Laser Efficiency Mini Van Dad
Last night we traveled to her Mom's house to pick up a bookcase for our living room. We (by we I mean Janine) took our current bookcase apart and fashioned it as a TV stand. So we were left with a large stack of books. During our trip home, I had the brilliant idea of finding a parking spot near the Diamond with our bookshelf in tow. After finding our spot, we left our exposed SUV to find a spot to watch the fireworks.
We noticed later before the fireworks show a van parked in front of our vehicle. Near this minivan was a father and what had to have been at least six children raging from ages two to ten. We both did a double take not because of the ratio of children to parent, but because of the tight and organized positioning of each child. It appeared as though the Dad had taken a small set of bleachers from the van and assigned seating for each child. Each blonde offspring appeared to be sorted by height, age, and by gender.
More amazing was realizing not two seconds of earth time after the last explosion, this Dad had successfully managed to pack every child back into this van and was pulling away. I imagine with that many children, I would still be trying to pack those children into that van, even at this very moment! We are both still puzzled and hope science can help us one day solve this mystery.
It was fascinating. That kind of parenting is rare, especially in Richmond where the parenting style we're most accustomed to is the semi neglect, full on screaming approach taken by many local parents including my own at times. We can all only strive to be so blazingly productive with anything much less than a van full of very young children. So hat's off to you, Mr. Laser Efficiency Mini Van Dad, you live the American Dream.
