I scream at the ice cream truck

Well, it's not a great day outside today, but I did hear the ice cream truck a few days ago and spotted it at least twice last week. I suppose that as long as the warm autumn weather holds I'll be seeing more of it for a while longer.

I used to love the ice cream truck. Shortly after moving to this city six years ago I spotted one and was so excited that I chased it down the street like a six year old, with all the glorious memories of my care-free youth rushing back to me. The last time I had seen one before that was probably when I was six years old. They disappeared sometime after that. At least from the suburban Montreal neighbourhood that I grew up in.

I lost my taste for the soft serve treat during the summer I was pregnant, after I read somewhere that it could be unsafe due to risk of bacteria. Kind of like soft cheese or deli meat, or hot dogs from a sidewalk vendor - you just really never know how clean the stuff is. It may have been paranoia, but better safe than sorry when you've got a baby growing inside of you, right?

I had a cone or two last summer when Lauren was very little, but now that she's more aware of the things around her and has developed a sweet tooth, I've been avoiding it again. All she knows is that it's "the truck that makes music." I haven't told her that it's a truck filled with her absolute favourite treat that drives around the neighbourhood, and that someone inside will fill up a cup or cone and even put a cherry on top and hand it to you right there on the street. I would never hear the end of it.

My avoidance tactic was working just fine until about mid-summer when the truck took up a route that went down my street at precisely 8pm, parking two houses away - music blaring. I could have screamed. The bedtime routine of a toddler is a fine art that can go very wrong with the slightest distraction. The last thing a parent needs when they've finally got their child settled is temptation in the form of vanilla and chocolate goodness right outside the bedroom window.

This went on for a few days and on each occasion I would shut the window until the truck finally took up a route on another street. Maybe other parents of toddlers complained. There are a lot of young families on my street and I'm sure I wasn't the only one trying to get their kid to sleep while ice cream was being scooped up outdoors.

Maybe I underestimate my daughter. Maybe she wouldn't be tempted by the music and would understand that we can't buy ice cream every time the truck goes by, as tempting as it is even for me. She does get that sweet tooth from me after all.

Anyway, I'll test out that theory next summer. This year it will simply be known as "the truck that makes music."