The girls and I are going through some London growing pains. It’s nothing we can’t overcome but it’s causing some frustrations and my guess is it will only get worse before it gets better. I blame Singapore and how easy it is to live there. Of course, much of this is due to the harsh sentencing one can face for breaking the law, but on the flip side it makes for a very safe city to allow your tween/teen daughters to be free range chicks.

By the end of our time in Singapore, both girls were navigating a one to two-mile radius by themselves; the oldest was able to visit friends using the metro system with confidence and the youngest knew her way to all of the closest Starbucks, McDonalds, and bubble teas. Now we’re in London and things are city-er. London is a city in the same way that all cities are cities with the exception being Singapore. Does that make sense?

So, here we are, in a city-er city than Singapore and my girls are struggling to understand that A. Not all parents allow their children to run around by themselves, B. We probably are those parents now because, C. We aren’t in Singapore anymore. They’ve had a taste of freedom and now we have to reel it back in.

To make matters worse, it turns out that while we chose the loveliest of all villages to live in, most of the girls’ friends don’t live anywhere nearby. As it turns out, both of my girls are quite the social butterflies and have already lined up birthday parties, movies, and mall dates and we’re only in the third week of school. We have definitely had a few instances of the girls telling me they have made plans rather than asking me which would have been fine in our previous life but not so much anymore.

Then there’s me. I haven’t lined-up any birthday parties, movies, or mall dates but what’s weighing most heavily on me is how I am supposed to get my children from one place to another when I have a mild crippling fear of driving in London. I drove in Singapore (they drive on the same side as the U.K.) but, again, it’s Singapore, the least city-est of all cities. London is a complicated mass of roundabouts, narrow roads, and congestion.

While I was already aware of the U.K.’s love for roundabouts, I wish I had known just how much roundabouts are a way of life here. I mean, just about a mile outside of where we live is a small roundabout within a large roundabout. That’s how much roundabouting is going on.

The narrow streets were also something I thought I was prepared for but this is next level narrow because the roads typically have cars parked along them and facing every which way which requires a large amount of brain capacity to realize that you are not driving on the wrong side of the road. It also requires the ability to judge whether you or the oncoming car should be the one to move aside and honestly, if I go out one day and never come back it’s probably because I’m stuck on a narrow road, allowing car after car go because I’m too chicken shit to make a move.

Finally, there’s the congestion. I grew up in northern Virginia through which I-95 travels and anyone who has been to Washington, D.C. or it’s surrounding areas, knows that the traffic of I-95 is some of the absolute worst in the U.S. It is continuously backed-up or at a standstill and it can last for miles. London really isn’t much different. The day we arrived we had to travel about 10 miles and it took us an hour and a half which by that time felt like an eternity.

Basically, what this is all coming down to is that: My children need to make friends within walking distance of our home and only do things within a 1 to 2-mile radius; I need more Zanax; It’s too bad drinking a glass of wine before driving is frowned upon; I am never driving.