Be still my heart.

Despite my best efforts to put off this moment as long as possible, Marlo is learning how to drive. This makes me batty for several different reasons:

First of all, in my former career as a PI paralegal, I cannot tell you how many accidents I have seen caused by teenaged drivers (admittedly of the male sex) or how many teenage passengers our firm represented after their driver crashed. Even if teenagers are not being intentionally reckless, their ability to avoid accidents is necessarily limited by lack of experience and over-correcting. I'm trying to avoid the time where my heart will race everytime I see an unfamiliar number calling.

Secondly, there is the required evil of being the supervising adult while a teenager with a learners permit drives. Who thought up the timeframe for this? Take a hormonally-driven, irrational creature, at the height of the time in their life where they do not listen to their parents, and put them in a situation where their parents are trying to convey information. Can you think of a situation more likely to induce stress and frustration in both parties?

Anyway, I figured I'd give the warning to stay off the roads on Saturday & Sunday mornings between 7:30 and 8:00 a.m. because I've been letting Marlo drive herself to work (not on the freeway though). The only way I've found to cope with the stress of it all, at least that early in the morning, is to not really pay attention to every single thing that Marlo is doing or not doing while driving.

Plus, as my family will agree, I'm a sucky driver and really shouldn't be giving her advice anyway. I'll leave that to Grandpa John, Aunt Kelly and Uncle George.

Someone wake me when this is over.