I finally understand why people put those festive ‘Baby On Board’ signs in their car windows. It’s not for the certain je ne sais quois it adds to your people mover, as elegant as they are. It’s not to boast about your ability to reproduce (that’s what the “My Family” stickers are for).
It is, I’ve realised, to warn people.
It’s a yellow diamond of distress. SHIT DRIVER INSIDE.
Because once you’ve driven down a highway with a feral baby screaming his face off as you try to shove a bottle or a dummy or SOMETHING in his mouth to calm him down while frantically checking mirrors to see if he has been stabbed while you weren’t watching – you’ll realise you are the worst driver on the road.
The bloke who is stoned and texting his mates in the lane next to you is paying more attention to the road than you are.
“Kids being arseholes” is not an official cause of road accidents, but it should be. An official study of causes of road accidents found speed and alcohol were the leading causes of road injuries, but when you look at all the other factors, I think most of them could also apply to driving mums:
Fatigued because motherhood
Passenger interaction mum mum mum mum mum mum mum MUUUUM!
Felt ill child induced migraine
Feeling stressed because children
Animal or insect in car possibly brought in by child
Searching for object such as water bottle or blankie
Looked but failed to see due to children’s flailing limbs
Right!?
I’ve concluded there are three types of shit mum drivers:
Checking the road ahead once every four minutes is not safe.
It’s also not safe to drive with one hand on the wheel and the other hand grabbing the foot of your toddler who is trying desperately to escape their car seat.
Trying to go around a roundabout while fishing for a water bottle underneath the passenger seat is particularly dangerous.
This is the mum who will pull over to the side of the road at least 8 times in a trip because things are being flung to every corner of the car only to be followed by ear splitting screams for the thing that has just been flung.
SO sorry if you needed to get somewhere.
Every mother has tried, in desperation, to drive her baby to sleep. If, by miracle, this has worked, she is not stopping for ANY reason. Her baby is asleep. There is no more screaming. She will roll down the freeway for an hour just so that child can get some rest. Don’t bother tailgating, she’s not going anywhere fast.
This dad knows what I’m talking about:
The most dangerous of them all.
At a certain age, babies learn to sleep in their cots for more than 30 minutes. It is heaven. Nap time will happen AT ALL COSTS. Nothing gets in the way of nap time.
But it’s also at this age that children decide that a 40 second kip in the carseat is equivalent to two hours in the cot. The carseat power nap is like a shot of Red Bull to a toddler. They drift off for three seconds and wake up with the energy of a fluoro-clad festival goer. “RWAAAAARRR HELLO MUMMMMMYYYYY! Let’s spend ALL afternoon together doing 73 different activities that will be increasingly unsatisfying to me until I fly into an uncontrollable nap-starved RAGE just before dinner. LET’S GO!”
God help you if you want to drive like a normal person and this mum is behind you. It’s no coincidence that mums drive 4WDs. They will mount the median strip to get around you with all the windows down, the radio blaring and screeching ‘DON’T GO TO SLEEP!!’ out the window. Just pull to the side and let her past. It’s safer for everyone.
In all seriousness, if things are getting out of control, just pull over for a bit. And don’t ever, EVER pick up your phone while you’re driving. No matter how cute you think your kids are being:
Is your child one of those carseat nap stealers? Have you driven hours out of your way just to try and get the baby to sleep? Have you realised an iPad on the back of the passenger seat is the cure to all life’s problems? Sure ‘screen time’ will rot your child’s brain, but it might also save everyone’s life because SHUT UP AND WATCH THE WIGGLES!
Play along on Facebook with The Thud!
48 comments
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This is a great post! I remember the first time I drove after having Reuben, I left him with my mum so I felt completely lost. Anyway, I nearly drove someone over in a hospital carpark and then knocked someones wing mirror off as I pulled alongside them. I never wanted to drive again! That was mainly down to the fatigue though. By some stroke of luck, I’ve not managed to do as much damage while my son is in the car. That in itself is a miracle.
Thanks for linking up to #TheList – it’s great to have you!!
Pre-kids I always told friends “I can’t stand the Wiggles, there’s no way I will ever play them in my car” haha! What little did I know!! We have spent many a car trip with it on repeat to the point where we can be singing it long after the kids are asleep. Or even if they’re not in the car. Whoops! Damn them and they’re catchy tunes!! I truly believe those signs stand for “anything could happen, be wary because = toddlers!”
Yes – what is it about those 10 second car naps that makes them like red bull?! That is exactly what it is like! The thing I hate most about driving with kids is the constant need to grope around the car to pass them something – constantly.
