Week 35: Why my son won't get his license until he is 30.

I started driving alone when I was sixteen years old. Obtaining my license was effortless. I took a class at the local public school, passed with everyone else and exchanged my grade at the DMV for my permit. Maybe authorities will tighten things up in Delaware eventually, but this process probably dates to when the entire state was one big farm. I subsequently got in three dangerous car accidents in the next couple of years, totaling three different cars, as well as numerous fender benders. My friends were forbidden to allow me to drive their cars and I was kicked off my Dad's insurance policy (by the insurance company). I'm now a big proponent of changing the driving age to 17 or 18 (or, for my own children, 30).

Let me clarify a couple of things. It did not take much to total the cars I drove back then. I mean, banging out a ding could cost half the price of the car. Unfortunately, most of my accidents were not dings.

The first car I drove was a Ford Aerostar, a mini van handed down from my Mom after she got a new car. I could pack a lot of friends in that thing. Once, after leaving a concert and playing in the rain, I backed into the side of a pick-up truck. We could not see any damage in the rainy darkness, so we left. Stupid teenagers. I then pummeled the car into the side of another pick up truck, at which point it was totaled.

Next, my Dad took me to buy myself a car. Before I made the first payment I made a left into a busy intersection when my turning arrow was red. A Queen Victoria (is that was those boats were called?) hit me so hard I did a 360. Bye- bye Plymouth.

I went without a car for a long time after that and walked the two miles to my job at Borders and classes at the community college. I then decided to take a cash advance out on my credit card so that I could buy a car. (This was not a sound financial decision.) I shelled out $800 for a two door, 1988 red Ford Tempo. It was 1999 at the time, so this was no snazzy car. I'm not actually sure it was snazzy in 1988. One day, on my way to visit Dave, I was sandwiched between a truck and a Jeep. The one victory is that this accident was pinned on one of the other drivers. For a change.

Enter baby Festiva. I bought this car from Merry, who sold it to me for a very modest price and a "hope it keeps running for you." Oh did it run. About a drop of gas would get me around town for a week. The best, er worst, memories with this car are when it was the only car Dave and I had between us. We weren't married yet, which made car sharing especially interesting. Something had gone wrong with the pick-up in the car and it crept up even small hills at 15 mph. Oh, did I mention that by this point the muffler had self-destructed? We took turns dropping and getting dropped off at work. Our jobs were over an hour apart, so at the end of the day the lucky driver always had a severe migraine a mouthful of choice words. Eventually my Dad gave us his Hyundai when he bought a new truck and we bought a Toyota from somebody at work. I will always remember the day we drove up the first hill in that Toyota ... we cheered as the car quietly maintained its speed.

Last month we bought our very first brand new car. A family car. It runs so well. It has a sunroof, heated seats, a 6-CD player and an effective muffler. Remember the Honda commercial with the tag-line, "What will you think about when you don't have to think about the car?" It's like that.

My driving record has been good for several years now. I think I needed to grow up a little. However, on Christmas my Dad reminded me that on the back of all of his insurance policy cards there is clause that deems the policy invalid if I am the driver.


PS – My pregnancy is still great. The baby is due one month from today! More on that soon.

Week 35: Neighbors

Week 33: Tired

I'm tired. I feel pregnant. We took the youth group to the Palisades Mall yesterday. I cannot imagine what the Mall of America is like because Palisades is enormous. We took a few photos of kids wiping out at the ice skating rink, bought our very last Christmas gift at Spencer's and had all-American fare from Nathan's (worldfamous) Hotdogs. I found a smoothie booth where they made me a perfect seltzer-with-lime, my maternity cocktail of choice. Spencer's had an array of Family Guy stuff for babies, including a bib that said, "Damn the broccoli!" which I wanted to buy but thought maybe we will not put the word damn on our baby. They also had a onesie with a picture of Stewie saying, "A little help here! It's not going to change itself!" but at $20 for a single onesie, we left it at the store. While the boys played lazer tag, the girls browsed Claire's and Forever 21 (which I plan to return to when I'm not pregnant - I loved it in there!). I actually sent them into one store alone so that I could sit down a few minutes. Yeah, like old people do. I guess it's about time I feel pregnant.

