Beware Baby on Board.

This sign:

Source

might as well say this:

Source

I don't know if anyone else has noticed but mummies are bad drivers. Well at least this mummy seems to be.  Since becoming a mother I have:

*Run a red light.

This was not entirely my fault. I was stuck in peak hour traffic. I tried to be nice to this guy who was pulling out of a parking spot so I let him in. Later on he was wanting to get into my lane so again I gave way. The jerk repaid my kindness by sitting at the traffic light when it's turned green. Meanwhile, Bubby was already screaming because he doesn't like it when he's not moving. The idiot waited until the light was yellow before he moved. I was desperate so I went for it. I was too slow, obviously. To this day, I curse the driver of that red Subaru. I should find his car one day and give it a good kick. If you drive a red Subaru you might want to sell it or repaint it. Actually I think it was a red Mitsubishi so if you drive one of those you've also been warned.

*Experienced a microsleep.

With Bubby in the car. It was scary. I don't even want to go into it.

*Hit a car while parking

I don't even know how that happened. I totally misjudged my distance. Like, totally. Luckily the guy was a gentleman and said don't worry about the damage as it's so minor. Well the damage to his car was minor, not so much to mine. Maybe he saw Bubby, maybe he saw that I looked like a zombie, maybe he felt sorry for me. Who knows. God bless him is all I say.

*A lot of trouble concentrating on the road and other cars generally.

Today, for example, was pretty bad. I kept noticing how close the other cars were in front of me and my speedometer kept going over the limit. I felt very sleepy behind the wheel that as soon as I got to the shops I went straight for the coffee shops They were all closed. I ended up getting a latte from McDonald's. That's Desperation. I'm not even a coffee drinker. I usually have a decaf mocha when I'm out and decaf tea at home but I knew there's a good chance I would die on the way home if I don't inject caffeine into my eyeballs. The effect was instant. I was buzzing while doing my shopping. I could feel it in my veins. I finished shopping in record time (the fact that I was sans baby probably had a lot to do with it). I was talking fast and I was talking clearly, at least it sounded like it to me. When I got home I cleaned the house from top to bottom AND did the laundry, in 30 minutes. Anyway, back to driving...

There are plenty of reasons why mums are bad drivers:

a) Sleep deprivation. Terrible thing. At least you could assume that a drunk driver probably had fun at the start of the night. There's nothing fun about lack of sleep. Not that I condone drink driving. Just saying. 

b) Have you ever seen a mummy drive reeeaaaalllly slooooowwwwly when approaching yellow lights a hundred metres away? Or floor it like it's the grand prix? It's because when the car isn't moving the baby starts screaming.

c) Babies are generally distracting no matter what they do. There's always something going on, screaming, crying, is the sun in their eyes, are they too hot, too cold, are they asleep yet, they dropped their toy, have you remembered to strap them in, what the hell have they got in their mouth... The other day Bubby started squealing in delight so I was trying to look in the rear view mirror to figure out what was so amusing.  I think it's because I opened the window while driving as I didn't want to turn the aircon on because we were running a bit low on petrol and I didn't want to stop because I know Bubby is getting hungry and it was a race against the clock before he starts screaming blue murder. Anyway, thank goodness for power windows. So now I found a new way to entertain him in the car other than singing the alphabet song at the top of my lungs (which I've had to do once during the entire 1 hour drive from my parents' place).

Beware Baby on Board. (I'm getting quite good with the alliteration.)