drive on

S is learning to drive a stick-shift car. This is by virtue of the fact that the new car is stick shift and so is the older one. Now that the Hyundai is gone she has to learn. Truthfully she's doing a heck of a lot better than I did when I had to learn. I was 16 and my parents bought a Volkswagon Thing for my brother and I, bright orange and manual shift. It turned out to be a really fun car.

She's a little nervous starting on a hill but overall I'm very impressed. The very first time she didn't even hiccup around town. She stalled a couple of times at stop signs but really that's not so bad. We think it's a useful skill that everyone should have anyway so it's a good thing she's learning now. The funny thing is that it's sort of a minor step backwards because she's gone from total car independence to having use of a car if a parent is available to go with. Eventually she'll be on the road by herself again but not quite yet.