This Car Brakes and Blinks--Teen Driver

I would like to personally thank the senator that passed the new bill with stricter mandates for teen Oklahoma drivers--particularly the idea that all upcoming drivers must attend a driver’s education class.  It’s probably a good idea that all teen drivers are required to know how to drive before they set off on the state’s highways. 

But, now I have a 15 ½ year-old and I’m disconcerted to find that the new law applies to us.  In my brain Joy reminds me of the freedom of having a teen driver but Fear and Anxiety put up a good fight.  Finally great memories of those teen yearnings win out so we're driving.

I am told over the grapevine (my teen’s peers) that she must drive six months before she can apply for a license, and that to drive she must get a learners permit. We go to the licensing division, and dream of driving while standing in an hour-long line inching forward until we reach the sign on the wall that explains the forms and documentation we should have had in order to even qualify to stand in the line.  Oops.  I drive home and we return with a minimum of information, proof that her school offers drivers ed., proof that she is alive, (birth certificate) and proof that she is a citizen of the United States (a social security number),  we again rejoin the line with other kids her age and compare notes with them.  “Is this all we need?”  They aren’t sure either. 

She makes it through the gauntlet and takes a written test (computerized and multiple choice), and misses three, which is almost the limit I’m told, by the guy ahead of me who has taken the test four times and missed six and who has finally decided to study for it.  Yay!  She can drive! 

Then I ask the examiner when can she drive, what time of day, and with whom?  The examiner doesn’t know, she tells me to ask when we walk across to the tag agency, where we will pay and get her permit.

But when we do that, they don’t know there either.  So, here I am, with a new teen driver with no experience and a brand new permit ready and roaring to go.  Rumor has it, again through the grapevine that she can drive anywhere with anyone over 21 in the front seat!  That’s all she needs to know!  She’s off.  Which is the gas pedal again? 

Sometime in the near future, she hopes to get her driving permit, so eventually she’ll have to show up at some driver’s education class and the teacher will attempt to undo the mistakes I’ve panic-drilled into her brain.  It may take years of deprogramming to correct those mistakes. 

As she wings around corners and I stomp a hole in the floorboards, I wonder how the new laws have made the roads any safer? 

We turn into our driveway at 25 mph, plow over the front flower bed and screech to a halt two inches from a stone pylon that holds up the south end of the house.

Maybe someday I’ll look up the law and see what the bill maker really intended,  but until then, this car brakes, turns, and blinks for no apparent reason.   We’re driving. 

P.S.  Can I get a magnetic sticker for the back of my car that says, “Warning: Passenger Driver?” 

                                                           2005

...afterbirth

From the beginning, most couples set out with an advance plan for the size of their family. It is a novel idea, but in our house I show up pregnant and the husband feigns shock and swears he had nothing to do with it. The birds and the bees fly in the face of bio-logic to him, which is good or we would be childless and wouldn’t that be tragic? How could we bear to miss out on all this?

Journal,
Yes, we’re expecting again. As I hand him the pregnancy test, I ask him to say something nice that I could put in a baby book. He doesn’t. Love, Baby and me

But, that all changes when the child arrives. The babies shoot out and the husband catches them in an underhand sweep and attaches them by carabineer to his backpack. From birth onward, he is the do-it-all-dad. The quicker the baby hikes, bikes and runs, the happier campers the two of them make.[1]

Journal,
It doesn’t matter that the first is a girl. She’s outside mowing the lawn in the baby backpack by three months. So much for the delicate little princess, she spent yesterday helping dig the front water main break. She’s a six-month-old mole in the hole with him, grinning and chewing through the dirt pile, as usual. Sigh, T.

Reality Bite: Dirt and motor oil are teenage boy bait. I could use that threat with the Father to get the daughter back.

[1]The grammar guru gave this get-up a go.

…change

He likes them once they’re here, so why is it that when the initial announcement is made, all he can do is sit akimbo on the back patio staring, mouth agape and repeating a disbelieving dirge, “No! No? No!”

It may be that he is better than I am at visualizing the big picture—the commitment, the dedication and the expense of introducing another human being to the food chain, and like most of my project ideas that I promise will bring added improvement to our lives, i.e., remodeling, landscaping, and vacations, he seems to understand better than I, that even a tiny, cute, little bitty change, can result in a great big chunk of change.

Journal,
As the little one gets stitches again, the next eldest brings home demerits for reading above his level during play time at school again and every indication is that he will require a more specialized educational chunk of change.

The eldest is looking for monetary handouts for her myriad of activities, and I break it to him gently that it’s time for more change.
Tee hee, T.