Week 33: Shower Power

I was the center of attention as our friends and family got together to give us a ton of baby stuff over the past two weeks. We had one shower in Delaware, where I grew up, and one here in New Jersey. It was like Christmas for spoiled brats.

There was one striking difference between these showers and my wedding shower (which occurred a brief twenty-one months ago and I remember that I wore a pink sweater and my bangs were in my eyes and I was a ball of anticipation). The gifts were not really for me. The clothes won't fit me, I don't want to drink from the bottles and I'm so over pacifiers. When I realized this, it hit me; I was not the center of attention, my belly was. It was the baby that everyone was so excited about, not me.

They (psychologists, of course) say that there is a period in adulthood where we develop either a sense of generativity or stagnation. Generativity is often a biproduct of parenting in which we develop a focus outside of ourselves and an interest in seeing growth in the community and in our own families. We do not maintain the focus on personal development as strongly as when we first stumbled out of our parent's house and tried to become a self-sufficient adult. All of this psycho-babble (yeah, I went there) to say, it hit me recently that my focus is going to change. I think it has already started.

I saw a frightening scene at Toys R Us last night. A four-year-old girl rode in the back of a shopping cart, jumping in and out as she found things she liked, humming and talking to entertain herself. She appeared oblivious to her mother, who was ranting into a tiny cell phone, "Well you tell him that was the deadline and I cannot do anything until he signs that contract! ... That's the way it is, I was there all night working on it...(insert stereotypical workaholic lingo here)." This went on for a while and the only interaction between the mother and daughter was this:
Daughter: Oooh! I like this!
Mom: Put it back! Santa has to have something to give you, you can't have everything you want right now!

I took a mental snapshot of the scene and filed it under Who I Never Want to Be. Come on, you're shopping with your daughter. Turn off the phone and shop with her.

I can feel my focus broadening, or, (may I?) dilating. I want the best for our family and that includes more than the narrow focus of mybestinterest. So let the generativity develop and I will hang up my cell phone and respectfully thank you on behalf of my child for all of those wonderful gifts (you bought for him).

Week 32: Hope

I know that you will change me
In the night when you call my name
I will get to know you and show you
How to trust and how to hope
I just want you to see all of the beauty
But I hope I let you grow up naturally

You be a baby, be a saint be anything you want
I’ll be neurotic and complacent at the same time
I won’t restrain you but I’ll contain you until
You’re big enough to protect yourself
From some of the bad and some of good and
I hope I let you grow up naturally

You’re just a tiny thing right now
You always remind me that you’re there
With every plan and pain and outgrown shirt
With the new car and the new dreams
You’ve already changed me
I hope I let you grow up naturally

Week 32: Five Things

At Karen's request, or, in bloggish, at her tag I am going to list five things that few people know about me.

1. I found a site on which you can upload your photo and it finds your celebrity look alike. The site said that my 90% match is Stephen Chow. So, that's one thing that few people know about me. I look just like an Asian man.

2. For years I was confused by the signs that read "No Littering. $50 fine." I thought it meant that you could not litter, but you were allowed to leave money. I could not understand why anyone would want to litter with money.

3. When my sister Jessica and I were around 10 or 11 we were flashed by a boy about our age. We were playing at the Widner University baseball field near our house. A boy yelled out to us, "Hey, look over here!" And pulled his pants down and up quickly, but not quickly enough for us to miss something we had not seen before. We ran screaming all the way home.

4. I performed on television when I was fourteen years old. I was with a performing arts group and got to perform my choreography to He by Jars of Clay as well as a number of group dances.

5. When you are the oldest of four you get the privilege of "babysitting" at an early age. Babysitting your siblings simply means that you do what you normally do, except you can get away with anything. My parents were exceptionally strict about television--we weren't allowed to watch Full House or Saved by the Bell. However, when Jes and I were babysitting we took in all we could of Uncle Jesse and the Kelly and Zach saga. We posted 4-year-old Darin at the front door to watch for our parents' return, set up 2-year-old Rebecca with a mound of toys and settled in an arm's length from the television (to turn it off at a moment's notice). I recently told my brother about that and he said he always wondered why we sat so close to the TV when our parents were not home. Yes, I was quite a rebellious little 9-year-old.