Things overheard while riding a unicorn
I was floating on a giant unicorn in the lake, tethered to the dock with a bit of rough rope.
My book was making weird indented marks on my sunscreened belly.
Whenever I need to escape from a cottage full of rumbly, loud, no-longer-kids, this is where I head. They know not to bug me unless it’s to holler down the hill to inquire if I need another vodka and iced tea. The giant unicorn isn’t something brought on by that vodka; it’s a huge inflatable I bought my sister because I wanted it. You can hit the Googler and get one. I highly recommend it.
The kids themselves — seven of them — had been in the lake earlier and were now making lunch. As much as I love listening to them (they’d been towing an inflatable down the lake behind a canoe, and announced they’d invented Canuber), the silence was welcome.
It wasn’t silent for long. Our cottage is on a tiny lake with few cottages. You can’t see the cottages for the trees, to mangle that saying, but sound carries across the water and bounces off the rocks. We usually only know who has sold by the change in dock action; all of a sudden, a place that had rarely been visited is teeming with children. We’ve owned ours for 46 years, and I still see myself in the little ones who think they’re inventing cannonballs, finding turtles or building a fire.
As I immersed myself in whatever book I was reading (cottage tradition; hit the used book store in town, buy up all the westerns), I realized a dad and two little ones were out on the dock around the point from ours. A boy and a girl, maybe 8 and 6, were chatting to Dad as he treaded water a little way from their dock.
“Why don’t you guys get floats and come out here?” he asked them.
“Is it lunchtime, Daddy?” “Sure. Do you want mac and cheese, or tomato soup and broccoli?” he asked them.
“Mac and cheese!” yelled the older one.
“I want tomato soup and broco-leeeeee,” sang his sister.
I smiled into my book, the gentle breeze pushing the unicorn in another direction now.
“Why is it you two can never agree on having the same thing?” asked Dad, still treading.
You all know what a bossyboots I am. It took everything in me not to offer up a comment. I may have 20 years on his parenting experience, but there is no answer to this question. I remained silent, listening.
“I wanna come in the water, Daddy,” said the girl.
“OK, come on. Swim out to me,” he told her.
“I want you to come get me.” She stood at the end of the dock, so cute I wanted to volunteer to throw her on the unicorn and take her for a ride.
“Honey, people aren’t just going to come to you every time you want them to. The world doesn’t work that way. How about I meet you halfway?”
We got our cottage when I was near the age of these two. There is little that small children are allowed to do on their own up here; if they’re near the water, you have to be with them. They can’t ride bikes down isolated lanes because of bears, and the fact that you can get lost in a few minutes. The last thing you want to do is plunk them down in front of a TV, even if you have one, so you end up treading a lot of water while trying to pass on life lessons.
I hope they’re up the next time I am. I’d like to meet the man who encourages his children to meet him halfway.