Love it & unfortunately so true. I hate to admit it but the only accident I’ve ever had is because I was trying to break up a slapping match between my sons in the backseat. Now we have a strictly enforced don’t touch each other in the car rule.
All about the iPad and cookies…
And now, mummy needs 2 hands on the wheel. It’s dangerous. No I’m driving. LaLa la x
I’m so with you on the 40-second nap in the car being like a shot of Red Bull to a little one who treats it as the equivalent of a 2 hour nap in the cot (and always followed by nap-deprived rage come dinner time!) Thankfully my youngest will still stay asleep in her car seat whilst being carried into the house and will sleep for a little longer but if my eldest falls asleep, I often end up sitting in the car in my driveway waiting until she’s had a long enough nap to prevent the pre-dinner meltdown.
Whatever it takes to keep those little people ASLEEP!!
So funny lady! I have long said mothers are THE WORST drivers on the road. Myself included of course. I am all the things you have listed here. I think we all need personal drivers to keep us alive!
It’s all about survival!
So hilare! No small people in our car but we once had a hair raising journey with our friend whose three year old insisted she tickle her foot (all the way up Tambourine Mountain.) My friend is so small she could barely manage to keep one arm on the wheel and one arm on her offspring’s foot, and in the event that she needed two hands to steer (DER!) and put both hands on the wheel, said child screamed so loud, I’m surprised she didn’t break the sound barrier. It gave me a new respect for mum’s who drive and proved to be highly effective contraception. I think my nerve endings are still frayed to this day!
What the hell!? That’s just wrong….
How many times i had to pull over and stop the car to try to do something with my second (the monster boy)? He drove me crazy … many times ! Now he’s almost 4, he behaves. And he watches cartoons for long travels (of course). xx cathy
God bless the cartoons!! They are life savers!
I feel like kids has sharpened my car skillz. I have to have the reflexes of a cat and have learned the art of selective attention in order to shut them out so I can drive. The sleep deprivation though? No amount of caffeine sorts that out, so that kinda sucks on the road. Amazing how such little beings can have such a massive impact huh? x
Clearly haven’t sharpened my grammatical skills though. ‘kids has sharpened’? Stab my eyes out now.
Bahahaha…. I thought you might be invoking I can has cheezburger. With your cat reflexes and all…
“Kids being arseholes” is not an official cause of road accidents, but it should be. – I freaking love you! 🙂 xx
I’m pretty sure my mum got out of a speeding ticket because of my arsehole brother once…
YES! to all of the above!
I remember once pulling up on the driveway as my son had fallen asleep in the car (and you know you can never carry them indoors to their cot and have them continue to nap). Instead, I threw the wireless baby monitor in the car, locked the doors and let him sleep on the driveway. (Don’t panic, we’re not Australia and my baby didn’t cook!). God bless nap times. However you achieve them.
I’ve left mine in the car in our garage with the car doors open…. it was a cool day and he was zonked out. I didn’t want to even attempt the transfer. Sleep baby sleep!!
Hahaha! I love it! I have a little escape artist to deal with. She somehow manages to wriggle out of her straps a million times per trip no matter how tight I try to fasten them.
Hahaha! I love love love this. You speak the truth. My girls have no understanding of the fact that if mummy is driving she can’t turn around and pick up your teddy which you’ve thrown across the car. My youngest is an escape artist too. I’ll be driving along and she’ll keep wriggling out of those straps no matter how tight I make them 🙂
Bloody escape artists! I bought that Houdini strap to stop him wriggling out of the straps and he figured it out in about two car trips. He can now unclip it in about 60 seconds #moneywellspent
My kids have almost learnt not to even attempt to speak to me at a busy intersection, because I just can’t watch traffic whilst answering the questions of the universe like they would like.
I am so glad they aren’t babies any more.
But whhhyyyy mum? Why do ants live in holes in the ground and where do they even come from and why are they so small mum, WHY? Why aren’t you answering me? LOOK AT ME MUMMY!!!!
Running gag at our house that Baby on Board signs are the equivalent of ‘stay clear!’ My boys are a bit older now so I’m not the road risk that I once was but Mr Three still has a tendency to insist that I look at him doing something while I’m driving. We have lots of ‘Mummy has to watch the road while she’s driving’ discussions. How we all survived some of the driving manoeuvres that I pulled off when they were babies I don’t know.
I think it starts as frantic checking in mirrors to see what the hell has happened, then graduates to “mummy is driving right now, I can’t look at you” and ends up at pulling over on the side of the road and telling them to get out of the car and walk home.
