licensed to drive (barely)

I got a North Carolina driver’s license yesterday, and oh lord, it was awful. I now have to give it up for Washington’s DMV, because I never knew just how good I had it before. Washington’s DMV has a website where you can look up your branch and see how long the wait time is, so you know whether or not it’s a good idea to head over. And it’s one of those “take a number and sit down” environments. I’ve never, ever waited more than 20 minutes at the DMV in Washington.

And yesterday? Oy. There is no place to sit, so I had to stand in line. For an hour and a half. It felt like it was about 90 degrees in there with everybody packed in like sardines. (Get all nice & sweaty for your photo – cute!) Then about halfway through it, I found out that you must have either cash or an in-state check. No plastic, and of course, my checks still have my old Washington address on them. So I asked the girl behind me to hold my place in line (she did, God bless her) while I literally ran across the street to the ATM. Oh! And I had to take a written driving test, which I wasn’t expecting at all. I barely passed, I made a couple of lucky guesses, and that’s the only way I got through it. And it turned out that this place was for driver’s licenses only, so I couldn’t even get our license plates while I was at it. I have to go to a different DMV location and stand in line all over again for that. So yeah. Annoying.

The one perk of all this is that I left Cate with Dave while I went to the DMV, and the whole thing screwed up her routine so much that she took a very shortened nap, only about an hour. So she went to bed last night at 11:00 instead of midnight, and I figured that hey, at least we’re moving in the right direction, yes?

She woke up at 8:30 this morning; usually it’s 9 or 9:30, so again, going in the right direction. After breakfast, she and I headed over to the gym. It was normally at the time of day when they’d have the toddlers outside on the playground, but it was raining, so instead they had part of the gym sectioned off for the kids. I walked/jogged on the track above the gym and kept an eye on Cate while I was working out. She didn’t really engage with the other kids at all. She found a little ride-on car, climbed on it, and then just sat there, looking down and kind of watching the other kids out of her peripheral vision. I was getting annoyed that none of the daycare teachers did anything to involve her, but I know they were busy keeping the other kids from killing each other. Finally Cate started to cry, and one of the ladies walked over and picked her up. It was kind of upsetting to watch it all from a distance. I wanted to go comfort her, but I know that this is just an adjustment and she needs to get used to it.

At noon, the toddlers went from the gym back into the nursery, and I went to do some crunches and lift some weights. (And incidentally? OUCH. I am so, so sore.) I finished my workout about 20 minutes later, and by the time I got to the nursery, she had fallen asleep in one of the ladies’ laps. She woke up when I picked her up, and because she got a 15-minute power nap, she’s all refreshed and perky now. It’s after 3:00 and she’s showing no signs of slowing down. I have a feeling she’s going to fall asleep on the living room floor around 5:00 this evening. Sigh.

running to grab the camera from me

She’s really lucky that she’s so darn cute.

2 thoughts on “licensed to drive (barely)

  1. Man, when I got my Washington license, I spent two hours at the DMV. I happened to be there the one day they allowed 16 year old to take the written test–or some such thing. They didn’t take plastic, either, but they did have an ATM in the office. Everyone was super nice, though, and I had the opportunity to listen to someone berate someone else over the phone and another guy talk about how his current girlfriend was a “keeper.”

Comments are closed.