This is our New Big Van!!!
I haven't even driven it yet. We spent ALL DAY yesterday buying this van. I should have been more prepared. Who in their right mind takes a 4 (almost 5) year old, a 2 (almost 3) year old, and a baby car shopping? Without food? Or distractions? Me.
Problem #1: Daniel gets carsick. And he is freshly potty-trained. I made sure he had a pullup on, just in case he had an accident. But this boy doesn't do accidents on purpose anymore. Between being carsick and needing to go potty...well, he cried all the way to the dealership, which was an hour and a half away. He held both back, that swell little man of mine.
Problem #2: It was lunch time and all I had were a few hold-me-over snacks for the kids. Three cheese sticks, two bananas, and a bag of mixed nuts. I assumed that we were going to do drive-thru like last time, but since we were getting ready to borrow several thousand dollars while wiping out our savings account, Mark was on money saving mode. No drive-thru. By the time we got to the dealership, the bananas and cheese were gone!
Problem #3: The wait. We knew that we wanted this van. We didn't need to test drive or anything. We just needed to make the right deal. We as in Mark. My job was to keep the kids occupied. First we walked around the indoor car displays and counted how many red cars there were then how many white cars then how many black cars. Then we named the letters on the sides of the cars. Then they told us to go to the "play area," which was only a box of Mega blocks and an empty dollhouse. But there was TV! I figured out how to change the channel to PBS and we watched many many politically correct shows for kids. The paperwork took forever!
Problem #4: Loan issues. Something or other happened and Mark had to call Ian and teach him how to access his passwords on the computer and look up some information online. Walking a computer newbie/child through something like that took a lot of patience! But everything worked out just fine.
Problem #5: The Exit. Mark wanted me to drive the van home so I could get used to it right away. I was fine with that. But I needed to move the car seats from the Honda to the van and I was not going to do it without him helping me corral our tired-of-waiting kids in the parking lot. He couldn't leave the loan paperwork. So we decided that I would just drive the kids in the Honda and he could drive the van. In traffic. All the way home. At this point Fiona was spinning in the parking lot and dropped the bag of mixed nuts. The bag split open, spilling our only food source on the ground. Feeling bad about the nuts, Fiona threw a temper tantrum because she wanted to ride in the new van. She screamed and cried and kicked her feet on the seats and hit her head on the back of the seat. And its a good thing Mark did drive the new van sans kids!
Problem #6: Driving Home. Once Fiona calmed down and we entered traffic, Lula started crying. Lucky for her, I made a fresh bottle before we left and Fiona could hold it for her. (See Fiona? I needed you with me!) As soon as Lula was sleeping and we had crawled about ten miles down 405, Daniel started crying that he needed to "choke in a bowl." I had the empty nut container (complete with screw on lid) and I handed it back to him. I am so thankful that he is able to take care of his "choking" needs-warn me before it happens and aim well. And I had a container with a screw-on lid. By the time we merged on I-5, things settled down...until the big semi-truck woke everyone up with its loud brakes. And the kids were hungry from not eating all day. And Lula needed to pull over for a diaper change. But after that things went much much better and we went home, happily ever after, the end!
