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We saw the photos, and like you, felt concern that perhaps it was still a little too soon for Sean Preston to be getting his first driving lesson surely those tiny feet couldn't reach the pedals yet! As it turns out, however, this wasn't a case of post-natal parallel parking instruction, but yet another death-defying escape of Britney and brood from the relentless flashbulbs of her paparazzi pursuers:

A source close to Spears explains that the singer drove to Starbucks with her bodyguard in the passenger seat and son Sean in his car seat in the back. When the bodyguard went into the store to get the drinks, Spears took Sean out of his car seat and held him in her lap while she waited. Photographers approached the car, says the source, and became aggressive. Once her bodyguard climbed back into the car, Spears drove away while still holding her son.


"Today I had a horrifying, frightful encounter with the paparazzi while I was with my baby. Because of a recent incident when I was trapped in my car without my baby by a throng of paparazzi, I was terrified that this time the physically aggressive paparazzi would put both me and my baby in danger. I instinctively took measures to get my baby and me out of harm's way, but the paparazzi continued to stalk us, and took photos of us which were sold to the media. I love my child and would do anything to protect him."

It's hard not to feel for the tormented Spears, even as it occurs to us that if expecting and/or newbie celebrity moms just avoided the premium chain coffee-inhaling habit altogether, a fair portion of their paparazzi woes could be eliminated outright. That said, we're still going to give Britney the benefit of the doubt, and assume it was a last minute judgment call for the sake of her toddler's safety; it's not as if she had completely lost her senses cropped from the photo was Kevin Federline, cooing happily in the back of the vehicle, safely harnessed into his restraining seat.