Does this Minivan make Me Look like a Mom?

With the arrival of Jane Clare, we discovered we needed many things. This is because (as I have discussed in a previous entry) Jamie and I are not smart and you cannot make us be. We got rid of ALL our baby stuff before we were SURE we were done having children. This purging of baby items included my MINIVAN. A Ford Windstar that died shortly after we moved to Tulsa. We thought briefly of replacing it with another van, BUT...I WANT SOMETHING SMALLER!! I don't NEED room for a stroller anymore!! I want to DOWNSIZE! Code for: "I want to look like a Cool Mom." So we bought a Ford Freestyle. Oh yes...the epitome of "cool". Yes, you can wade through my sarcasm here, but it WAS smaller, felt less bulky and I was happy.

Then we had Jane. Wait...scratch that. The we had Jane and tried to travel. To Mississippi. At Christmas. With presents? And furniture. Hello? Nightmare. We have been riding three across the bench seat in the back. Two carseats and Jay in the middle. We couldn't put up the third row seat because I now have the stroller that I said I would no longer need, as well as soccer balls, soccer chairs, room for groceries, etc. Stop. Did I just qualify myself as a soccer mom? Shoot me, please.

Right. So no room in the car. Poor Jay is squished. And it was quickly becoming obvious that I needed a new vehicle. Perhaps a roomy SUV!! Yay! That's cool! Yes! An SUV with leather and a DVD player! And one of those power rear doors so that I don't have to lift anything! And a power folding third row seat! Yes! THAT'S EXACTLY WHAT I WANT. Somehow Jamie did not see things in quite the same light. He brought me down to reality quite quickly. Did you know that reality is called "a price tag?"

So we went car shopping. Jamie drove me to the Honda place just to "look" at the Odyssey. I moaned the whole way about how I didn't NEED options in an SUV. Maybe I could just get a base model? "Just LOOK at the Odyssey before you decide on an SUV." So fine. I resigned myself to LOOK. And HATE. So THERE. I opened the door of the Odyssey and the light dawned on me. Minivans may not look that cool on the outside, but they scream "COOL!!!" on the inside. I fell in love immediately and told Jamie that we could keep looking but no SUV was going to compare to that Odyssey.

After doing some research, we did end up buying the very Odyssey at which I looked. I still cringe when I have to say that word "minivan", but I have found if I just replace it with the word "Odyssey" it works better. You know..."I've got to get the Odyssey detailed." "I'm taking the Odyssey to the Aerosmith concert." "I've got the sunroof open and I'm rocking out to Modest Mouse in the Odyssey." Totally cool. Right?

I took the kids to Walmart in the Odyssey today. Upon getting home from Walmart I noticed something on my shorts. Poop. On my shorts? That I was wearing? The ones that I wore out in public with people I KNOW? Gah. And I thought the minivan made me look uncool??