drivers ed

my family is pretty weird. i include myself in that statement, but i came by my weirdness honestly. for example, while we were on our way to charlotte last week, riding with my mom, mom & i were taking turns doing the driving. brooke asked for a turn at the wheel & my mom said, "sure, you can drive after our next stop." i hesitated & mentally calculated how far we were from her house. ok, we were pretty close, so our next stop would probably be in her driveway. they live on a hill w/ a tight turn around, so i was hoping she wasn't planning to let brooke drive in her driveway since i was pretty sure a crash would ensue. brooke wasn't sure she'd heard mimi right. she asked, "are you serious? you're ACTUALLY GOING TO LET ME DRIVE?!!!" mom said, "well, erica (my youngest sister) started driving when she was 8, so i guess you're old enough." i pondered that for a while & then i started laughing. i'm not sure whether or not i laughed out loud, but every time i pictured my tiny little girl driving my mom's camry, i couldn't stop smiling at how funny that seemed! before going to bed that night, brooke was praying & she said, "dear Jesus, thank you that tomorrow i can play with the dogs. and go out in the gourd garden. and especially, thank you that i can drive! i'm going to drive! MIMI'S GOING TO LET ME DRIVE!!!"

the next morning, before i woke up, my mom took brooke over to their old church where there's a huge, mostly empty parking lot. there are lanes & some medians as well as a few shuttle shelters where church-goers can hitch a ride from the shuttles on sundays if they can't manage the walk from the back 40 in their fancy sunday-go-to-meetin shoes. we prefer to call those bus stops. crazy mimi turned her camry over to a kid who can't even see over the steering wheel & had to look through the crack between the wheel & the dashboard. she had her try the gas & the brake before she ever let her take the death machine out of park & it was determined that due to overzealous gas administration, it would be better to just coast w/ both feet off the gas & only use feet for braking.

brooke woke me up by announcing rather non-chalantly that she'd just returned from some driving. trying to play it all cool & stuff like it was no big deal. later mom gave me the blow by blow account & then realized that no pictures had been taken of the momentous event, so we'd need to go back & the next time, i could take the pics while mom instructed & brooke drove. i was also to play the part of bus passenger & would need to get on & off the bus at the bus stops.

here are the photos & videos of our memorable drivers ed experience. i wish i'd been filming from inside when i got whiplash from a violent stop, but alas, i didn't anticipate the excitement in time.

the proud holder of KEYS! (disregard the squinting since i wasn't nice enough to take her pic facing away from the sun)

look, she even knows how to use them!

concentrating on getting the seat position adjusted before buckling up

she looks rather pleased & confident, doesn't she? i think the dog ears helped her to feel even cooler.

and from the next bus stop...



anyone need a ride?