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Mad excitement. The BA got her L plates today!!!!! This means that very soon she will be venturing onto the road in a motor vehicle. How is it possible???

It's funny. On the way over to the Snowies, we were listening to a broadcast of the Melbourne Comedy Festival and a laconic, female comic came on telling this story:

I'm really sick of getting emails from my married friends with pictures of their children and notes like 'Caitlin turned 5 last week. She's starting school soon. Can you believe it?' And I'm like...let me see...Caitlin reached all the normal milestones of childhood, attained the appropriate age and started school....yeah...I can get my head around that! I mean, if she had suddenly started attending school at one, or never walked and talked and THEN attended school, I would find it hard to believe...but really? Five?

And so I slap my wrist for suggesting that it is impossible to believe that my 16 year old daughter has gone into the Motor Vehicle registry, presented her documents, paid for her test, passed first time and paid for her license. Herself. I mean, it's what I brought her up to do! It's just I never really considered what it would be like to be right here, right now, heading into the golden twilight of my life as she launches into hers like a star filled rocket.

I was particularly impressed by the way she noted that most of her friends had been taken to the Registry and had their tests paid for by their parents. "I did it myself, Mum" she said. Slightly resentfully perhaps but still, I know that she has gained a great deal more from the experience than her friends have. In withholding I have given her a gift. She knows he is capable, that she did it herself.

Of course now I may have to teach her to drive. Look! Am I not a natural? I did after all teach No2 Son to drive at a time when his father refused to get into the car with him! I do not know why I am getting so many smirky comments on facebook about my driving ability. OK so I may have recently fallen asleep at the wheel, but really, when I think of all the kilometres I have driven over the years......the likelihood of accidents increases exponentially. That, at least, is my story and I'm sticking to it.

When I came home this afternoon and told Himself however, he was less than excited. "16?" he grumbled,"It's way too young to be driving."
"But," I pointed out,"You got your licence at 16."
"Yes, I know," he said, "but I was too young as well."

:-D