Keeping a grip on my imaginary steering wheel

First off let me say, he’s a good driver.

Still, there’s something about driving with your teenager for the first few times when they have their beginner’s licence.

The day my youngest son got his, he understandably wanted to drive us home. I’m not sure if it’s possible to still be having labour pains 16 or 17 years later, but I felt my stomach contract.

But I had prepared. I had backed my vehicle into the parking spot at the Access Nova Scotia parking lot so there would be no backing for him. There was still that mechanical arm in the lot to worry about.

Don’t hit the arm. Don’t hit the arm.

“Mom, I’m not going to hit the arm,” he said, as if reading my mind.

When it was time to pull out of the parking lot, I expected him to turn right to take the shortest, most efficient route home. He turned left!

OMG! He’s going onto Main Street where there are traffic lights and vehicles and pedestrians.

Driving down Main Street it felt as if it was both National Use the Crosswalk Day and National Jaywalking Day.

“Person!” I’d say and point. “Person!” I’d say again. "Person."

“Mom, I can see them,” he assured me.

He later asked, “Can we go the Chebogue way for the way home?” Of course he wants to take the “scenic route” I thought to myself.

“Ummm, there’s going to be a really sharp corner,” I said, thinking about a turn near a church. “It’ll be fine,” he said.

As we drove we saw a pedestrian up ahead. There went my labour pains again. He safely gave the person space as he passed. Later he took the sharp corner very well. “How’s was that?” he asked. Better than I expected, I admitted.

Later there was a jogger on the side of road. Honestly, could no one take a taxi today?

We got home without me squeezing the centre console as hard as I had expected to. I'm surprised to admit, I wasn’t that nervous driving with him.

The next day he wanted to go driving again. For a change I had him chauffeur me to places I needed to go, instead of the other way around. One of the places was Canadian Tire, which was really busy. I pointed to a space well away from all of the other vehicles and then told him he if wanted to stay parked there I could just walk to all of the other places I needed to go to. He declined, of course.

We did some sightseeing and drove out to the lighthouse. To be honest, we did a lot of sightseeing those first couple of days. I’d point out some side roads for him to drive on. We ended up at a beautiful beach one evening at sunset. On another road we could see a beautiful vista of the Tusket Islands. One day I suggested we even drive to Saulnierville, as there was a store I wanted to visit.

“Great!” he said. “We can take the highway.”

I quickly corrected him, “No we can’t. I’m not ready for that yet.” (My oldest son has had his licence for four years and I still haven’t driven on the highway with him.) After some pleading we struck a compromise and on the way back he drove on the highway from Port Maitland to Yarmouth.

On Day 2 of his licence we ended up on a busy section of roadway called the airport stretch. All I could think about was the snow and ice and whiteouts. I gave my head a shake and told myself to save my worry over apocalyptic weather for another day seeing whereas today the roads were clear and the sun was shining.

For a mother and son who spent the better part of his childhood driving to and from hockey games, I find myself doing a lot of play-by-play commentary when he's driving. “There’s a curve up ahead.” “There’s a car coming towards us.”

“There’s a person walking on the side of the road.”

“In about five kilometres you’ll come to a stop sign.”

“Mom,” he said, “you don’t have to keep telling me these things.”

“I know,” I said. “It’s just that there’s a lot of firsts when you’re driving.”

“OMG,” he said, pointing at the side of the road. “A pink mailbox. It’s the first time I drive past it.”

Great, now he’s a driver and a comedian.