The husband is the same person that plans in meticulous detail each day of a vacation and evaluates consumer recommendations for appliances before purchasing. He is one of those people that advertisers hate because he listens, watches and takes the time to debunk the hype of car commercials. He’s the one individual in the whole entire nation who really compares insurance … quarterly.

I am the opposite. The only time I spent longer than forty minutes evaluating something, I married it. Advertisers love me because the nostalgia of the music draws me in and I’m easily convinced that heavy metal is directly related to fiber. I am ever so much more likely to buy anything if they promise it will make me feel better in the morning.

Journal,
People have children for a myriad of reasons, sometimes even for a specific humanitarian purpose—like bone marrow donors.
I’m doing that. I’m giving birth to children for a purpose… to have them act in my stead in wrestling matches, camping trips, ski trips …
And I’m going to keep on having them until it works. Until they have worn him out. T.

In spite of the husband’s cautious attitude on change, I consider the challenges that come with children as an opportunity to raise my risk ratio—to increase my tolerance levels and my sanity threshold.

I'll ride this wave of childrearing, never stopping long enough to worry about the weather conditions or potential wipe outs. As any surfer knows, the bigger the wave, the more exciting the ride, and for the job of parenting, a mild degree of universal craziness is just an added bonus.

Reality Bite: Yeah, ‘cause you know, if it’s not totally fun, and like … totally exciting, then I need to quit and like if I’m going to quit, I might as well have fun. It makes perfect sense and all the sudden, I’m just like … having total fun. (This is a direct quote from a surfer magazine, dude.)

…cramp

Journal,
He tells me, “Honey, three is it! That’s all. There will be no more children for us. You cannot afford to lose any more brain cells.” T

The loss of brain cells really begins long before the actual birth. The marked decline begins at conception. It’s easy to imagine that it’s primarily due to the concentration of bodily functions that must align and cooperate to arrange all those little cells in the pattern of a tiny human body, and as a person who rightly should have been named Hap Hazard, I think we’re in trouble.

Journal,
With this pregnancy, I am unable to learn or to remember most things. I’m shockingly absent minded and lackadaisical. This is not like me. I am usually so ordered, meticulous…
Okay, so there was really not that much of a change, but enough for him to notice anyway. So…? T.

Hobbyists that build trains or ittybitty mansions in minute, exacting detail know how difficult it is to work on a 1/8th scale. Creating such a tiny being with such precision is a real study in concentration. That explains my lack of functionality during those nine months in every other aspect of life.

Journal,
I could sleep 20/7. The remaining four hours could then be dedicated to nonstop eating. That’s the sum total of all I’m good for.
Munch, munch, snore, T.

Fortunately, a functioning brain is unnecessary for the first few months after birth, as one is just a nocturnal cow in a cave, doing nothing more than feeding and sleeping. By the time a modicum of grey matter is required, (to decide which outfit matches baby food best,) the cells remarkably regenerate and I can function again.

Along with the loss of brain function, the husband is averse to altering the familial equation for another reason. He’s run the numbers and evaluated the percentage for error that comes with parenting and he knows the odds are against us.

Journal,
My friend’s son is a basketball player and she has learned that with one child you can double-team your defense, and when the second arrives, that puts you one-on-one. But with the third, suddenly the tables turn and you have to work with a zone defense and seasoned players know that this defense is never successful long term.

On the bright side, my friend did calculate that a two to three parent/child ratio, guarantees that at any one moment, one child is guaranteed to feel the outcast and be disgruntled and that can make up for a lot. T.

...reboot

Unlike computers, children don’t degrade with each and every use, instead they thrive on attention. In fact, a built-in attention-getter feature called an I.P.G. (ingrained programming glitch) comes standard on each of these little human mechanisms.

Journal,
I’m convinced that computer programs are designed to automatically upgrade themselves until they fulfill the Peter Principle. They progress until they crash. Those computers that lie dormant really have a longer period of workability than one that is ever turned on … There is no control, alt, delete to reboot children. All it takes is one big unplanned crash of any type where the hard drive gets scrambled and then there is no data retrieval. When the messages become garbled and mixed, there is no downloading the upgraded version. …if there were a sliding scale that estimated the number of days a computer could safely be used before it crashes, we would know upfront what we were getting into.
Ah, ha… Suddenly I’m get it. Duh, Terina.

But, unlike computers which reach maturity and are abandoned, the end product of good childrearing has infinite potential. That’s what I’m in it for, the payoff at the end. I want to be in on the cutting edge of innovation, not just the new and improved version, but something mind-blowingly inventive that’s never been seen before--an extra-ordinary individual. When the husband signed on knowing the level of difficulty, he could have warned me.

Reality Bite: Filibustering or stunned silence—either can prove to be an effective debate tool.