Keep it cool for her
I'm on my way to a friend. It's winter, one of those snowless ones. Everything around us is gray, brown and everything that is in between. Our wives have a night out, so we thought our kids could play together while we have some time of ourselves. Packed my then two years old daughter and off I went. To get to my friend I had two routes, first is short, but goes above the mountain. Second is much longer as it goes around the mountain. I make sound decision to take shorter route thinking to myself "What could go wrong?".
Everything goes smoothly. Daughter is having fun listening and singing along to her favorite hits blasting through the radio and I think of a coffee I'd be enjoying with my friend in couple of minutes.
Out of nowhere I start to see a snowflakes on my front windshield. Within blink of an eye, the worst blizzard I've ever seen emerges. 20 minutes later, everything goes from gray and dull to stock image of winter. Even roads are covered with at least 10 centimeters of snow.
Near the peak of a mountain, just at the last uphill climb, car slows downs, but revs higher. I never left my foot of gas. Then Steering wheel becomes useless. I slip. My car spins 90 degrees and stops across a road. Perfectly to block it in both directions.
Kids notices something is off, either by looking outside of a window or by looking at my face. Both are telling.
"Hey, our car had an upsie!" I say as I try not to pass my fear to her. Car won't move an inch, wheels slip no matter what I do.
"I will just check if car is, ok sweetie?" Hand break and I get out of a car to assess how deep in shit I actually am. As I step out of a car, it slides a bit down. I quickly jump back in.
Or maybe not. My facade that I have this under control wears off. I don't know what how kids do it, but she immediately picks that I begin to panic. She's visibly nervous.
Can't go up. Can't turn around. What do I do, what do I do. Time of decision is quickly dwindling as daughter is at a brink of crying. I cannot let her cry that would be too much for me. I decide to loose breaks a let car slide a bit down. Maybe there will be some traction there.
"Okay sweetie, we will go back a bit." I tell her. Maybe to calm her down a bit. Or maybe to calm myself.
"Hey, I think our car needs a little help. Let's cheer of it so it can make it! Go car! Go car!" I chant to encourage her to chant with me.
We both cheer cheer car as it slowly slides downhill. Then, traction. I can steer. I can move.
"Yaay car! Good job! Let's help our car a bit more" I encourage daughter ever more as car begins to gain traction.
"Yay car!" she tells with a smile.
I turn around and continue with that longer route...
To this day my sweetie reminds a story where we cheer for a car and it made it move. "We help it!". Oh yeah, it did help. It did.