Driving Miss Shari

I survived.

This was a long, stressful day. Busy. That's an understatement.

Again, I lived to tell about it. Trying to be dramatic here.

Me and Matt had a 10am appointment for his road test today. His birthday. Exciting! He was nervous. I was nervous. The plan was to go to Josh's work, leave the van and then use his car for the test. Cars are easier, right? I woke Alec up and took him with us, because around noon today was Daniel's birthday party at the skating center. No use running back and forth, right? Right. Remember that I said that.

So the three of us head into town. We go downtown to practice parallel parking. Matt is very nerved up about that. I'm barking orders at him, making it worse. It wasn't my intention, but I've got a lot on my mind. I'm also trying to stop coughing. I'm coughing my head off and its irritating him. After driving around in circles for about a 1/2 hour, we go to get Josh's car.

The three of us get into Josh's car and begin to take it out of the parking lot. Some guys are watching us, looking at us suspisciously. Leap ahead to when Josh gets home: He tells us that those same guys reported to Josh immediately that some people were driving off in his car. Anyhoo. Matt is NOT comfortable driving Josh's car. He has always used the van and finds out that he is actually more comfortable using the van. We go back and switch vehicles again.

I'm still coughing. I'm now getting a headache. We have about 9 minutes until our scheduled time. I'm in desperate need of some TH coffee. Matt rolls his eyes and says we don't' have enough time. I tell him we do and get movin'. We fly through the drive-thru and away we went.

We get in there, fill out paperwork and pay the lady, who turns out to be our instructor. Her name is Susan and her birthday was yesterday. As we are about to leave, she looks at me, looks at Alec and then looks back at me, "Now you know that he can't go with us, don't you?" Huh? It's the rules I guess. So I have to leave Alec behind. She leads him to a room that has legos and a Ninetendo 64. I feel like a horrible parent. Alec looks fine. Good thing he is number four. Number one definitely wouldn't have gone for that at eleven.

For forty-five minutes, I watch Matt parallel park, back into a parking space, honk the horn, drive onto the expressway, drive through down-town, fly through a yield sign (gasp!) and then drive us back safely to the driving school. I was in the seat directly behind him. His eyes met mine in the rear view mirror when he went through the yield sign. My eyes were wide with horror. I'm sure that was good for his stress level. I know it was for mine.

He passed the road test! Whew. We got our certificate and Alec, of course, and were on our way to Meijer. Time to get some last minute stuff for our trip.

After that, we had a few minutes to spare before taking Alec to the party. I took the boys to TH for muffins and their free iced coffee that was being promoted for today. Then we head up to the skating center.

Kristie pulls up and Daniel gets out with his friends. He doesn't look good. Oh. He runs over to the grassy area just off the parking lot and begins to throw up. Kristie is beside herself and doesn't know what to do. I try and calm her down and evaluate the situation at hand. I have nothing else going on, right? Does he want to come home with me? She asks that I go and get him some medicine. He is also complaining of a headache. Long story short: he gets the medicine, goes inside to hole himself up in the bathroom and I end up leaving with just Matt. We are about a third of the way home and I'm talking to Tammy on my cell phone when Kristie beeps in. Can I come back and get Daniel? Sure!

It's 1:30 when we finally get home and Rachel has a dentist appointment at 2:40 to get a tooth pulled (poor thing). I had told Matt that I would take him back up to Lapeer to get his driver's license. We need to do it BEFORE Rachel's appointment because we had made arrangement with Krista to meet her in Lapeer before 2:30 so she could take Matt to her neice's Dad's work to meet him. It was requested by the Dad because he didn't know Matt, who would be going out to the movie's with his daughter later in the evening, so Matt was obeying the rules. We have little time to find all of the necessary documents that are now needed to get a driver's license. Birth certificate. Nope, its not where it should be. Looking all over for that. Find it with some paperwork John put aside when he bought one of the trucks. Look in Matt's baby book to see if his social security card is in there. Nope. Dig through all of his baby stuff searching. Finally find it. Now the list also states that we need at least four other types of documents to prove his identity. Great. We are digging through everything. It's 1:50 and it's time to go. Hurry!

We get to the S-o-S's office and they aren't real busy. Whew. We are done by 2:15, just enough time for me to rush home and get Rachel. Literally.

Fast forward to later in the evening. I need to clean up the stuff strewn all over Alec's room from our search for documents. I keep the baby books and memory stuff in a box at the top of Alec's closet. I always have. I sit on the bed and go through all of Matt's stuff. Congratulations cards from when he was born. Letters I had written to him, one on the eve of his first birthday and the other when he was 18 months old. I read through the Oakland Press newspaper that was dated June 19, 1992. Then I scoot over to the floor and read through his baby book. Wow. You forget all that. Emergency room visit at five weeks. Sucking his thumb for a short time. Christmas presents. Birthday parties. Another emergency room visit at two and a half.

All that reflecting on my second baby boy while he was actually out to the movies with Josh, Krista and Krista's neice, who is a little younger than him.

Now, the true test. If he wants to, he can actually drive somewhere, by himself! I think I just felt sixteen new grey hairs sprout on my head.