Dudes!
I let Freddie drive the car yesterday and today. It went well, which was not quite what I was expecting! I let him drive to Starbucks yesterday and that was… scary. He saaaaaaays he can see okay and all of that but homeboy was drifting far-ish to the right and pulling into a parking space was… interesting. His reflexes seem okay and his car is one of those judgy bitches that will automatically hit the brakes for you if it thinks you’re too close to the car in front of you.
I do not like this feature because um, HELLO, if I’m riding your ass it’s because you are going 65 in the left lane so MOVE OVER, SUSAN. But nooooooo the car gets all finger-waggy about that. Still, it’s a good feature to have if you’re trying driving for the first time in two months.
Today I let him drive all the way down to Flemington, where his physical therapy is. That’s a 20-minute ride on a pretty busy road and he did very well! I didn’t grind my teeth nearly as much as yesterday! Parking is still challenging, though, so we might work on that. Or, I’ll just have him park far away and take up however many spaces he feels he needs. We’ll practice and see how it goes.
We’ll also need to work on parallel parking, because we can’t be a family where NONE OF US can do it. I am very very very bad at it, so I usually don’t even bother to try. I will park a full half-mile away from a place and walk if I have to. Sure, I could practice and get better at it but I could also go out and run a couple of miles and get better at it and you certainly don’t see my sexy ass doing THAT, do you? No, you do not.
The driving thing is definitely going to be helpful. That will take a little of the burden off of me, and give him a bit more freedom to do stuff without having to be concerned about me sitting around, waiting. I’m still going to keep him on a fairly short leash, especially with Fun Weather coming up, and I realllly don’t think he needs to be driving at night, which starts at 1:37PM right now. But he’ll be able to take The Teenager to school when and if we ever start doing that again and that will be… yay!!
Next week is a big week!! We’re finally getting The Tooth replaced, so any of you who have seen his crazy face on video, enjoy it while you can because it’s going away and he’s going to look slightly more normal. When he can tell I’m having a down day or if I’m feeling stressed or sad, he grins at me and I can’t help it but it makes me laugh. I felt bad about laughing at first but it’s so absurd, the way his face looks, that I can’t help it. What a nerd.
The only downside to all this recovery and improvement is that I am going to have to start helping out around the house more. I can’t keep saying “it’s good for you! Part of your recovery!” EVEN THOUGH IT IS! I have a list the rehab place gave me of activities that are good for people with brain injury and all of them involve things like laundry and other housework!
Sigh. I knew it couldn’t last.