When it's just the two of us, things become clear.

On Saturday mornings, I take my second son to speech therapy.

The hospital is a bit far, a little over 20 minutes one way.

A round trip takes over 40 minutes.

Honestly, that's quite a long time for a weekend morning.

But I've grown to like this time a little.

Because for those 40 minutes, it's just me and my second son.

As soon as the car starts moving, my son begins to chatter.

"What would you do if a dinosaur came to our house?"

"What would you do if there were 100 moms?"

"What would you do if I turned into a Pokémon?"

My second son loves "what if" stories.

Even when he's explaining something, he says,

"You do it like this, like 'zoom!'"

"Zoom. Hmm, I see."

Strangely, that's enough for me to understand.

"Like 'whoosh.'"

"Like 'pew!'"

"Boom!"

Even just with onomatopoeia, I can strangely accept it easily.

I'm sure the sounds and movements are floating right there in his head.

He likes singing, too.

Some days he sings along to the car CD, and other days he suddenly starts singing a song he wants to sing.

After a while, he'll say,

"Mom? The sound is annoying, so turn it off."

Even though he was listening to it with me just a moment ago.

The ride home is always Pokémon time.

He brings the stickers he gets for working hard at therapy, having chosen them himself.

His current favorites are Pokémon.

"This one is a Grass type!"

"Pikachu is a Zappy type!"

"So-and-so evolves into a Mega form!"

He proudly tells me lots of information that I'm not quite sure is true.

I grip the steering wheel, nodding along with "Oh, really? Is that so?"

When the three brothers are together, my second son is always between someone.

Listening to his older brother or taking care of his younger brother.

I, too, tend to look at them as "the three of them together."

But these 40 minutes are different.

What does my second son find interesting?

What kind of words does he use to see the world?

What does he like, and what does he want to talk about so earnestly?

Those things start to trickle out.

It's strange, even though we're together every day.

"So this is the kind of boy he is."

When it's just the two of us, there are many things I realize anew.

Even though I see my children every day, perhaps I don't actually spend much time looking at each one of them slowly.

Cooking meals, doing laundry, stopping fights between brothers, giving baths, putting them to bed.

Before I know it, every day is spent with "everyone."

That's why I've been thinking lately.

It doesn't have to be a special outing.

A few minutes to the convenience store or 40 minutes to the hospital is fine.

If I can just have a little time alone with that child.

I'm sure I'll meet a new side of my child that I thought I already knew.

Even though I'm supposed to be taking him to speech therapy,

by the time we get home, I feel like I'm the one who has been taught a little more about my second son.