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The cool thing about living in northern Virginia is that we’re an hour and a half away from the nation’s capital and all its historic wonders. The bad thing about living in northern Virginia is that we’re an hour and a half away from the nearest airport, which coincidentally employs my mom full time and is our main mode of any transportation involving multi-states or countries. So when I have to get up at, oh let me see, 0500 to drive to the airport and then drive home and then drive back to the airport and then drive home again, it can involve, what some might say, a tad bit of driving time.

When my mom goes to work, she’s gone for three to five days at a time. Growing up, that meant we had a babysitter come stay with us for those days since my Dad was usually off touring as well. Today, it’s still the same. My mom goes to work, the kids need somebody to watch them, and therefore a babysitter shows up. However, since I moved up here a few months back, I’ve talked my mom more and more into letting me watch them instead. It saves cash, which is always a good thing, and I like it better anyways with just me and the kids.

Colton has a tendency of suddenly spouting off random phrases, sayings, and entire conversations he’s overheard recently out of the blue. It’s hard to pick up on too, because usually half of the words that tumble from his mouth are actually spoken in a as of yet untranslated Native American tongue that sounds something along the lines of, “bicabakatiktaopikadubadubada.” His ramblings honestly sound as if he’s tuning the radio somewhere up in his brain, trying to find that right frequency that will allow him to emit comprehensive consecutive syllables. Therefore, the hard part is not trying to understand the gibberish, but trying to pick up where the radio surfing suddenly turns into real words for a few seconds before racing off into the black void of twaddle and static.

A few weeks back, our mom had left for a trip early in the morning and I had a few errands to run “in town,” so that afternoon I piled the trio into the passenger side of my truck and the adventure soon began. During the drive, Colton demanded we stop talking so that he could tell us a story and off he went channeling the dead, or at least that’s what it sounded like. We had no choice but to sit there and muffle our laughs and nod along with him when finally after a few minutes, he seemed to find the station he was looking for and began issuing orders to us.

Colton: “Guys, it’s time we had a wild party.”
Goob, Juls, & Clay (in unison): “What?”
Colton: “Yep, that’s right, a wild party. Ryan, you’re in charge of the music. Juls, you need to get the disco ball. And Clay, you bring the punch.”
Clay: “Well wait a minute, what’s your job?”
Colton: “Oh me? Um…I’ll take care of Mom!”
Juls: “But Mom already went to work this morning!”
Colton: “Well, looks like my job’s done! See y’all at the party!”

And with that, he was off into his own little world again as the rest of us burst into laughter.

One of these days, I hope we can figure out where he gets half the stuff he comes up with. Until then, I’ll just sit by the radio and see what’s on.