Streets of Bliss

You can learn a lot from your kids if you really take the time to listen and get to know them. State of Illinois law requires that Caitlin drive for 50 hours before she qualifies to get her license and it is amazing how much we talk while we’re out driving. Caitlin is, self admittedly, directionally challenged and has been known to get lost four blocks from home. However, tonight I learned her trick for figuring out how to get somewhere.

We were driving down Algonquin Road and I told her that she should turn at Quentin Road. She looked at me confused and said she didn’t know which street that was. I told her it was the one that we’d gone on the other night when we were out driving and she said, “Oh, that’s ‘Scary Creepy Street.'” Later, I asked her if she wanted to turn down, Illinois and she said, “Oh that’s, Street with the school I used to go to with the really mean teacher.”

As we talked, I realized that she’d been using her personal street naming conventions for a while and when she put streets in terms she remembered, her navigational abilities greatly improved. She pointed out that her names were meaningful and personal and that she was “embracing her inner Cherokee.” She said that everyone should have their own names for streets and that people who were really close would know each other’s names for streets. For instance, one of her friend Jimmy’s friends could tell him to “Go down the street where you rolled the stop sign and got a ticket” and they’d understand each other perfectly well.

Here are some of Cat’s personal favorites:

• Pretty street that goes through Busse Woods
• Scary creepy street
• Street of old dead math-liking guy
• Street of the fuzzy psycho dog (our street as Luke is the fuzzy psycho dog)
• Boring street I have to walk down for work
• Street with Smiley’s with the really good ribs (so I hear)
• Street with the pretty church
• Street of the million fireflies
• Parking lot to get to Meijer
• Bumpy scary street with Pepe’s Restaurant
• Barker Lane for the smokers
• Street with the Starbucks where we almost got trapped during a snowstorm (on the way to Alexian Brothers)
• Street to get to the big pet store
• Street where Sean got stuck driving to Treasure Hunt
• Intersection where the bipolar guy killed his family
• Street with Napoli’s where Jimmy takes me when he’s in a good mood
• Street that I walk on to go deposit my check
• Street that I always end up on when I’m walking alone at night
• Street with the really creepy house at Halloween
• Street with the trailer-trash year-round Christmas light house
• Street with two pet stores
• Other Kennicott that Jake drove me down
• Street that goes by the big haunted hill
• Street that goes through the haunted forest
• The first street to Grandma’s house
• Street that I know we’re almost to Grandma’s
• Street with the good sledding hill

I challenge you to spend some time really listening to your kids to get a better understanding of their world and to take some time to come up with some blissful street names of your own.