Driving Lessons

We have five children. One is 26 and has his licence one is now married so I am no longer responsible for their driving instruction.There was a time, however, when I had four of them all at once on L plates. Not only did they argue about whose turn it was, I was begging to get a chance to drive my car.
I am not good at not being in control, so for me it was a like a roller coaster ride gone wrong!
I remember yelling out "perhaps you might want to... avoid that tree!"and "Slow down....actually you need to .....stop!",as my white knuckles gripped both sides of the passenger seat. I will never forget the time that one of my children turned so abruptly we went onto the other side of the road. I am forever grateful it was at a rare time when nothing was coming the other way.
I could have died. They could have died. In fact most of the time to save petrol we were actually taking siblings somewhere. So, we all could have died. Good thing I am a praying person.

Now,I agree that we want learner drivers to have enough experience on the road so that they become safe drivers, but when they changed the required hours from 50 to 130 hours I cried. At that stage I had three learners on one hundred and thirty hours and my oldest on fifty. Do the Maths? 130 x 3 is the equivalent of over one hour each day for a year !!! Thankfully my husband took on the fifty hours and my daughter moved to Melbourne.

I must admit that I kept putting them off until I felt they were truly ready, although maybe some would be still waiting at 35 if I really applied this strategy too severely.
My second youngest was the keenest especially when I was given my brand new car for Christmas. My beautiful shiny red Volkswagen golf I have named Cecily. One of the most painful moments in my life was handing the keys to my daughter while I sat in the passenger seat.

Now, number one and four have their licences and are both careful and good drivers. Although my daughter is over 18 I have given Cecily, the car, a curfew. This works very well. No need to nag. Not home by 11 Cecily is banned from going out with that child.

I have become aware of all my bad habits since teaching my daughter. My way of driving was when you stop at lights, put on make-up, then nail polish ..next lights, sip your coffee....next lights fiddle with the radio... and so forth.... I now have to go through the entire routine in the book and yes, they have all pointed out my faults and whenever I went slightly over the speed limit told me that what I was doing was illegal..really? Apparently they won't be tested on the correct application of make- up at the lights.

My advice to all those parents who had children less than 2 years apart.Start teaching the oldest as soon as you can. Save your money now so they can have at least three lessons. They are so expensive you may have to get a second job! They will need two before you take them, that is if you want to survive, and one before their tests as a refresher and to undo all the bad habits you taught them.
Both of mine got their licences first go, despite me!
So a couple of more tips...
Do a few long road trips, when you are not in a hurry,learners speed limit in NSW is 80, everyone smirks at you as they fly past at 120!
Most of all, in the early days of teaching your children to drive.... just pretend you are at a theme park. You might as well have fun while you are screaming !

Who Am I ?

I always find it interesting when asked to describe myself. I can say what I do but I don't believe what I do really defines who I am. What I do is a result of who I am. Lost you yet?
I know that without my relationship with God, which really started when I was about three and first was aware of His presence, I would be nothing and achieve very little.
I am God's daughter,BJ's wife (and lover) my children just cringed, a mother, a friend, a daughter to two amazing parents a family member to two amazing families Derleys and Hancocks and an aunty and teacher to too many children to mention. But really if everyone in my life was gone and it was just God and I...well...it would be hard but my identity would not be lost. Because ultimately it's all about Him.
As a result of my relationship to God I teach,clean my home, feed people, dance with joy when no-one is looking and sometimes when they are, write and facebook and most of all enjoy people.
That's me in a nutshell and yes I am a bit of a nut.