My partner was over the moon with the service we’d had done on our old car. We’d found a great mechanic, Ringwood side.
“It drives like new!” he boasted, proudly patting the dash. At the time I had agreed, but that was before the baby arrived.
Even though we’d had our child restraint properly fitted and we knew our older model car was roadworthy, I was still worried. I can’t explain it, but the trip home from the hospital with our three day old baby was the most frightening – though uneventful – commute of my life. I sat in the backseat alongside my brand new little boy, daring a bead of sweat to appear on his tiny brow. He seemed absolutely fragile and dependent on my point blank presence to survive. Well, that’s motherly instinct, isn’t’ it? I hadn’t expected to feel so edgy, but I did.
A fortnight before he arrived, we had our old Mercedes serviced in Ringwood, the electric windows repaired, a wheel alignment and a replacement of the dodgy passenger side seatbelt that once sprang open on my nephew as I dropped him off at school.
I’d prepared myself for the possibility of having to learn who I was as parent- but I guess I thought those changes would be personal adjustments. People said I’d need to fight the temptation to keep my precious bundle safely wrapped in cotton wool – for me at least, I was more tempted to make sure everything around him was controlled, prepared and wrapped in order to keep him safe.
In those moments, I realised I’d be better off working with my anxiety on a more productive level. Having already spent so much on the Merc I wondered about how I should break the sensitive situation to my partner. But I needn’t have worried. Stirring a cup of tea and standing by the kitchen sink as we nervously tiptoed around our sleeping bairn, he blurted it out:
“We need a new car. I can’t concentrate for worry driving around in that old thing.”