Window up or down?

On the way home this evening it was gorgeous. Warm, sunny and the car felt vaguely hot and stuffy. I rolled the windows down.

Leif: "Roll my window up, I don't like it down!"

Skadi: "DRIVE FASTER MOMMY!"

As a parent, every once in awhile you get a very clear glimpse into your child’s future and it is one of the most amazing things to see. And then you wonder if it is real. Will they REALLY be like this? Will I be hobbling around saying, “I KNEW you would be an engineer?” or "I knew you were a wild thing from day one!"

Leif is a pretty open book. My reading of his crystal ball says he will be an engineer. He says he wants to be a scientist, but I am pushing engineer. He also says he wants to come back and work with me after he goes to college. That would be really cool and all but at age 5.5 I am also guessing he is envisioning living with us… which I will someday put the kibosh on because I don’t want him to be one of “those” guys. But I am saving that discussion for later.

The non-mom part of me hopes he finds his way somewhere else because the world is so wide open with possibilities. But the mom part of me would love to have him nearby and he would fit in well here. Right now, this is what he aspires to do. Leif doesn’t like major deviations from his routine and while he seems to enjoy traveling, he enjoys more being at home in familiar surroundings. He likes his windows rolled up.

Skadi, on the other hand, is going to be my jetsetter. She recently requested that we go to the Cayman Islands. She enjoys flipping through catalogs and magazines and sometimes gets bent out of shape if I throw away a catalog before she has had the opportunity to flip through it. “Why is this in here mommy?” she squeals when she finds a catalog in the trash. She snatched the "Pottery Barn Kids" catalog out of my hands this evening before the mail could even land on the countertop.

The other day she found the new “Food and Wine” magazine and flipped it open to the ad inside showing a family of four standing in a beautiful blue crystal clear lagoon petting rays.

Skadi: “Where is this mommy? Is this Seattle?”

Me: “Nope, it says it is the Cayman Islands. You have to get on a plane to go there.”

Skadi: “I want to go to the Cayman Islands.”

Me: “Yeah, I do too Skadi.”

Skadi: (Yelling to Hans as he walked in the door) “DADDY WE ARE GOING TO THE CAYMAN ISLANDS!”

And for a solid week we have heard about the merits of going to the Cayman Islands.

Skadi usually starts the day by telling me where she would like to go that day. Up to this point it has mostly been going back to places she has already been – Seattle, grandma’s house, the zoo in Denver. But Saturday it was a zoo anywhere, “it doesn’t have to be Denver zoo mommy, there are lots of zoos!” (Just like she has heard that phrase before.)

For the first time I get that she is understanding the possibilities of going new places, places to “explore”, places with new things to see.

Skadi is a mover and shaker and I see her traveling the world. I don't know what she plans to do for work... but her window is down whipping her hair around her face.

A few weeks ago a number of the children in her class went to China and she was ready to hit the road with them. (It also cracked me up that while these kids were in China they were blamed for EVERYTHING. Me: “Skadi who drew on the Wii remote?” Skadi: “Alex drew on the Wii remote.” Me: “Isn’t Alex in China?” Skadi: “Yes, Alex is in China AND he wrote on the Wii remote, can we go to China?”)

There has been enough talk of the Cayman Islands lately that she has AB and I craving a beach and sand too… someday.