Just Added To The List Of Things I Cannot Do:

Wash a car.

Despite some pockets of free time in the past few days, I have repeatedly failed to bring the car in for its post-snow beauty treatment. Instead, I have been sheepishly piloting my hulking mess of a vehicle around town and fretting about whether or not some smart-ass teenager was going to use a fingertip to write "Please Wash Me" in the thick film of dirt.

Today, after multiple botched attempts to enter a carwash—laugh if you must, but I swear to you that every port of entry read "EXIT" and I swear, too, that at least ten of the carwash guys were mocking my ineptitude, a fact which I simple could not abide—I decided to do it myself. The sun was out, after all, so I picked Lea up from preschool and told her we had a job to do. When she discovered we were washing the car, she was all a-twitter since it's a task she often does with the SU. At home, she immediately changed into a bathing suit which was at least one size too small and, from the sad looks of it, highly uncomfortable. But she refused to change, so off we went to the backyard.

I had pulled the car close to the garage, but Lea informed me that it would have to be backed up quite a bit so the hose could reach it. By the time I was done, she had retrieved a bucket, washing mitts, Armor All, some oddly shaped brushes, and two lint-free cloths from the garage. I felt like I had a knowledgeable partner, you know? Someone I could turn to when I wasn't sure about things like the ratio of soap to water, someone to instruct me in the proper use of the mystery brushes, and someone to look at me like I was insane when I tried to use the very tiny sprayhose on the deck that is only meant to be used for potted plants.

But Lea was not, in fact, a knowledgeable carwash partner. She was just an almost 5-year-old who wanted to play in the bubbles. And I was just a woman with a bucket of sudsy water and good intentions.