Thanking My Lucky Stars

This past weekend I had my first traumatic parenting experience.    It was Sunday and Joe and I were involved in some major unpacking.  My mom was down for the day helping out.  She drove down in her Ford Explorer - a car Liam loves because it’s big.  (Well, compared to my Prius it’s big.)  I often will let Liam “pretend drive” my Prius.  Of course the keys are never in there and it’s always parked in the gated driveway so it’s pretty safe.

Liam asked if he could drive the Explorer.  I said he could as long as daddy would watch him.  So Liam jumped up into the Explorer’s driver’s seat and Joe went outside to supervise/organize moving boxes.  I was inside when I heard Joe scream like I’ve never heard him scream before “STOP! STOP!”  I immediately ran outside.  As I am running to get to the yard I am screaming “Stop” as well. I have no idea what I am screaming at, but I am assuming if Joe is screaming this then I should too.  And I am thinking that the reason he is screaming this is because Liam has somehow wondered into the middle of the street and a car is about to hit him.  I am terrified.  And I surely was not prepared to see what was actually going on.   Once I reach the front door I see the Explorer rolling down the street with Liam behind the wheel and Joe is running after the car!  My two year old is literally driving a car!  

I start to run after the car as well.  I am now screaming at Joe to get Liam out of car.  Joe reaches the car and opens the driver’s side door to grab the wheel and slow down the car.  Thankfully, there was a curb ahead and no car was parked in the way.  The Explorer lightly hit the curb and came to a stop.  Liam just seemed confused about the whole situation until he saw me terrified and crying.  Then he got pretty upset. 

Looking back at it, the whole situation is humorous – Liam driving, Joe yelling at him to stop (like Liam knows what he’s doing.)  And as I was running to the car, I kicked off my slippers to run better.  One slipper found its way into our neighbor’s rose bush.

But the reality is that we got really lucky.  What if Liam were to have gotten scared and tried to get out of the moving car?  What if there were other kids outside?  There are about 10 kids who live on our street and there are usually at least 5 kids playing outside daily.  There could have been a car parked in front of the curb – a smaller issue, but still, we got lucky that no one got hurt and we weren’t dealing with insurance companies for the rest of the day.

We are still not sure how Liam got the Explorer to start rolling.  The keys were not inside so he must have somehow knocked it into neutral and our driveway has enough of a slant that it started to roll.  Lesson learned - no more “pretend driving” real cars for Liam.

I am sure Liam will appreciate this story years from now and we have certainly laughed about it since, but I was pretty traumatized.  So, yes, I am thanking my lucky stars that my car-loving little boy survived his first experience behind the wheel.