At the car wash

Drive thru.  (Drive through? Drivethrough? Drivethru?)

However it's spelled, I am loving the concept.  Today I dropped off our dry cleaning, bought a lemonade at Panera, and got my car washed all while Eliza took her afternoon nap.  It was awesome and terrible at the same time.

Eliza's not a great napper.  She is the type of kid that needs two naps a day or else she's a hot mess by dinnertime. Unfortunately, she hates going down for a nap in her crip.  There have been maybe 10 times over the past year that she's gone down for a nap willingly; the rest of her naps have come after a fight, or taken place in the car. 

The car.  It's a glorious place where the baby is strapped down and I can sit, listen to music and sometimes even talk on the phone without interruption.  Playdates at our friends a half an hour away?  Bring it on.  Doing errands while she sleeps? Even better.

The old me, the pre-mom me, the cool me that lived in Cambridge and could walk to the dry cleaner or to the local mom and pop owned bakery would cringe at how dependant I am on the car these days.  But that me didn't have to carry around a 20 pound ball of energy everywhere. The former me didn't have a crucial two hour window between naps to accomplish a day's worth of errands and make lunch. The need for multi-tasking wasn't there.   Like most of my friends without kids, the former me just wouldn't have gotten "it".

But the new me does get it.  The car is my new sanctuary. That's why today I enjoyed every second of getting the car washed at the car wash . Sitting, car in neutral, foot off the brake, baby strapped in, watching the water spray the dash, and the suds hitting the windows and just doing nothing.

That's the ultimate drive thru experience.