By Esther C. Baird
First Published in the Beverly Citizen. June 1, 2006.
We’ve had a week of June now and it’s started off soggy, but I’m hopeful. At least we are done with May when we squished around like so many human raisins, wet and shriveled and increasingly crazed to the point of madness. What to do? How to entertain toddlers and children through weeks and weeks of unending rain? When the coloring books are all colored and the play-doh is smushed into every crevice of your house, when you’ve built so many forts you have to dangle from your ceiling fans just to cross a room, what’s left?
In the middle of the flood I snapped. Despite all the warnings not to drive, not to leave my house, not to strap our children to rafts and send them off down the street, I packed my daughter into our car and headed for a play-date. I wanted to see something that was not my living room; a face that wasn’t my unshowered one, in pajamas, after three days. Half way up 97 north I hit the inevitable ‘Road Closed’ sign.
I stared at the body of water that stood both over the road, and in the way of my sanity, while one of my daughter’s CDs played ‘I’m A Little Teapot’ for the trillion and twelfth time. I seriously considered how I might jettison myself across the rising water when I noticed a cop alongside the road glaring at me with a look that said he knew exactly what I was thinking. He slowly lowered his window and stared at me. I slowly lowered my window and stared back with, what I hoped were, loving-mother eyes. Eyes that showed that I was only trying to look out for my child’s best interest by driving around like a madwomen in the third biggest flood of the century. We stared and listened to my daughter yell out key words. “SHORT! STOUT! HANDLE! SPOUT!” I’m not sure, but my eye might have started twitching.
He growled, “Lady, we’re in a state of emergency. Get back to your house, the road is closed.”
“TIP! OVER! POUR! OUT!!!!!” Crashed over the back seat.
I grinned maniacally, possibly a wee bit twitchier, and replied, “Well, perhaps you haven’t noticed, but I have a state of emergency in my own car that will only be relieved by getting to my play-date.”
The conversation didn’t progress well from there. The cop looked at me in such a way that snapped me to my waterlogged senses. I weakly asked if there were any other roads I could take, and he just kept glaring. I drove home. More forts. More play-doh. Endless, endless, endless hours of Sesame Street.
And then there was the day I broke the rule I vowed I’d never break. I took my daughter to the Liberty Tree Mall and let her ride the coin operated cars. I’d always viewed those cars as blots on society. Loud, mechanized, tacky, germy cars in dark malls – – I could never understand the appeal. But after rain day number twelve, and the 200th reading of ‘The Purple Crayon’, I got it. I realized a universal truth: sometimes all you want in life is a bench, in a mall, where you can stare, glassy-eyed, at miles of beige tiles while your child goes crazy in a coin operated car. Want to get in the horrible Barney car that jiggles and sings? Great. Want to lick the steering wheel on the space car that 50 other kids have touched? Go for it; see how the other cars taste too. Anything to kill time. Anything.
Not that I was alone. I could feel the collective support (and exhaustion) from all corners of town. The Beverly’s children librarians endlessly re-shelved the books, puzzles and games that were strewn everywhere by rain-crazed children. The deli personnel at Stop-N-Shop handed out a zillion extra slices of free cheese to the kids of frazzled, wet moms. And, as long as the roads were passable, Great Harvest Bread kept their free, bi-weekly, sing-along sessions. I think every mom in Beverly packed into the delicious smelling store just so their kids could be entertained by someone other than them. Turned out it was Brian Doser, a local, singer-for-kids guy, who happily and effectively shouldered the load of children who hadn’t been outside in about a month. His musical theme was, ironically, ‘You Are My Sunshine’. By the end of May, most kids forgot what the sun was altogether, but at least we could sing about it – – we could dream about it.
Everyone pitched in and looked past the tantrums and wet socks of Beverly’s bored children. It was a nice feeling, but not so nice that I hope to replicate it. Here’s to June, may the play-doh rest in peace.
If you have any suggestions or comments about The Baird Facts please contact Esther at: esclaw@hotmail.com