Back Seat Driving

Go that Way, Mommy!
Three years ago we strapped an adorable sleeping little boy into his carseat and brought him home. He slept soundly as we drove home and it was a special day for sure. Over the next year he spent a lot of time sleeping in the backseat of the car. Many times we would drive around a bit longer after he fell asleep just so we wouldn't wake him. Extra gas was worth a sweet sleeping little boy. The following year his sleeping was much less frequent in his carseat. He was so into seeing everything passing by but would still tend to fall asleep on a ride home from somewhere. From age 2 to age 3 is where our little man decided that sleeping and observing while riding in the car were no longer enough. Enter the extreme backseat driver.

Now, I have ridden in the car with people who think that I am not a good enough driver. I have had my license a while now. I'm still alive. I've driven a lot. Therefore when an adult is unhappy with my driving I just ignore it. Let me tell you something. It is not easy to ignore a small little boy in the backseat of your car telling you that you should have turned left when you turned right (yes, he knows right and left and insists I am always turning the wrong way). Every time we go somewhere lately Link has become my new GPS. Our car rides quite frequently sound something like this:
"Turn left mommy. No, that's not left, that's right. We need to turn around and go the other way. We have to go through the tunnel up on the bridge. But we just have to go left. No, no, not that way."
"Link, Mommy needs to turn right so we can get to where we are going."
"But, I think we need to turn left because now we are lost. Are we lost? I think we're lost. But we just have to turn left."
This is usually just a quick trip to the grocery store or the park. The same way we go every time but Link has come up with some creative way to get there and if I don't follow his directions, we are automatically lost.
I miss the days when the sweet, quiet little boy in the backseat looked like this:Though quite honestly, if this was what was in my backseat these days I might start to worry that I left him somewhere. I also really enjoy having someone to chat with on boring drives in the car. And who knows, some day he might just keep me from getting lost.

A Time I Had