license and registration, please
When I take a step back and think about it, it really is remarkable how much progress L has made on the driving front in the past 4-5 months. He went from barely being able to make it around the neighborhood without clipping a mailbox or running off the road, to confidently driving himself to and from work, and driving himself to community college and back—no mean feat—this past Thursday. He has the opposite stress response to his sister; she, ironically, gets more lax and borderline careless, and he clenches up and becomes cautious to the point of inaction. I joked that the perfect new driver exists somewhere in the space between; I should just rig up a vehicle with dual steering wheels and pedals, and have it average out their inputs, and I’d have nothing to worry about. Seriously though, I’m so proud of him. For someone for whom the unspoken rules of the road—and there are quite a few that we take for granted—don’t come naturally, he’s applied himself and encoded them in his brain impressively well. Continued areas to work on include turning right on red (it frustrates him that we allow this “rule-bending”), parking, and, well, closing the garage door when he leaves the house. But he’s aware of these weaknesses in his technique, and he’s applying himself to shore them up. And as pleased as I’ve been with his progress, the real “tell” that he’s arrived will be when I can completely relax whether I’m riding with him, or he’s away on his own. That’s when I’ll know. But it may take a little while for that Dad Vigilance™ to completely subside—if it ever does.