A Road Less Travelled

I like to think that I am fundamentally insane; that this almost-mannered, nearly-rational persona is just a thin facade and that in reality I am truly a crazy, wild person. I have no idea if this is true so sometimes I have to do bizarre things to lie to myself- I mean, reassure myself that I am not as sane as I appear.

Because I am a full-time aunt my insanity usually manifests by taking a large amount of children to do something fun all by myself. The last crazy thing I’d done was something like taking nine children to the playground by myself, but that was a while ago. I was due for something more extreme.

It was Arianna who provided me my opportunity. She had a flier from the library advertising Fall Free Movies. I like all three of those words. There was a movie playing Saturday that she had really wanted to see and so she was walking around the house with the flier randomly pouncing at her mother who kept saying Arianna needed to talk to her father. Arianna did only to find that Seth was needed in Morton Saturday morning and so we wouldn’t have transportation. “Hmmm…” I thought to myself. “I like pizza.” And then my brain caught up with the movie dilemma and started plotting.

“So,” I said to Seth, “If I could find a ride would it be okay?”

He said that if I could find a ride it would be totally cool. My brain, which was now excited about macaroni and cheese, started putting together different facts. Fact #1- I wanted to see this movie, too. Fact # B- Free movies are lots of fun for children and grownups alike. Fact # III- There was a Lansberry van just down the street and a lone Raquel all alone with the Lansberry children for two and half days. My brain and I agreed that she probably wouldn’t have any plans to go out on Saturday.

So I hatched my plan. I talked to Raquel about using the Lansberry van to take five Ben-Ezra children and five Lansberry children to the free movie. She thought I was insane (which I really appreciated) and then we ran the plan past the children. I made the mistake, though, of running the plan past Margary because the current plan had her staying home with Raquel. She looked at me over the banister and said, “I has car seat!” Really, how can you argue with that? And then Samuel started pleading her case by very reasonably suggesting a division of labor that would have him and Moriah looking out for Margary thus leaving me free to run crowd control on everybody else. Resisting at this point was a lost cause especially with Margary being so sweet. So after Samuel and I convince Moriah that no, Raquel would not feel left out by being left blissfully alone for a morning, we synchronized watches and agreed to leave the Lansberry house at 9:15 the next morning.

We almost made it, too. It was 9:20 when the Ben-Ezra kids and I went walking down the street. Seth had left a lot later than he’d meant to so he wasn’t that far away when I called him to say I’d forgotten to get the car seats out of the van. While we waited for him to get back I divided the kids up into buddy pairs. I might be insane, but the plan did not include losing a child at the movies. Seth showed up, we loaded up the car seats and the children, and we were off.

It was a fun movie. We were watching Monsters vs. Aliens which was made by Dreamworks with all those fun Dreamworks issues so I won’t say it was great, but it was certainly fun. There were some great lines, too, though I can only remember one. The children were all very well behaved, Justice only got scared at one really loud part and Margary was only very two once. It was at a most inconvenient time, but we didn’t lose her in the crowd and she stopped crying really quickly. I then steered my charges across a parking lot to the big white van and we were on our way home.

Well, almost on our way. I’d discovered at some point during the night that the plan might include stopping for ice cream. This part wasn’t nailed down until I got in the van and realized that yes, the plan did indeed include ice cream. Well, what are you gonna do? Plans are made to be followed, right? We stopped at Wendy’s and I had the joy of ordering twelve small Frosties. I then gave ice cream to eleven children for whom breakfast was long past. I threatened the Lansberry children with dismemberment if they were bad for Raquel due to sugar highs and then delivered them home.

The Ben-Ezra kids and I said farewell and then walked down to our house. I felt a happy glow. I’d just take eleven children to the movies then out for ice cream all by myself. I felt good. I felt crazy. I felt truly insane.