Our New Van

As of Thursday morning, we are the proud owners of a brand new 2008 Kia Sedona mini-van. As Duncan says, he has officially lost some of his manhood! I, on the other hand, have made significant headway into becoming an official "soccer mom." But I'm absolutely loving it. My very favorite feature of all is the automatic sliding doors and lift gate. With a simple push of a button on my key fob, they open up. I know many of you are saying what's the big deal with opening a door yourself but once you've tried it, you'll see what I'm talking about. I think it's especially nice when you're carrying a small child and you can have the door already open and waiting for you when you get to the van. No more running out in the street while Mommy fumbles around trying to get the car unlocked. And oh, as an added bonus, it's gold which is the color I wanted. I would have taken anything that had the features we wanted but providentially, it turned out to be the color I wanted all along.

Since it's Friday night, I'll save all the details of how we worked out a deal but needless to say, we ended up purchasing it from the dealership we went to on Sunday in Longwood and we are happy with the deal we received. But I just have to tell you about my experience with Calleigh and the dealership. As it turned out, it was just Calleigh and I that went there on Thursday morning. Duncan was at work so I wasn't intending to actually buy the car at that time. I just wanted to reserve it or finalize things so no one else could buy it. Trying to do anything else with Calleigh in tow was a scary thought. As soon as we got into the place, Calleigh yells "There's an oval!!!" And yes, there was a big sign of an Orlando Magic player with a cut out oval for a head (you put your own head in there). Two seconds later, she's yelling, "There's a diamond!!" as she runs over to a big mat in front of a door with the Mitsubishi logo (the dealership also sells Mitsubishi's) on it. Yes, as it turns out the Mitsubishi logo is made up of three diamonds. Never noticed that before. The general manager, who I was talking with, was quite in awe and asked her as he pointed to the tile floor, "What shape is this?" And she said "Square" without missing a beat to which he said "Wow, she must have learned those in school." I bit back my retort and said simply that she learned it from me. This same general manager then told me that I could fill out all the paperwork and Duncan could come in later and sign it but that I could drive the van off the lot when I left. I said okay a little apprehensively as I looked at Calleigh. Over the course of the next two hours, Calleigh pretty much had the run of the place. Fortunately there were no other customers so she just roamed around going into all of the offices, talking to all the employees (all men) and just generally being as friendly as can be. The employees were all really nice to her and didn't mind the interruptions. So thankfully, the experience turned out to be a very pleasant one. Now it's just a matter of her getting used to saying "Mommy's van" instead of "Mommy's car." This morning she wanted to listen to a certain song and I said that I couldn't find the CD. So she says to me "It's in Mommy's car." I've explained several times that Mommy's car is gone - - we sold it to the car dealership. I'm sure it will sink in eventually.

Monday and Tuesday this week were pretty routine days - story time and playground with Jonathan and Kristine in the mornings. Wednesday was a busy day for us. In the morning we dropped off a bunch more stuff at the Salvation Army (the baby room is coming along...) and then we went to the car wash to get my car washed and vacuumed. I figured that I should at least have my car looking halfway decent when we traded it in. Calleigh enjoyed seeing the car getting soaped up and sprayed as we watched through a big window inside. From there it was on to Costco to get Grandpa's gift certificate. You already know how that turned out. Since we were already meeting at Cheesecake Factory down at the Mall at Millenia for Ron's birthday, Duncan and I decided to stop in first at a Kia dealership not to far from there. I got Calleigh up a little early from her nap and we were off - - we would meet Duncan there. I took 528 to get there and as I'm getting off, with the dealership literally one minute away, I accidentally get on the Turnpike. I was distracted by all of the road work. And would you believe that there was no exit for like 10 miles (except for I-4 which wouldn't help me turn get turned around) I was so disgusted. I finally came upon a rest area in the middle of the highway where I could turn around but all in all, my little mistake cost me almost 25 extra minutes of driving. As soon as I pulled in, Duncan came up to me and said "They won't give us a deal here." So it ended up being a wasted trip after all that.

