Round and round

Yesterday at about noon a snoring Cleo and I pulled into our Baltimore driveway, bringing our three-day dad-and-daughter road trip to a happy end. It was, by most standards, a relatively modest trip: we drove a couple of hours west, to West Virginia, and also spent nights in nearby Winchester and Alexandria. But, still, it more or less fulfilled a longstanding parental dream of mine - to throw some clothes (and some diapers, and some fruit bars, and some picture books, and enough equipment to provision a small army unit) in the back of the car, and to set out with the girl, to see what sorts of small adventures might await us.

A number, as it turned out. We waded in a lake, floated in a mock Roman bath, and tried out swings in the blazing Virginia sun. We dined on sandwiches at an outdoor table on the handsome Winchester pedestrian mall, split a milkshake on the Berkeley Springs green, and shared tacos at the King Street Chipotle. We saw tiny fish swimming in schools, observed a stuffed squirrel, and fended off the advances of hungry geese. We chatted with a number of Little League ballplayers gathered in Winchester for a tournament, and spent a happy few hours and a night with friends in D.C. All in all, a grand time.

Inevitably, though, the best moments on such a trip are often the ones that arrive completely unplanned. And in this case, there were a few. The teller at the chain saw repair shop offering Cleo her first lollipop. The furious drunk who staggered down the pedestrian mall, prompting Cleo to comment, 'That man need long time out.' And, too, the musical accompaniment. Cleo's now old enough to ask, with some specificity, for some of her favorite songs. As we drove south in West Virginia, for instance, I heard a small voice in the back seat, requesting Old Man Farm, or Old MacDonald. More than willing to play DJ, I put the CD in right away. But she's also old enough, by now, to offer her own renditions of some tunes. They're stripped down, sure, and so you end up with lyrics that are compressed or streamlined, as though forged in a wind tunnel: Wheels on bus go round and round all through town. And, of course, they're sung without any discernible sense of melody. And they are often curtailed prematurely, and followed immediately with a hearty, self-congratulatory yay, sometimes accompanied by the enthusiastic clapping of the singer herself. But, still, the short performances can delight - or, at least, can delight this less-than-impartial observer.

Especially when this observer had already been driving for 15 minutes, and still had 25 miles to go, and the wheels on the car were going round, and round, and round. Sing on, little Cleo: it's a welcome sound.