Carrie Link

ABOVE AND BEYOND


So Rojo has been obsessed (is there a stronger word than obsessed?) with the ice cream truck for many, many, many, grey-hair creating years. He takes a short break from talking about it between the months of November and February, then it's back up for grabs. He plays various ice cream truck songs on his keyboard, on our piano, taps and hums them while he eats his breakfast, plays them on a recorder, kicks the breakfast bar to the beat of them when he eats his dinner, sings them in the car, listens to them on YouTube, loudly and repeatedly, on and on and on and on.

I've got "Do Your Ears Hang Low?" and "The Entertainer" coming out my ears.

"Mom, where does the ice cream truck live?"

"Is the ice cream truck coming to our house today, Mom?"

"What time is the ice cream truck coming to our house today, Mom?"

"Is it going to be hot today? If it's hot today, will the ice cream truck come to our house today, Mom?"

I'm going to go ahead and conservatively guess he asks an ice cream truck related question, twenty times a day. Every day. For eight months of the year. For at least the last six years. Not a mark on him.

So on Sunday we were walking back from the park/neighborhood school playground, and we ran into a friend of mine. She has a child on the spectrum, and although our boys don't know each other, we know all about each other's boys. You know how that goes. Rojo asks her, "Did you see the ice cream truck at your house? If you see the ice cream truck come by, make sure you tell them to come down to our house. Don't forget. Promise you won't forget."

"Well," she says, "you know my boys have a lot of food allergies, so sometimes I get the kinds of treats they can eat, put them in an ice chest in the wagon, and we walk around passing those out to the neighbors."

That's all it took.

"Mom? Can we go to Mrs. F.'s house and get ice cream after school? Can we go to her wagon? Can we just go there right after we pick up Woohoo and just go straight there and get ice cream?"

Relentlessly

So Monday I e-mailed Mrs. F. and asked if we could swing by, and would it be possible that Rojo give her a dollar for something she had in her freezer.

She e-mailed back and wanted to know just what it was he liked, what was the exact song he preferred the ice cream truck to play, etc.  When we pulled up to her house at the designated time (3:45), she had the wagon all out, had made a big sign to put on the outside, displaying all the kinds of treats they had (and that she'd driven all over town shopping for) and as we got out of the car she grabbed her i-Phone, pushed "play" and out came "Do Your Ears Hang Low?" WHO DOES THAT??

Then, because she'd created a monster, and the weather here is down right wintry this week with unbelievable rain, she has taped the sign TO HER CAR, and driven TO OUR HOUSE, three days IN A ROW at Rojo's preferred ice cream eating time.

And she even lowered her prices, $0.05.

But truly, those popsicles and that friend? Priceless.