It's Not Really a Wreck if it was an Accident

I let Rachel drive us up to the school on Saturday for the kids to take their physicals for sports and while they were in there then she and I went driving around. Notice I didn't say that we went for a "pleasant drive". There is nothing pleasant about driving with a teenager who is either scared to drive at all or punching the gas pedal as if she saw the checkered flag. Stopping at stop signs seems to be quite the challenge for the little dear. We either stop ten feet before the sign and then can't see the semi-truck looming towards us when we hit the gas to go or we stop ten feet on the other side of the stop sign and barely miss the semi-truck that is flying by us. She also seems to have yield signs and stop signs confused. Maybe it's the awkward shapes and pretty colors that are distracting her - who knows. She comes to a full stop at yield signs "just in case there really is something coming" and can't come to a complete stop at stop signs. It's such an adventure ! I literally fall out of the van and kiss the ground offering up praises to the god of driving every time that we make it home alive.

When we went back up to the school to get Riley and Emily after their physicals were done, I just had her pull in sideways in the parking lot so they could just hop in the side door on the van. They found the van (eventually) and Rachel didn't even look before pulling out into traffic. She was jabbering about something at school and didn't pay any attention to the car that was right beside us. I saw it ! I screamed "RACHEL !". She did not stop. I screamed "RACHEL!". She did not stop. I screamed "BRAKES! BRAKES!". She stopped and looked at me as if I had yelled "ALIEN ATTACK!". She seriously had no idea what I was yelling about. "Did you not see that car that you just hit?" She blinked Bambi style and said "oh - I wasn't looking". Um ... no sh*t Sherlock ... I figured that one out on my own.

Of course she pouted all the way home and I told her that she better get over it because if I hadn't yelled at her then she would have hit that other car. She said (through the curtain of well placed tears), "I didn't mean to". Well I will be sure to tell God that nobody should get hurt in car accidents where "she didn't mean to". I am sure that He will understand.