Back Seat Driver

All week, I have been driving David 30 minutes each way to a teacher training.  I feel very fortunate that we live in a school district that offers extra training to teachers on how to best work with kids with autism.  Apparently, in order to do that effectively, it helps to actually have some kids with autism, so David has participated the past two years.

In order to get to this training at a high school in a neighboring school district, I take the interstate, which apparently I do not do very often with David in the car.  He really enjoys the ride because there are a number of overpasses.  Who am I kidding?  There are exactly 13 overpasses, which I know because we count them every day.

David likes the vibration that the car makes when crossing a bridge or overpass, so he will hum the whole time we are on it, imitating the sound of the tires.  Actually, he hums and counts at the same time.

Number ten is his favorite.  It is a long, curving exit from one interstate to another—so long that he has to take a breath or sometimes two.

TEEEEEEEEE…EEEEEEEEEE…EEEENNNNNNNN

Yesterday, we were stopped on the exit ramp waiting to turn toward the school, when David exclaimed, “GREAT job driving, Mom-mom.”

Boy, he must have thoroughly enjoyed that car ride.  That was my first thought, followed closely by my second thought.  What does he think of my driving the rest of the time?

I may have found the answer to my question this morning.  We were stopped on the very same exit ramp, when David started shrieking, “Mom-mom, that’s ENOUGH.  That’s ENOUGH.  That’s ENOUGH.”

I have been changing the channels, looking for a good song on the radio, which sometimes aggravates David so I stopped.

But, he leaned forward in his seat, pointed to my turn indicator, which had not clicked off from my exit to the right off of the interstate, and explained, “You going LEFT.”

I had my right turn signal on and was in the left turn lane.

Needless to say, there was no compliment forthcoming on my driving this morning.