Drivers Education

Andy passed his written Drivers Ed. test yesterday. Now, he just has to drive with the instructor in early June, and then he'll have his restricted license.

I have mixed emotions. I'll be glad when I don't have to rearrange my schedule to take him somewhere. But I'll worry about him driving alone. I was so worried that he wouldn't pass the test.

He's been coming to the college for the past month, taking the daily quizzes online to prepare for this test. You see, they don't actually TEACH the kids anymore, the kids read the book, take their quizzes, then take their final test. All the teacher does is post the grades and drive with the kids. Andy had lots of trouble with his quizzes; for some reason, the teacher wasn't receiving them. So, with 2 days to go, we got a phone call from his teacher telling him that he had 15 quizzes to take.

Now, my son never defends himself. He said "ok, I'll get it done." Then he hung up the phone. Relaying the conversation to Mom, well, Mom got hot. "What? You have to taken all your tests, why didn't you tell him you've taken all the tests? Why haven't they gone through?"

Hot Mom took cool Andy to town immediately. We were on a mission.

We logged on at the college, and it showed that Andy had indeed taken his tests. Hot Mom made Andy print all those quizzes off--to prove he'd taken them. We did discover he had skipped chapters 4 and 5, so he took those quickly and we printed them all off. We then emailed his teacher, just to let her know what was happening.

They finally got all his tests sometime the next day. Mom cooled down a little. But, it all ended well, he took his final and passed. Hurdle one cleared.

Andy's been driving frequently. In fact, I seldom get to drive to work anymore. But driving with a teen, a not-the-most-observant-teen, is an experience. Last night, right after passing his driving test, we had to go to Gem to get pig feed. Andy drove.

He scared the c.r.a.p. out of me! We were tooling down the road at 65 mph, rapidly gaining ground on a truck pulling a tractor on a trailer. MY foot was pressing into the floor, trying to get that imaginary brake to grab. Andy, was not. I gently reminded him to pay attention to how fast we were coming upon that big tractor. Andy wasn't concerned. I mentioned the brakes--a little less gently this time. Then I frantically squealed something about hitting them hard.

We didn't hit the tractor, but I sure wish Andy had slowed down a little quicker. He was really annoyed at me. I have no idea why.

You know, I blame all my gray hair on my daughter. But, I'm starting to rethink it--I know I got a few more last night.