Are we there yet?

Toward the end of a twelve-hour car trip, my four and a half year old son asked what is arguably the second-worst road trip question of all time ("Are we there yet?" being the hands-down first, of course). It's a very close second, though: "How much longer?" I assured him we had only about an hour to go. Satisfied, he returned to his reading.

(A small aside here: Charlotte's Web is my new favorite book. Fully four hours of peace and quiet in the car as he read it cover to cover...Thank you, E.B. White!)

Just a few minutes later, he piped up again. "Has it been an hour yet?" Though he can tell time, his sense of how much time has passed is far from fully developed. I told him no. "Has it been half an hour?" Again, no, not quite.

Then, my single favorite moment of the entire drive: "Well, has it been the other half hour?"

If only.