About Me

Driving Lessons

,7:02 pm

Not much points up how different my husband and I are than the way we approach teaching our kids a new skill. Take driving lessons for example. My older daughter has just turned sixteen. She is, in many ways, her mother’s daughter, that is, methodical, studious, careful.  Neither of us can look at anything in […]

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Rituals and Raspberry Afros

,11:12 pm

  You never know when your kids are going make an important disclosure, or share a troubling feeling. More often than not, it is in the car. “I am not comfortable with Dad’s not being at Grandma Ann’s memorial service,” my daughter says, seemingly out of nowhere.  We’re driving to her boyfriend’s house. “I know […]

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Road Testing the Mood-o-Meter

,8:30 am

“Are we speeding?” Lindsay asks. I take my foot off the accelerator, the engine audibly slowing as the van moves uphill. The speedometer arrow drops from seventy to fifty (that’s kilometres, by the way). A beat passes. “No we’re not speeding,” I say. “Mom,” she says, her voice measured and serious. “We were speeding.”  At […]

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Mom, Can You Hand Me _____________?

,8:01 am

    I am driving my dust-coloured mini-van. I keep my eyes on the road and one hand on the wheel. The other hand flails about searching the glove compartment/my purse/the floor of the van. Mom, can you hand me the IPOD antenna? The baby wipes. A napkin. A bandaid! The bottle of water rolling around […]

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My Way or the Highway: the Work on the Road

,12:58 pm

  Have I mentioned that I am afraid of driving on highways? As in, heart-pounding, adrenaline-rushing, sweaty-handed death grip on the steering wheel afraid.  Controlled-access highways are especially terror-inducing.  Anywhere, for that matter, where it feels as though there is no means to escape, nowhere to safely pull over and breathe. Highways with box barriers […]

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