I bought a portable DVD player. Now Anissa can watch videos during "long" trips in the car. I didn't really buy it for her. It's more, I confess, to save my own sanity. See, when we drive anywhere for more than half an hour or so, I have to be "The Entertainer". And when you have a toddler who hates the car, you have to really put on quite a show or you pay an awful price and endure endless whining and crying until you feel like you want to hurl yourself out the window onto the freeway. So I thought I'd leave the entertaining to Dora or someone more qualified for at least part of such trips. And the reason I bought the device this week specifically was because I had to drive with Anissa (sans Mehdi; he was teaching) to pick up my parents at Logan airport in Boston on Wednesday night. It's only about an hour and a half away, but I guess I must be a pessimist because I always imagine the worse possible scenario (Anissa throwing an hour+ long tantrum the entire way while I'm trying desperately to read maps and follow signs in the dark with insane big-city drivers cursing at me as the drive by). The TV, I was sure, would buy me the security I needed to make it to Logan.
How naive.
By the time I arrived at the airport at 8:15 p.m., I could have swallowed a whole bottle of Gaviscon to fight the ulcer that was beginning to form in my stomach. The TV had worked its magic for the first 45 minutes or so of the trip, when it was still light out and I was smoothly sailing down a four-lane superhighway. It was when it got dark, when staring at that screen began to tire Anissa's eyes and she asked me to shut it off, that I knew this little bit of technology was not going to save me. Just as I had to turn off the four-laner and start driving into the city, she started to whine. I asked her, please please, not to do it now. To have a meltdown later, at the airport, but not when I needed to concentrate. I begged her to be happy, to give Mommy a break so I could find the airport. She tried, I'll give her that. She yelled, "Airport! Where you?", "Memere, Pepere! Where you?". But a few minutes later, when I got to the first of a series of complicated badly indicated giant traffic circles where I had to cut off various big trucks to make it over a few lanes when the Logan Airport sign popped out of nowhere, Anissa could no longer contain her frustration. She let it all out. And out some more.
It's a miracle I made it there at all. Dad assures me that in a year's time, after the umpteenth trip to Logan airport, I'll laugh that I ever found the trip difficult. But with that wailing Banshee in the backseat, it seemed like the most complicated route ever. (If you've ever seen Peewee's Big Adventure, it was kind of like the scene when Peewee is driving the semi through the mountain roads and the signs get more and more ridiculously convoluted. I swear.) As soon as we found Terminal C and Anissa was unbuckled, everything was fine and dandy. She gave Memere and Pepere the warmest welcome, and fell asleep in the car on the way home - which, along with the fact that I had Dad in the front seat to help navigate, made the trip back almost relaxing.
So that little TV is not the magic solution I thought it would be. But having Memere and Pepere here is well worth any trip.
Just look at Anissa playing the tour guide, pointing out grapes, at the Strawberry Banke museum in Portsmouth yesterday!
