After months (years!) of conversations and shopping and weighing scenarios and dragging our feet and watching prices and availability fluctuate, we finally bought a kids car. And as our brave little guinea pig baby, Leah is going to be the first one to learn how to drive it!
It's officially the first second car we've owned- we decided early in our marriage that we wanted to have just one car for as long as possible, a 75% downgrade from my one car and the three cars that Daddy brought to our marriage. The one car scenario, with the help of public transportation and bikes, worked for us all the way through grad school and even into career years 10 years ago- Daddy's SUVs and trucks have always been provided by work (a huge blessing because he puts tons of miles and wear and tear on them in the fields) Financially speaking, we've technically been a one-car family for 19 years!
Leah has been much more comfortable learning to drive this mid-sized SUV than the family van, and I think she would agree that it has been a slow and steady learning process, filled with exciting moments and lots of smiles and some tears. Sounds a lot like life, doesn't it?
She's learning that driving is fun, tiring, a huge responsibility, and very rewarding! She's taken herself and her siblings to meet friends, go babysitting, to church activities, to the dentist, to color guard practice, and just about to every corner of a good 15 mile radius from our house- plus one trip to a few cities away in which we both watched in amazement as some fools in sports cars went zooming past us and a bunch of semis going 100+ mph.
We've spent a lot of time driving together in her car and caravanning all over town. My heart still skips a beat whenever I watch this car drive away.
She's definitely giving herself plenty of space when it comes to parking.
Although pulling into the garage can be a trick. One day she came home to my van in its spot, two additional cars already in the driveway, along with the giant grill and four missionaries taking up her pulling in space. She didn't turn quite wide enough and ended up rubbing the car up against the garage door frame and leaving it there to come inside and calmly tell me that she needed some help. It didn't cause much damage, just a rubbed mark on the rubber edge of the garage and a house paint colored smear on the side of the car door that later came off with some elbow grease and a magic eraser, but it was a great lesson in knowing when to just stop and admit that you still have more to learn in this area of driving, preferably before you hit someone or something.
Someone once told me they would rather potty train a child than teach a teenager how to drive, and I can see where they were coming from. There is so much to learning how to drive well- from remembering to shut the car off and take the keys out of the ignition (they didn't teach that in drivers ed because they were always swapping drivers!) to making sure the lights are on as the sun goes down to learning how to use cruise control, pump gas, navigating, (oh the navigation has been a joy- thank you Google Maps for having such a good app and a patient voice), parking, paying for city parking, calculating the appropriate departure time, driving the appropriate speed and in the appropriate lane (Leah does not understand why there is a speed limit if everyone is going to drive over it), always checking blind spots, navigating four-way stops and blinking yellow turn arrows and finding favorite side roads to avoid highway driving when possible.... there is a LOT that comes with learning to drive and I am so proud of Leah for showing up over and over again with a willingness to try again. She is safe, teachable, cautious and doing a fantastic job in learning all about this really big and important step toward independence.
And she's doubling trying to enjoy this car by herself for now because Adam is eligible for his learners permit in just a few weeks! It is exciting and terrifying to think about all that the kids car is going to experience over the next few years!
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