Wednesday, October 21, 2009

A Traumatizing Event

I'm pretty sure I scarred my child for life today.

I picked her up from her sitter's house, with intentions of running a few errands with her that I thought she might enjoy. One of them, a first for her, was washing the car. I have fond memories of going through the car wash as a kid. I always thought it was pretty relaxing. I always wondered what it would be like to be standing outside of the car and feel the giant washcloths turn over you on both sides. I loved the scent of the car wax that always wafted through the air conditioning toward the end of the cycle. I remember thinking that the roof of the car would surely have permanent dents from the massive hair dryers at the end of the line. I assumed that E would feel the same way.

I assumed incorrectly. At the first sign of the huge, spinning brushes her face melted into a frown. When the giant washcloths appeared, the frown turned to anxiety. The sound of the jet-stream of water all around finally tipped her over into terror, and she started to cry. The only redeeming factor was the dryer at the end - she knows what a hair dryer is and was able to kind of equate the two, plus I think it also helped that she could finally see sunshine again.

I think we might stay away from the car wash for a while.

3 comments:

  1. Ha...I'm glad that I'm not the only one with a humorous car wash story with a child! :) Look under Aprils posts for our trip to the car wash story. Actually now that I think about it neither AG or Samson has been back since that day.

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  2. Oh how sweet and tender. I tried that once with some of mine. There is a car wash on the east side of town where you can get out of the car and let her "watch" it for a few times so she won't be so scared!

    We love the one on the west side of town now!
    It's so fun!
    w

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  3. Ok, that's hilarious! And its sad that my first thought was "i wish we had tried that to see what Graham would do." If I was still there I would definitely try it, I think I get bad mom points for that.

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