Backseat blues
Jasper has wonderful godparents.
Carolina’s
best friend from childhood, Virginia,
and her husband Mattias,
a Swede, live in Burlington, VT.
Since Jasper was born, we’ve not made the trip down, despite it being only three hours without traffic or hell at the border.
Unfortunately, when the little man was an easy passenger – his first nine months – we didn’t have sufficient papers to cross the border. Or life got in the way. We had visitors from overseas. Matti and Ginny were already coming to Montreal, or doing something else. And so on.
Until, finally, we made plans for last weekend. Everything was packed, including the ‘essential’ passports, in which Jasper looks his cutest despite the curse of passport photos affecting every other being on the planet. We strapped in our son and pointed the car southwards.
It seems that a trip to Montreal is an acceptable duration to be in a baby seat. In fact, it wasn’t until the laughably lax border crossing, featuring America’s most laid-back border guard – he asked a couple of questions, but didn’t even ask to see our passports! – that Jasper became restless.
In-car stress levels were not exactly helped by Carolina being forced to drive, due to my ban (see previous Gazettes for details), until we realised that I am banned from driving in Canada, not the entire planet. So we swapped seats, which unfortunately Jasper mistook as a sign that his interminable journey was over.
It’s only about 40 minutes from the border to Burlington town centre. That feels like a long time when one’s son is whining, complaining, struggling and throwing away anything you try to distract him with in a fit of pique.
We made many promises to ourselves before we became parents. Some of those included the decision to avoid disposable diapers, forgo rear-seat entertainment in our car and never give into Jasper when he’s being a brat to get his own way.
Recent research concludes that the best purchase for your children’s safety in a car is a DVD player, as it keeps them quiet and still, allowing the driver to concentrate on the road. The jury is out on the virtues of disposable vs reusable diapers, due to the energy spent keeping terrycloth clean of bodily wastes.
As for tantrums, there are sometimes mitigating circumstances. Being strapped into a backseat for hours should count as one of them! Sleep well.
