Bad Driver On Board

I am a terrible driver--no need to sugarcoat it.  I take out curbs on a consistent basis, I have absolutely no depth perception, and my turn radius is piss poor.  I was fine with this shortcoming when it was just me in the car, but now that I'm a Mommy Chauffeur I can't get away with anything and it totally stinks.  The first time one of my kids ratted me out to my husband was several years ago.  My son, Patrick, and I were leaving the mall and I backed into one of those cement pillar doohickey things....oops.  He immediately took his sippy cup from his mouth and said, "Mommy, what was that?"  "Oh nothing, sweetie.  Everything is fine.....don't worry about it." 

I never really thought about it again until dinner when Patrick announced, "Mommy went bump in the car today, Daddy!"  I froze. I could not believe this was happening--he just started babbling a few words for the first time and all of a sudden he's forming sentences that drop me in the grease?  Traitor.

Years have gone by since that fateful day and I'm still an awful driver.  The only thing that's changed is now the jig is up and I can't slip anything past my clan--especially my hubby.  He thought everything would remedy itself when he bought me an SUV that makes that beeping sound when you back up.....not so much.

Mommies you know how it is--you have a car full of kids (usually fighting), the radio is blaring, you're running late, pretzels are flinging about, etc.  It's all you can do to stay between the lines on the road much less not have a minor mishap.  The last "bump" I was involved in took place on a narrow street when another big mommy bus tried to pass me and our side mirrors clashed.  We stopped, rolled down our windows, gave each other a nervous smile and waited for someone to speak..."I'm so sorry about that.  I really thought I could squeeze by you," said the other mommy.  "Me too.  Guess it's tighter than it looks," I replied.  We both looked out our windows to survey the mirror damage and just kind of shrugged at the scrapes and small dents.  "I don't think it really did anything, do you?"  "Huh-uh," said my new friend.  "Actually, I think those marks were already there," I said, "I can't be too sure. I'm good."  "Me too," she said.  And that was the end of it.  Just another day in the life of mommy driving with no time to waste on the small stuff........