No. I’m amazing. I could take on any rally car championship. With now 3 car seats and a huge dog in the boot, I now have a unique set of skills that some of the best rally car drivers couldn’t compete with.
Mums aren’t all that dangerous on the roads, we can drive under extreme conditions. That being said. I have looked into getting a privacy screen installed like in limousines so I can block them out entirely.
Ps. Water under the passenger seat is my all time favourite. Only stopped that at about 6 months pregnant as I couldn’t bend that far anymore.
OMG you’re a genius. A limo privacy screen needs to be installed at the same time as the baby seat. That would make everything better!
The first time we drove into town with our first born was hell. He screamed the whole damn 20mins I took. I then screamed at my husband to turn around and go home, we can’t do this, why is he screaming? What the F is going on. We finally got to town and realised he was done up way to tight and the straps were digging in. Lucky hubby was driving that day because I would have sure as hell caused a accident.
Oh poor little possum!!
I definitely think dads can handle it better than mums. My husband told me to pull over once because I was so upset at the baby screaming that he was feeling nervous with me behind the wheel. He knew I wasn’t paying attention at all because I was so concerned with the ungodly sounds coming from the child. It was probably a good call
Imagine how much of a shit driver I am with an nearly 2 year & nearly 1 year old in the backseat?! I am THE WORST!!!
Oh my god I feel for you. That sounds like HARD WORK. I swear, all your ideas of being a good parent fly out the window and it’s all about survival. Give the baby chocolate or cookies or his own iPhone, ANYTHING to keep him happy til we get home!
Holy shit this was me on the way home from school just now, except substitute “baby” for “European wasp”. Almost ran off the road. My chronically leave-the-windows-down husband is going to cop a serve tonight.
Holy shit indeed!!! I’m terrified of wasps. I reckon you’d get off scot free if you told the cops a wasp was in the car. Totally understandable
Yes, yes and yes! I was reading the paper a few weeks ago, The Courier Mail I think and the magazine that come in it and someone wrote an article on this and how they hated these signs and like it was a way to shove it in peoples face that you have a baby, not for the dangers. It is not, I am warning you of the situation that may or may not be happening in my car! Yep, I have one of those children that sleep for 5 minutes and wake up like it’s been 2 hours…I hate it! Gone are the days I can pick him up asleep from the car and gently place him in bed. He wakes up thinking he’s already had that bloody sleep!
Really!? I must look it up. That used to be me. I thought they were hideous and pointless. But now I totally see them as warning about the mayhem that’s probably going down inside the car. It makes me much more forgiving of crazy driving because I think “yep, you’re probably dealing with a screaming child or two kids trying to punch the crap out of each other.
And what’s with those car naps!? You’re still tired, I promise! Just let me put you straight into your cot and you can have a lovely relaxing nap. Trust me!!!!!
OMG! How did you find that Fiat video? Totally agree with you on the danger thing. My husband often turns around just to look at our son. For no reason other than cute-ness usually, unless it’s because we are trying to get him to nap in the car. That’s the worst. That’s when my husband checks incessantly until I scream so much that he finally realises our baby will never go to sleep while the child’s mother is terrified of dying. He always veers when he looks. He can’t help it. #thudlife
Hahaha! Thudlife indeed. You need to get your husband one of those sticky mirrors you put on the windshield that lets you look back at their face. I can’t look back at my boy when I’m driving because if he sees me looking it wakes him up even more. We need to totally ignore him until he’s too bored to stay awake.
P.S you need to watch the other fiat video, ‘Motherhood’ – it’s even funnier: http://youtu.be/eNVde5HPhYo
Yesterday I totally bought my boy a small bag of hot chips as we left the zoo to keep him awake on the drive home. He fell asleep with the second last chip hanging out of his mouth.
OMG that’s so bloody cute!
I do the same. If I’m about to get in the car and can tell he’s a bit tired, I’ll go back in to the shops and get some ridiculous treat like a cinnamon donut because it will keep him so excited and entertained that we MIGHT just make it home before he collapses.
I used to do this all the time! Especially if it was a longer drive. The food keeps them awake!
I do the same, Em. No – one must fall asleep in the car. I will do anything to avoid it. I’ve even poked my own children.
Renee, I poke all the time. Or grab a foot and jiggle it. Whatever works
I remember the newborn days of screaming and tears while driving. Bub wasn’t keen on it either!
Mine was THE WORST! And with all of our family living in Sydney (we are in Canberra) we needed to do that 3 hour drive quite a bit. And he screamed every single time. Until one day he just stopped. And now we have the opposite problem where he’ll fall asleep almost immediately which means I’m always racing home before nap time is cancelled.