The Moment We Realized We Needed a New Car

Some would say it should have coincided with the plus sign on the pee stick when we found out I was pregnant with Georgia.  No?  Okay, then certainly by the time I was pregnant with June, right?  Au contraire, my friends!  You can happily get by in a Honda Civic with two kids in carseats if you try; the trunk space is deceivingly large, I swear!  Besides, who needs:  remote keyless entry, working power windows, or even a music player other than AM/FM radio, right?  (Confession:  in our pre-child days, Joe and I occasionally read magazine articles out loud to each other to pass the time on long road trips.  Wow.  Are we like 100 years old or what?)

I have never heard of anyone getting as much unsolicited advice to buy a new car as we did over the last 4 years.  Was our car bothering other people?  Because we were strangely (and in my case, stubbornly) happy with it.

Realistically, we knew in the back of our heads that we'd have to get a larger vehicle upon finding out I was pregnant with Numero Tres, but if you're looking for an exact moment in time when it clicked, it was:  December 26th, 2010.

Step 1:  Have everyone's teeth professionally cleaned for free by father in law dentist.  (A typical, wholesome Boxing Day affair, no?  Is that not what you did for family fun the day after Christmas?)  

Step 2:  Drive back into the city, making sure to stop at Burger King for fries.  Wouldn't want those sparkling teeth to last for more than 30 minutes.  Take goofy picture on cell phone while waiting for your order.


Step 3:   Realize after paying for and accepting food that the driver's window is stuck down.  In a snowstorm.  Throw coat over freezing 3-year-old strapped in the backseat.  Thank God you are close to home.

{That's not an empty carseat - there's a Georgia under there.}

Step 4:  Get car stuck in the alley while attempting to pull into your parking spot in increasingly heavy snow. 


Step 5:  Evacuate children!  Get shovel!  Get pliers to fix window!  And admit it's time to buy the van. 

Crucial Step 6:  Procrastinate at least 5 more months before purchasing van.   

I must admit, the van is pretty awesome.  Look, it comes with 15 heirloom tomato seedling holders!  (Just kidding, but I did stop at Maggie's on the way home and she gave me these beauties to plant.)


I am not a car person, so I never had that "over my dead body" attitude towards minivans that a lot of people do.  Joe would prefer to own a hideous, embarrassing Firebird, but since that ain't happening, he's totally down with the van.  At first we joked that we had bought a $30,000 pack-n-play, because after driving it home from the dealership we went nowhere and didn't even get around to installing the carseats for a week, but the girls L-O-V-E going outside to play in it everyday, crawling all around and pushing every button in sight for hours.

HOW CHEESY LOOKING ARE WE?:


In conclusion, the van rocks, but don't worry, we still love you little Civic!

Day 1:


Day 3,454: A two year old, a two month old, a driver, and two adult passengers. Ta-da!


Tonight (aka Day 4,044, aka Kate at 31 weeks): Thanks for the calendar, Paul Edwards, but it's time for me to move on.