Driving Me Crazy!!

I swear one day I am going to look in my rearview mirror and see a line of patrol cars following me, lights on, bullhorn out the window instructing me to pull over immediately and get out of the car with my hands in the air. Did I rob a bank? No, but if I can't find ABA therapy more affordable somewhere I just may buy a Nixon mask and go for it. Do I have drugs in my car? No, but with the way my rides go it sounds very tempting. No, somebody will have called to report a possible child abduction. What else could be the explanation for the young girl in the front seat next to me screaming and pounding her fists on the window trying to escape? Biting her hands and feet must have been her way of calling attention to our car so someone could call for help, right? I'm telling you, it's going to happen and you know what? I just might go with it! "Umm yeah, I did kidnap her, you are absolutely right! Are you taking me to jail now? Please??!"

I absolutely, positively, with every fiber of my being hate driving Camryn anywhere these days! Used to be taking a drive was one of the only things that would calm her down. I would pile the kids in the old suburban and ride around town for as long as we could stand because it was the only place that Camryn was quiet and peaceful. She would look out the window and bob her head back and forth to the music giving the other girls and I a much needed reprieve from her screaming and tantrums. But for the past several months transporting this child anywhere has turned into pure and utter hell!

When we purchased our very large vehicle five years ago we did it with the thought process that Camryn would not be able to reach her sisters and hurt them. HA!!! Little did we know that unless we were to purchase a bus Camryn would find a way to torture Mason and Natalie while I was behind the wheel. I sit them in the last row and put Cam in the middle row and guess what? She reaches behind her and pinches, hits, whatever she can do to hurt them. I swear I don't know how she does it! Try as I may to rid the car of missiles, they make their way in somehow and go flying through the air aimed straight for little heads and bodies. To make things easier for Mace and Nat I have moved Camryn up front, where she plays out her shenanigans on me while I'm trying to manuever our land yacht through traffic. She pinches me, opens the glovebox and empties it out, screams for gum then hands me a stringy chewed up wad of it two seconds later screaming for a new piece. She tries to unlock her door, she pushes any buttons she can reach on the dash and last Friday threw her backpack at my head as I was making my way down a very wet highway. And they say texting while driving is dangerous!! She bangs her fists on her window and screams at the top of her lungs. After she threw hew backpack at me she slumped down in her seat, pulled her feet to her mouth and pulled her socks off her feet with her teeth! Yes, with her teeth!!!! I just kept repeating out loud to myself "Breathe, just breath, just breathe". It is frickin' ridiculous that I should have to endure this every day of my life just trying to take my kid to camp!

While I'm on the road I see all the other cars passing by. This guy on his cell phone, that woman in a daze sipping her coffee. I have to laugh when I see them do a double take at my car passing by with Camryn banging her head on the back of her seat and biting her ankles. But in all seriousness it can be very depressing. And poor Mason and Natalie! They can't even ride in the car without constantly being reminded that our family is very different from most. The screaming is so loud you can almost feel your eardrum perforating one stitch at a time. Used to be Michael Buble could calm her down but my CD's got scratched and I haven't replaced them yet so I have to rely on a Disney CD and a few stories on CD, but even that is hit and miss. It is miserable, just plain miserable and I have to keep telling myself "Just twenty more minutes and then you have seven hours before you have to do this again."

I see all these cars go by with those little stick figure family decals showing how many kids they have. All the figures are smiling, some are wearing Mickey Mouse ears, and I just want to barf. No offense to anybody who has these, as some of my very good friends do, but when you are driving down the road while your kid is trying to eat the dashboard these things tend to tick you off just a tad! I picture a stick person version of our family...Mom in the fetal position, Dad pulling his hair out, two small figures in triangle dresses with their hands over their ears and the third figure with a huge circle for her mouth screaming, her hair going every which way and a stick figure dog cowering under a table. Seen that sticker anywhere? Didn't think so.

Right now I am getting ready to take Mason and Natalie to the beach and I gotta tell you, I am really looking forward to it. It will take us about twenty minutes to get there if all goes well but if the drawbridge gets stuck and we have to wait for a mother duck and her twenty ducklings to cross and there's a construction detour and a school zone and a ninety year old woman from Canada sitting on phone books in front of us it will all be okay with me because I have driven with Camryn and if that doesn't bring on some road rage nothing will!