This morning my friend H and I did some very complex child and car swapping, and I ended up with all of her kids and her car. I left Ella and H's oldest daughter M, who is the same age as Ella, at home with B while I took Lily, H's son W, Campbell, and H's daughter L with me to drop Lily and W off at preschool. Got all that?
Because my car can't fit four kids, H left her minivan with me and took my car. This was the first time I've driven a minivan since my mother-in-law had hers. Which, now that I think about it, may be part of the reason I dislike them so much.
Anyway, after driving H's minivan, I can see why people like them so much. It certainly was very easy to load four kids in and out. And it handled well enough. But I still couldn't get past the fact that it's a minivan. B and I have been researching cars that seat at least 6, and I'm slowly coming to accept the fact that I'll probably end up with a minivan sometime before Baby Bee is born. I just won't like driving it. I told B that I'd get a bumper sticker made up that says "I loathe my minivan!" He said that if I did that, the car would never behave for me.
I also got to test out transporting four children this morning. Granted, I had a 5-year-old, a 3 1/2-year-old, and two toddlers, not a baby, a toddler and two older kids. But still, I did ok. I got everyone in the car and buckled without a problem and the two older kids dropped off at preschool without losing the little kids in the process. I felt quite victorious by the time I got home.
I still have four kids, but the toddlers are entertaining each other, and the big girls are in the back yard doing something that I probably don't want to know about.
Maybe I'll survive having four of my own.
5 comments:
Good job on test driving the minivan and test driving what it's like to load, unload and transport 4 kids.
Embrace the minivan, HOK, and come to the other side. We've been waiting for you. ;)
I swore I would NEVER have a minivan. I was an SUV girl all the way. When Little Man was born I had a Jeep Cherokee, back when they were still the boxy ones, and they have a remarkably small back seat, and I couldn't fit 2 car seats rear facing back there. We went out and test drove a couple of minivans and I reluctantly bought one. Now I'm on Minivan 2.0 and I probably won't ever go back. I love them.
After my research, I have to say it was a bit of a hard choice between the toyota and the honda, but we love our Toyota. I had a Dodge for the first one, but I didn't like the new dodge. The KIA was nice, too, I had that one time as a rental (whenever the van goes in the shop I have to rent one, so I've driven a lot of them), but we couldn't get captain's chairs in the middle when we were buying.
Not that you asked. It really isn't as bad as I thought it would be - I love my van. I really, truly love it.
Nobody WANTS to buy a minivan, hok. But after you drive one for a while, you fall in love with the convenience. And the fact that you're completely invisible when driving it--just in case you want to drive naked or anything. (Well, MOSTLY invisible. On our latest trip to Texas, we had a minivan with NY plates--not so invisible then.)
The best thing is that the kids can get themselves in and out. Oh, yeah, and the safety thing.
I will never ever ever ever EVER purchase a minivan. Ever. Because I have never seen a red one (sure, I'll go with that). And alllll my cars are red. For-EV-er.
I was totally going to say "Embrace the minivan" and someone already said it!
Barb's right. (Duh.) No one WANTS to buy one. It's always a teensy bit of a let down when I see it in the parking lot and realize it's mine. Sure, it's a pretty blue and I've got the satellite radio and the knitting ball trailer hitch, but it a Caravan and nothing will change that.
Also, my children have to reach further to poke each other in the van than they do in other vehicles.
Someday, though, I'm going back to a zippy car.
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