Dear Fellow Shoppers at our Local Friendly Small Supermarket,
Let’s talk about car-park ettiquette. That parent and child space? It’s for a parent, and their child. Not for your flashy big BMW with stupid England flags attached, or your massive rustbucket white van, or your Audi A6 filled with ski equipment and a dog- it’s quite plain that none of the cars have so much as seen a car seat.
My son is eighteen months old. He isn’t capable of walking safely across a busy car park, he’s simply too little to understand that he needs to hold my hand until we’ve crossed the road, and not flop down in the middle of the car park because he has to hold my hand, and to not have a screaming fit because he has to walk where I want him to. Most eighteen-month-olds are, well, pretty much exactly the same. I imagine that’s why the car park designer put the spaces where they did, not because parents are too lazy to walk an extra couple of yards like you appear to be.
When my son is asleep, or in such a foul mood that I won’t consider letting him walk, I need to put him in the sling, or the pushchair. For this, I need somewhere safe to stand, like, you know, additional space around the car? Or a safe footpath nearby? Know of any spaces like that? Oh yes, your twatmobile is parked in it.
And when I ask, politely, if you realised whether was a parent and child space (when you clearly did), please don’t deny that it is, and you’ve parked like a complete dick. A simple “Oh, I’m sorry, I’ll move the car” will suffice. But only if it’s followed by you actually moving the car.
So, if you don’t move, and I happen to drop by the customer service desk on the way in, I can’t promise that someone won’t come and clamp your lovely, shiny motor. I can’t promise I won’t happen to take a photo of your car parked in the parent and child space, and name and shame you on the Internet (well, I’m a photographer. Breaking rules is an interesting topic for me.). And I can’t promise, especially if I’ve had to squeeze into the standard space beside you, that my car-loving son won’t come and leave enthusiastic grubby fingerprints all over your paintwork. And I can’t promise that if he does, I’m going to be particularly keen to stop him.
Are we pretty much clear?
Ta.
David climbed into his car seat in the front of my car today and tried to do his straps up.
“Go, go, GO! Vroom, vroom, vroom, vroom, GO!”
“You want to go for a drive?”
“Des. Vroom!”
I turned the key in the ignition.
“Hooray! Go, go, GO! Vroom!”
…and off we went.
I adore having a toddler. Expecially one who loves driving as much as I do.
Here’s my entry for Tara’s Gallery this week. Apologies for spelling and grammar, I finished writing at 1am.
Before David was born, I was determined that, whether I had a boy or a girl, they would play only with gender-neutral toys, wear any colour of the rainbow they fancied, have their hair however short or long was practical. Any baby boy I had would definitely play with dolls, and equally, any girl I had would play with cars. As a child I rarely played with dolls (I much preferred animals!) and when given the choice of a Barbie or Hot Wheels Happy Meal on one of those very occasional trips to McDonalds, it was the Hot Wheels car every time.
Reality hit on the 23rd December 2008, when David Charles made his way into the world. The midwives in hospital commented on how he slept like a teenage boy (he was incredibly difficult to wake to feed) and was a lazy breastfeeder, which apparently is typical with boys. Almost every item of clothing we’d been given was blue, and hell, I was too sleep deprived to argue.
He was ridiculously early with his physical development, and the most chilled-out baby you could ever meet. He was also a good sleeper, a good eater, and just a joy in general: all things that I’ve been told are “typical” of baby boys. He wore blue, people bought him boys’ toys, and I didn’t argue: we just went with the flow.
Now, as a toddler, he might have a fetching purple nappy in his collection of fluff, he has clothes in all the colours of the rainbow (thank you, H&M!), and he is starting to grow a mullet, but does he play with dolls? Ha, ha, ha.
He is obsessed with anything with wheels, or a motor, or a horn, and he shuns activities like drawing in favour of cars, cars, and more cars. It doesn’t matter whether the cars are his toys on his garage, or Daddy’s Triumph Herald, or my Seicento, it’s “car, car, CAR!!!!!!” almost constantly. He calls his buggy his car, and would spend hours playing with its wheels. He points out cars and buses and fire engines when we’re out and about, and a police car with blues and twos going is the MOST EXCITING THING IN THE WORLD EVER.
This may, of course, just be because his parents are both car people. Chances are, it probably is. His other obsessions are washing machines and hoovers, although I reckon it’s probably just because of the noise they make and the great ride-on potential of our hoover.
Still, I can’t help feeling that we’ve encouraged him towards gender-neutral toys only to turn around and find that he is a Boy with a capital B, and there’s absolutely nothing we can do about it.
And, anyway, a boy and his daddy and a toy fire engine are incredibly sweet.
As is a small boy sprawled out on the sofa playing with his cars:
