In Which We Drive to Wednesday Night Youth Group

I think it's safe to say that I now somewhat understand my parents' bemusement when driving in the car with me and my best friend when we were teenagers.

This being the unusual school year that it is, what with Covid and all, my kids are finally back in face-to-face school for the first time this year. How-some-ever, Wednesdays are designated as deep-clean days at the school, so they're collectively asynchronous learning across the board. Which, of course, is something I forgot this morning, so we all got up at 7 a.m. 

Oops. Mom fail.

"Where are we going?" Youngest asked, when I prompted them that we had to leave in five minutes.

<headdesk> Oh right. No school today. Asynchronous learning.

Right. Moving on with our day.

For me, that meant laundry and watching a couple of episodes of The Grand Tour with Hubby and laughing until I cried. For them, it meant Chromebooks but not tablets. And hopefully breakfast and lunch. And asynchronous schoolwork.

Along with every other kid in the district today...including their besties.

Thus, this is how my house became overrun with teenage girls this afternoon.

Youngest's BFF showed up before 3. Middle's BFF arrived within an hour and a half of that. 

Silliness ran amok. (Amok, amok, amok, amok.)

But there's three new loaves of pumpkin bread because Youngest decided to bake. There were tunes strummed on Hubby's ukulele. There were happy shrieks. (You never question the happy shrieks.) There were embarrassing photos taken of all four of them, I think. (I got shown.) Embarrassing, I should point out, only in the point of view of the subjects. I thought the photos were nice. Pretty sure the squirrels got scared out of our yard, because it hit a balmy 56 today.

Somewhere in the middle of all this mess, I got asked if I'd be able to take them all to youth group tonight. Well, me plus Middle plus Youngest plus two BFFs equals five, and that's how many the car holds, so...of course.

I herded everyone out of the house at 5:30 so we could make a quick detour back to Youngest's BFF's house to pick up her phone charger cord (First World problems). YBFF was riding shotgun, after some dispute with Youngest. I tried calling shotgun myself, but when Middle couldn't tell me which pedal made the car go, we decided that letting her unlicensed (and un-taught) self drive was a Bad Idea. That settled, and YBFF still solidly holding on to shotgun, everyone piled in, and our trip commenced. 

Now, Youngest wanted to listen to Home Free, a choice I don't usually disagree with because I am the one who turned my children into Home Fries. However, my current favorite a cappella playlist holds several other groups, so I asked if Youngest would compromise with my Home Free and VoicePlay heavy playlist instead. She likes VoicePlay too (corrupt your children with your music choices!), despite an early difference of opinion on the subject ("They're not as good as Home Free, Mom"), after which I was proved right (oh, yes, they are).

So. YBBF up front with me. Youngest, Middle, and MBFF in the back, in that order, from left to right, with Middle appropriately in the middle, and her BFF behind Youngest's.

I skipped The Clef Hangers' cover of Ed Sheeran's "Castle on the Hill," because, as we all know, Home Free's cover is superior in every way, only to have the shuffle on Spotify launch that very song next, to my great amusement.

That was the last sensible thing I understood about this ride. Because, as we all know, I am just the chauffeur here.

I would love to tell you I understood half of what was going on in my back seat.

That would be too generous. 

I am aware that it involved lots and lots of giggling and my middle child tucking her arms up inside her sweatshirt like ... well, I'm not sure I can give you an appropriate animal substitute here. I am also aware that some intense seat-dancing was involved, and thus being caught by passers-by. (Mortification and motionlessness ensued.)

What I do know is that, at some point during the ride, YBFF said to MBFF behind her, "You know your hair is out the window?"

She knew.

They'd been running around outside and were hot. They said the house was eighty million degrees because they were hot and Youngest was using the oven (it was 74; I checked). They had the windows down. It was nice out; I didn't care. I was concentrating more on watching my speed through the particular stretch of road I was driving; it's known for Trooper Traps.

That's when Middle says it.

"I'm gonna dinosaur-pinch your face!"

Even as I told myself to liberally apply Rule #2 here, because I really don't want to know what that means, I am also dying of curiosity to know what a dinosaur pinch is and what it looks like.

And to know whether she said that to her sister or her BFF. (I'm thinking it was the latter, because of who was giggling most.)

I've also gotta find a way to use that line somewhere.

I spent the rest of the trip repeating it to myself so I could text it to my husband after I dropped them off, so I wouldn't lose it, so I could have this blog post tonight.

Please, can every Wednesday night be like this?