Third Culture Kid(s)

As in, to not driving anymore.

Yeah, I know; I probably shouldn’t be driving at this point (37 weeks today - I’m officially more pregnant than I’ve ever been before, since MM was born at 36.6 weeks), but our family situation kinda dictates it.  We have one car.  M. can drive, but he’s nervous driving with other people in the car (pseudo-rational, given that part of that is just not wanting to be responsible for everyone), he’s from So. California and has extremely limited experience driving in winter weather (very rational, given that we got hit by more snow yesterday than they originally expected), he has NO sense of direction (pseudo-rational, since we have a GPS for this express purpose), and he’s, um, not to be rude but, not a great driver (rational, I think, because that would make me the passenger, and I am a reasonably good driver).

Generally, when he drives, we like to keep it in a straight line - the trip to his university is basically turn right, turn right, turn left, go straight for 20 minutes.  It works well.

My Dad at first didn’t even really think he could drive; or, rather, he asked how it was possible, given how M.’s legs work.  But he says it’s just more of a conscious kind of thing - moving the foot between the gas/brake pedals - than for ‘normals’.  More than his legs, it’s his eyesight that worries me a bit; when he was busy developing CP in the incubator (it’s assumed), he was also developing an eye situation that would eventually result in the loss of most sight in his right (”bad”) eye.  He can see out of it, but it’s weird sight with a big blind spot.  He apparently has depth perception, which is why he drives at all, but I don’t like him out and about at night much.

So, long story short, I do most of the driving.  And it’s gotten really, really uncomfortable.  I don’t even really know why; all I know is that every time I drive, 2.0 descends deep into my pelvis and those are the times I start wondering if I’d know what a contraction felt like if I had one, because the discomfort is such that, you know, I start wondering.

Happily, if I go out today to run errands (depends on the weather), it will be the last driving I do for awhile.  We make the move to my parents’ house tomorrow, and I’m getting chauffeured for the duration.  I’ve trained M. in the routes to/from the station, and if he gets called to the hospital from work, it’s a straight line from the station to the hospital (well, get on parkway, drive for 30 or so minutes, right turn, right turn, left turn, hospital).  The only dicey part for him will be making the trip to my parents’ house next weekend - they live off a hilly, narrow, windy road that’s scary for people who actually have experience driving in those conditions, much less for someone whose idea of complicated driving is maneuvering the traffic on the grids of Southern California.