What is it with kids and roundabouts?

So what is it with kids and roundabouts? My daughter (10) talks constantly. Bless her, she can’t help it and even after ten years (ok, well 8 as she didn’t talk for the first two) of being berated for talking to me when I am trying to concentrate on driving she just can’t seem to help herself.

She now understands that Mummy needs to focus when driving but sometimes I wonder if I need to drive into the car in front of me on purpose so that she will finally learn that this crap has to stop.

And no, she doesn’t just bring up any old subject at random times. Nothing as simple as just drivelling on about her day as we are driving along a straight stretch of road when it’s completely safe…… Not something I can half listen to while I navigate.

No, not my girl, she’s a classic all on her own. She waits, I’m sure of it. She waits till I am reverse parking into the only and inevitably smallest spot available, or till we are at a busy junction and I am trying to make eye contact with an oncoming driver so I can smile nicely and squeeze out or heaven forbid, the worst one, she waits till I am on the busiest roundabout possible or trying to merge onto a packed out M25 at 70mph before she hits me with questions like “Mom, why do you think God chooses to take the people we really love to heaven rather than just some person we don’t know because I really miss………..”

And to make matters worse her eyes are welled up with tears and it’s obvious she needs a well thought out and processed answer like now! NOT when I’ve actually managed to safely manoeuvre us across the busy roundabout. Classic questions she asks at these inevitable times have included things like;

“Mummy, why do you think my dad never calls?”

“Mummy, why did God have to make my brother deaf because that’s really unfair? I hate God.”

“Mum, where do babies come from?”

I really love my daughter. She’s thoughtful, bright and intelligent and a bloody great conversationalist but why oh why in the world does she choose to have these conversations with me in the most dangerous situations? Can’t she see that we’re gonna die? My life flashes before my eyes every time she does it!

No matter how many times I tell her that she needs to just look at the road and the situation we are in BEFORE she opens her mouth she just seems to blurt the stuff out anyways.

So next time she does it I am going to pull  up and leave her on the roundabout and collect her on the way back.

That should teach her a lesson right?

I’ll be good about it though. I’ll leave her activity bag that she packs for journeys; the activities she’s supposed to be doing instead of trying to ask me those questions and I’ll leave her a packed lunch and some water for good measure. If I’m going to be more than an hour and if I’m in a good mood, I might even leave her the picnic blanket too!

Love you baby girl! You’re one crazy tail chip off the old block but my goodness….. you’re gonna kill us one day on a roundabout! x