In The Fast Lane

In my life without Lisa, a few things have not changed. 

When it was time to teach the kids how to drive I assumed the responsibility.  Lisa started out taking charge of it with Abby.  However, it quickly fell back in my lap.  Lisa just didn’t have the patients for it and they both usually wound up at the house in tears.  Of course, I didn’t have a choice when it was Matt’s turn.  When it was time for Matt to start driving I was on my own and I needed to get Matt driving so that we didn’t need to depend on others to transport him.

Thankfully, Matt took to diving a lot faster than Abby did.  I tend to think it’s just a boy thing.  Of course, all the riding he had done on motorcycles and tractors probably gave him a bit of a leg up also.

Since we live in a very small town, our kids tend to learn how to drive in very non- congested areas.  They don’t get much in the way of challenges when they start driving.  For the most part, they drive on roads with a 45 mph speed limit.  The biggest challenge they tend to face is passing a tractor while on the way home from school.  If things are really tuff they might need to negotiate a four-way stop at the same time as another driver.  The only problem with this is when the kids want to hit the interstate and drive down to the beach for the first time or run over to Atlanta on their own.  It tends to freak you out a bit since you know they are not nearly as good a driver as they think they are. 

This weekend I allowed Matt to try driving on the interstate.  He wants to drive to my brother’s place in Jacksonville this summer.  So, I thought it was prudent that I not let him do it on his own until I had supervised his ability myself.  With that in mind, this weekend we went to Jacksonville for a couple days.  Matt drove most of the way and did just fine.  In fact considering my constant nagging and criticism he did pretty a great job.

Another hurdle crosses successfully!