work for me. And forget about it when the kids realize it serves ice cream!
And when I see you at the park at whatever event my city is throwing, I have to physically hold my legs to keep them from walking over to you and yelling at you for driving by my house after naptime and bedtime because I already have to get up and lead my son back to bed a hundredty times a night and that other few just because of the music truck makes me a very special kind of crazy. The kind of crazy where you think you have a hold on things and then some unnecessary disruption in the force happens to make it so that you, indeed, do not have a hold on things.
!!!!!!
(Pulling hair out!)
I remember in my 20's I had a party at my apartment and the parents of a toddler came to my door and knocked and asked us to be quiet. And we didn't. Because we ruled the world. And they came up again and pleaded, because their toddler couldn't sleep. And then they called the police.
I so get that now. This may, indeed, be a musical karma driving around.
When I have to lay in my toddler's bed on a random Friday night in which there is no holiday whatsoever but for some reason there are fireworks and it sounds like World War Two outside and I have to snuggle with him until it's over while we listen to it, I get it. Loud cars with their radios pumping and the bass thumping, driving by my house waking up my kids. Believe me, I get it now. Unusually early landscapers... Oh yes. I get it now.
And I'm so sorry, parents of toddler, for being such a jerk. I promise, I really do get it now. So much so that I actually curse the sweet little innocent Ice Cream man and his tiny circus-song-playing truck.
But Ice Cream Man, if you're reading this, do you understand why I might be annoyed? Yes? So could you just do me a favor and skip our neighborhood for, oh, the next 6-8 years? It's mostly old people anyway! And they don't really like ice cream from ice cream trucks anymore. I never ever see the old people lining up outside waiting for the Ice Cream Truck. So, head over back to the park where all the kids are and where you can hang out and play music at all times of day and night. Thank you. I appreciate it.
And have a nice day!
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Sunday
The Music Truck
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