January 27, 2004 - Tuesday
It has now been about four and a half months since Jeremy starting driving the car to the edge of the parking lot of Harry's. Sure enough, it is something that he has come to expect and, thus, something we have done almost every school day, save the couple of times when I've had the other car and one time when Jeremy was very nasty in Harry's classroom. We sit together, Jeremy on my lap behind the steering wheel, and it is, somewhat surprisingly after all this time, still fun. It'd be easy to think that it slows us down, but even on hectic mornings I actually think this little routine helps us go faster. Jeremy usually doesn't complain about leaving the toys he's found in the classroom and he's anxious to climb in the car with me. Most of all, it always amazes me that at the end of this little ride - which consists of (I think) less than 100 yards, 4 minor turns, an underpass beneath a section of the building, a hill, and a total of less than 30 seconds - Jeremy is always happily obliging about getting into either his (or Harry's) carseat in the back. We pull over onto a set of abandonned railroad tracks near the street and he, without delay, starts to climb from my lap and into the back of the car. I strap him in and we're moving again.

What is new now is that Jeremy is definitely showing that he is learning to steer the car around the four little turns. He'll start turning the steering wheel himself rather than just holding on to the steering wheel as I turn it, although I do have to help him a little on the bigger turns. What's more, as he does it, he calls out in his angelic half questioning-half commenting manner, "turn?" "turn tunnel?" "turn big hill?" "big turn?" He still needs a little help getting the degree of turn just right, especially on the "big turn," a 90 degree bend that goes out toward the street, but he's got the idea.


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