Laughter, the road to insanity

I have posted before about driving with baby but that was back when getting into a car with him made my tongue swell up in fear. Now of course I throw him into his car seat and he's barely buckled in before I'm daring buses in the oncoming lane.

Just kidding, Ma, just kidding.

No, the trouble I have now with driving Charlie about is to do with his car seat. Since he passed the 9kg mark (so fast that until I got a good look I thought the trolls had left a changeling in the night) he has moved up to a forward-facing armchair that is supposed to last until he is three. How long it will actually last my little spud is another matter entirely however, as usual I digress. The point is that he is no longer facing backwards but temptingly, facing forward. Where I can see him. If I turn around.

This isn't the problem, it's just the cause of the problem. The problem is that the car seat is so low that unless one is standing by my car looking in, it's impossible to see, (say, while you're walking towards my car), that there's a baby seat in it. This means that while sitting at the light and making faces at him in the rear view mirror, it looks to any oncoming pedestrian or any particularly vigilant driver in the car ahead of me as if I am making faces at them.

This means that, the instant that I see I have confused some poor innocent who is now wondering a: if he knows me or b: if he should pull a face back, I have then got to turn around and continue making faces at Charlie face-to-face just to prove my sanity, which in turn confuses him because he has only just worked out that I have moved the mirror temporarily so he can see me in it and is now looking in the wrong direction. By this point of course the lights have changed and the person in the car behind me has now seen me poking out my tongue at them making them wonder what they can possibly have done to me. I then drive off in embarrassment down the next convenient side-street adjusting my rear-view mirror in shame and it takes me five times as long as normal to drive home. That's the problem.

The solution is of course to stop making faces at my son while we're in the car but I can't bear to stop at a light and not look at him just in case he's looking at me and thinks I've forgotten his existence. If he's looking at me, I have then got to make a face. If he's not looking at me then I start worrying that he's forgotten my existence so I blow raspberries at him until he gives me a big gummy grin and then I start making faces.

The reason I make faces at my son when we're in the car is that for some reason, he is particularly easy to amuse when we're driving and I may have a teensy baby-laugh substance abuse problem. I realise this is as bad as me coming out in public wearing a baby-pink princess dress and and stating "I Heart Fluffy Bunnies" while tap-dancing and I may now discover that I have put my Mother in a wheelchair from shock, however the truth is now out and I must face the consequences.

It's so bad that I put my neck out the other week while the frog was driving and I was in the passenger seat because I played 'peek-a-boo' with C around the head-rest for about half an hour just to hear him laugh. I'm not going to go all out and state that baby laughs are better than crack because I have never actually tried crack, however I think I can safely state that they are less harmful to one's general health, unless, of course, one is driving and using at the same time.

I know this makes me sound insane however luckily that doesn't seem to affect me personally, only those unfortunate enough to come within range. However i did briefly wonder (just shoot me) if public perception of my sanity would be saved by sticking one of those 'baby on board' signs in our car window. No, really, shoot me.