boys will be boys or how fast can a pregnant woman run

There was a time when no one wore seatbelts and little children stood in between the driver and passenger seat to have a better view of the road ahead. I also remember holding an infant while driving to keep them happy in the car. I am sure the practices of those days would now have us turned in for child abuse or something like that. I think one of my favorite memories was piling into the back of my dad’s pickup truck after a base ball game and heading to the dairy queen three blocks away. There were enough of us that we had to fight over the best seat, which was sitting on the tail gate, flapped down, with your legs dangling over the pavement. The memories of those balmy summer nights were so sweet. No wind, fireflies lighting up the outfield, and the tail lights reflecting off the hot road as you rode along.

The laid back days of my youth led me to be a pretty laid back mom, so 20 +years ago this story wasn’t so outrageous as if it had happened now. I was 9 months pregnant with my third child which would put my two boys, ( butch and sundance) at 3 and 5. They were doing their thing in the back seat of our little hatch back and I had to run into the garage quick to see if they could put new tires on the car. I turned the car off, removed the keys and yanked up the emergency brake. They were happy with their little matchbox cars so I went in to talk to someone. I was strategically parked so that I could see them the whole time and because it was summer I could leave the windows down for ventilation. I waddled up to the desk to ask my question and as I did the lady behind the counter was pointing outside in the direction of my car. I turned in time to see my little silver two door rolling backwards out of their parking lot and down a slight hill into a grassy field. I didn’t know I was capable of running that fast but I booked it out of there and raced alongside for a while, as much as a 9 month pregnant woman can race, the car definitely had the advantage. The baby took the lead and looking like a weeble wobble, I was thankfull I didnt go rolling down. The boys were laughing as if this was a ride at an amusement park and thought all this was quite funny, so they didnt do much about me yelling for them to pull up the brake. I finally managed to reach in and grab it to stop the descent, huffing to get my breath I looked up and noticed that on the other side of this grassy area was the one ramp to a hi-way. Cars had stopped and I had attracted an audience; the people in the garage were also running behind me trying to help this ginormous prego catch her runaway car. I got in, all the citizens went back to their lives and I drove my car back up to where it belonged and out of there. I did not go back in for tires............ I think I said I was too tired from all that running.