Thursday, June 23, 2011

Yesterday I Sat Next to my Daughter......

in the passenger seat of the car.  Wednesday, June 23, she drove a car for the first time.

Traumatizing? Not really. We never left a remote corner of Lake Bluff. Though we were close to backing into the ravine at one point.

Emotional? Completely. My daughter took one those giant steps toward independence. Crawling and walking were disconcerting for me, but I figured I had longer legs.

Then she learned to run and she ran a lot faster than I could, so catching her was out of the question, but she still  needed me for food and tuition.

She learned to ride a bike but was content to stay within a couple miles of home.

She started driving school this week and began developing a skill that even without money will let her get at least a tank-full of gas away from home - nearly 350 miles in Mary Ellen's Audi. She refuses - so far - to drive my Lexus, because "it's too big." If I can get her into it, we're down to 280 miles.

She's excited about learning to drive. I'm worried about her learning to drive. I know she'll do fine, but the road is filled with people who drive like . . . . . . . . me!

So far most of her driving has been with her mother.  This weekend, I'm going to start teaching her how to drive our Jeep - a stick shift.  It's important she know how to drive a manual transmission.

And the Jeep is slower giving us a better chance to catch up with her should we accidentally leave a full tank of gas in the Audi.

Stay tuned.

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