Honk, honk. Baby on Board (Caroline)

Everyone says that having a baby is life changing, but I didn't expect it to change my driving. Sure, I thought, I'll probably drive more cautiously to keep the precious cargo safe, but I didn't expect that red lights would become so annoying.

Most of the time, Emma goes to sleep in her car seat. But today, she was cranky. When the car was moving - fast - she was calm. But if we stopped, she would scream and scream as if the world was coming to an end. So, my job was to drive through downtown Vancouver in such a way that the car didn't stop. Yeah, right. So now that I am parent, my driving consists of abrupt braking to keep the jiggling motion going, slowing down well ahead of a light to avoid a complete stop, driving in the bus lane to keep the motion going and a desperate desire to honk anyone who actually stops at a red light in front of us. And the belief that if I say "Zoom, zoom" over my shoulder to my daughter, I can somehow convince her that the car is still moving. We were joking that we needed a siren on the top of the car that amplified her wailing to all the other drivers. "Coming through. Baby on board. Pull over and let us through!"

All of this is an improvement over my driving during pregnancy, when I developed a strange form of hormonal road rage where everyone on the road was pissing me off royally and I wasn't afraid to talk about it. I think I used more expletives during pregnancy than I did for ten years prior.

I wonder what the next change will be to my identity as a driver...?