I've Been Fired

I have a 15 year old.

He will be a 16 year old in a little less than four months. WHEN DID THAT HAPPEN, I WANT TO KNOW!!?!
He is enrolled in Driver's Ed at school right now.
(He has flunked one Simulation Test, so far.)

He says it's because we never take him out driving. (always the parents' fault, ya know.)

It's true, he isn't choppin' away at his 40-hours-of-driving-with-10 hours-of-it-being-at night-requirement in order to get himself a Driver's License. There's this funny little rule about ONLY driving with adults....and when am I EVER in the car WITHOUT other little ones in tow?

I think he's completed about 35 minutes, to date.

Well, recently, we were at our church, and no kids were in the car, just Matt & I, and he asked if he could drive. (Sure?)

FIRST, Matt moved the car out of it's current parking spot that was flanked with two other cars and pulled into a parking spot with vacancies on each side of it -- THEN turned the wheel over to Ryan.

So, Ryan puts the car in reverse and starts backing out of the parking space -- WHILE LOOKING OUT THE FRONT WINDSHIELD!!

"LOOK, LOOK, LOOK!" I shrieked.

He slams on the brakes, and I explain to him (unemotionally and quietly, of course! HA!) that he needs to turn his head and WATCH where he's going!

So, he proceeds again to back out of the parking space, while looking out the back window at where he's going -- BUT GUNS IT while doing so!

"BRAKE, BRAKE, BRAKE!" I shrilled.

He slams on the brakes again.

"Mom is going to make me FREAK OUT!" he bemoaned.

Mr. Calm (Matt) suggests to him, to just let off the brake, instead of using the gas, and the car will move naturally.

So, he did that, and it did!

He turned into our driveway. Oh no! I hadn't considered that scenario when we told him he could drive! I had images of him smashing in the garage door, or taking out the door frame on the way in. Our driveway goes down slightly before the garage, but he didn't adjust his pressure on the gas pedal for this -- we were APPROACHING THE GARAGE DOOR TOO RAPIDLY for my liking!

"STOP, STOP, STOP!" I screeched.

"Mom can't do this." Matt declared with finality.

And that's the story of how I got fired.
{Honestly, I'm quite OK with this!}

So, this will be interesting. Mr. Procrastination and Procrastination Jr. are now in it together and fully in charge of getting in 39 hours and 25 minutes more of driving in the next 15 weeks.