It was on to the Cheesecake Factory from there. Since we didn't spend long at the dealership, we got there a little early so Duncan killed some time with Calleigh watching these fountains of water they had in the mall. Calleigh liked it but it also seemed to scare her a little so she spent some of the time just clutching Duncan and watching it over her shoulder. The group for the "party" was made up of us, Ron and Elaine, and Toni and Terry. We had a nice meal (especially since we had part of a gift certificate left) but as usual, it's not very relaxing when Calleigh's there. She needs constant stimulation. Not to mention that she wants to sit in the booster seat instead of the highchair and trying to keep her IN the booster seat is a major chore. I had brought along a sandwich for her and fruit but she barely touched her sandwich and instead, downed my potato soup. I was very surprised. She grabbed it and a metal spoon and proceeded to eat it with that spoon as if she were a normal person. I had never seen her eat quite like that before. It was very impressive. And rest assured, I made sure she didn't so much as LOOK at a piece of cheesecake. She wasn't getting a single bite not after the cupcake fiasco. The icing on the cake of this whole day for me was when I pulled out the card from Ron and realized that I had brought with me Ricky's birthday card instead. Nothing really seemed to go right on Wednesday! But we did enjoy celebrating Ron's 60th birthday despite it all.

Yesterday was Megan's birthday and it found Shannon, Tiffany, Megan, Calleigh, and I headed out to Moe's for supper. Duncan was busy at the dealership signing the paperwork or he would have joined us. Calleigh decided to not eat much and instead passed the time by taking my container of queso and proceeding to rub it all over her hands. Sure, I would have preferred to eat it with my chips but you pretty much just go along with whatever keeps her occupied while you can get in a few bites...assuming it doesn't do her or others harm or cause a scene. After we were done and Duncan was done with his stuff, he came to Moe's in the van to pick up Calleigh so I could go back with the girls. It was the first time I had been at their apartment without Calleigh so I was actually able to just sit on the couch and relax. We were going to go do something to keep the birthday festivities going but it was getting late so we ended up just watching American Idol while we ate some birthday cake.

Speaking of birthdays, Calleigh has learned her birthday. Duncan has been teaching her all of the months so along with that, I taught her that her birthday is May 17. Now she goes around saying "When's your birthday?" But she says it really fast over and over again.

This morning we went and did our yard sale thing. So much nicer in the van! As it turns out, yard sales have become more than just looking for deals. Since I only go to ones that have baby stuff, a lot of them are being run by mothers with small children and I inevitably start chitchatting with them about motherhood and all that. I had a nice talk with a lady this morning who had a 2-year old girl and a baby boy. I give her props for trying to host a yard sale with just herself and those two kids! Anyway, she said she had c-sections with both of her kids and I asked her if it was true that recovering from a second c-section was easier than the first. She said "no." Ahhh, not what I wanted to hear! But she amended it by saying she also had her tubes tied so maybe that's what caused the poor experience.
It's funny about the yard sales because Calleigh is becoming an addict. I think it's because she likes all the kids and toys that she gets to play with. We left one sale and I told her that we had one more we were going to and she said "Two more yard sales?" I said "No, one." And she responded, "Two more yard sales." When we left that last one, she started crying and saying "More yard sales."

I'll share one other thing that Calleigh has started doing this week. She has a book, ABC Look at Me (also called the "Dirty Face" book by Calleigh due to a certain picture), that she got from Kelly and Steve for Christmas that has a picture of a baby's face that goes with each letter of the alphabet. For example, there's a picture of a baby with an angry face and it says "A is for Angry when I'm having a bad day." It's really neat because she's learned all of the words and expressions that go with each letter (this is how she learned whiny). H, of course, is for Happy and I tell her that this is the best one and so now the last few days, she'll randomly come over to me and start rubbing my cheeks and saying "Mommy's happy?" After I assure that yes, "Mommy's happy" she'll then proceed to lift up my shirt, rub my belly, and say "Baby's happy?" It's so cute!

That's the update this week from our household. Have a wonderful Sabbath!