The Seat

We got the minivan so we'd have more seats. With the baby it was too hard to smash into the station wagon.

Now picture it, we have two front seats, two middle seats (one always occupied by baby) and a long back bench seat that would have been my favorite as a kid.

Now every morning there is the fight for THE SEAT. Not the front passenger seat because now death happens in that seat and airbags have taken all the fun out of the word "shotgun." Wait, maybe just another word for instant death.

Not the bench seat where you can spread out in the back and be unbothered by anyone. No, the seven year old and the five year old fight about the lone middle seat, the empty-handed pioneer on the aisle, THE ONE THING THEY CAN FIGHT OVER CONSISTENTLY.

We used to take the bikes to school but since the baby we've been slower so we take the car, and every morning there is this. Rush to get up. Rush to eat. Rush to brush hair. Someone copying someone else. Screaming. Tears. Rush to get dressed. Rush to get the backpacks. Rush to get the baby. Rush out the front door.

And there she is. The vast white minivan, perfect for undercover surveillance. The untouched vehicle, lolling in the driveway.

Then the race. Emma is always behind because she's two years younger, so she's already crying. "It's my turn in the seat!!"

Nathan has gotten to the car and opened the automatic door. Jumped in.

I already made the rule that the first person in the car has to go to the back. This stopped the running pell mell for awhile. But then they started keeping track of whose TURN it was for The Seat.

This morning it's 8:04, we have to be at school at 8:07. I am dropping the baby into her car seat as they scream at each other about whose turn it is. I adopt my schoolteacher -let's-be-fair voice that even I hate. Emma wins the seat because apparently Nathan had it twice in a row yesterday. An unprecedented coup by any judge.

We drive the one block to school as I tell them how terrible children grow up to be terrible adults, shunned by Good People and left alone to torture animals who are too helpless to get away. They seemed interested in this gleaming, future life. The one where they get to make all the choices.

At school the Seat is forgotten in lieu of tumbling out of the giant car and tumbling toward class. It's picture day.

"Mom, can I go?" Says Nathan, his hair tumbled blonde ice cream. Emma looks hopefully at me.

"Okay." I watch them run across the street, suddenly best friends, heading toward the school. I heft the baby up, the baby who is too young to know about the Seat and will soon enough be running after them and away from me.

We amble to catch up with the kids, with the fighting leaking out of my ears and leaving a trail of stress behind me. It's only EIGHT O SEVEN.

On to the next disaster.