My mother always told me that if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all. I try to live my life this way as much as possible. In general I believe that I am a very positive upbeat person. I like to look for the good in the world… And then I get behind the wheel of my vehicle and I turn into Captain Crazy of the S.S. Minivan!
It is utterly ridiculous. I seem to completely run out of patience whenever I climb behind the wheel of a vehicle. My sisters say that I have road rage. I don’t think it is road rage, I think it is a lack of tolerance for bad driving. Since having children I have stopped completely going off the deep end. Progress, right?
I am very conscious that there are now people in the car with me that listen to everything I say, process everything that is said to them, and repeat everything they hear. As they say, little ears have big mouths. This saying hits the nail on the head in our home. The most hilarious and somewhat ridiculous things keep popping out of my toddler’s mouth!
I cannot believe that I ever worried about him learning to talk. He talks and talks and talks and talks. This kid has an opinion about everything and believes that everyone needs to hear his opinion. He has conversations with the Disney movies we watch, telling people not to open doors and informing scary sea witches that they need to “go away!”
Recently I was driving my minivan when my 2½ year old says to me, “Come on guy! What’s going on? Let’s move it.” He was referring to the truck in front of us that was waiting for a personal handwritten invitation to turn left at an intersection. I turn around and look at my child and he looks at me and he smiles a gigantic smile and starts laughing. That is William to a tee!
He believes that he is better informed than my GPS and lets me know when to make my turns. When I do not “Turn left NOW” I am told that “It’s okay mommy, you can turn around.” I crack up; I am not going to lie. When my son starts to back seat drive I start laughing hysterically. I probably should not do this, because I know that reaction is only encouraging him. I just cannot help it, it is really truly funny. It probably helps that I think so fondly of my back seat driver.
Do you have a backseat driver? If so, who? What kind of backseat driver are they?
