My New Soccer-Mommobile
Friday, September 05, 2008

We just got a new-to-us van. See how happy it makes me? It's a 2002 T0yot@ S1enna that's in really great condition. It is definitely the nicest vehicle I have ever owned. My MIL bought it for us!!! Seriously. I am soooooo thankful.

That said, I am very thankful for all the vehicles I've ever had. My first car (an '88 Chrys1er LeBar0n convertible) was bought for me by my parents when I was 17 years old. It was decent (especially for a first car!), but had a few cosmetic and mechanical issues. I sold it for the money to move across the country to live near my internet boyfriend (who is now my DH) when I was 19. When I got here, I bought a gigantic boat (I think it was a Crown Victoria) for $200. It definitely had its share of problems, but got me from point A to point B for a while. Soon after DH and I got hitched, he bought me a '91 (?) Ford Tempo. It was pretty nice. It only had 40,000 miles on it when we bought it from a 90 year old lady who only drove it back and forth to the post office and doctor appointments. Some idiot smashed the front bumper when it was parked outside our apartment and took off right after we bought it. Then someone else smashed my door with their giant Yuk0n Denali (again, while parked. Ggggrr) and we were poor, so we didn't use the insurance money to fix the door. The power windows and the air conditioning stopped working. Our pastor and his wife felt sorry for us, so they bought us a '94 F0rd Tauru5 super cheap at an auction back in 2004. It wasn't very pretty cosmetically, but ran great and had ice cold A/C (for a while, anyway). Because it already looked kind of junky, we decided to trick it out by adding flame decals, plastic spinner wheel covers, tassels along the front and back windshields, and white fur on the ceiling. It was mainly just a funny ha-ha joke type thing to do and I liked it for a while, but eventually grew tired of riding around town looking like a dang fool. That's the vehicle I've been driving for the last few years. I recently took down the tassels and tore off the decals. All the plastic spinners fell off or broke. The whole back end is covered in some sort of mystery tar/paint and was like that when we got it. Junky. I'm kind of embarrassed to drive it around, especially if I am meeting someone new or going someplace where I want to make a good impression. It looks like trash. Again, don't get me wrong - I am thankful to have it. It's not too often that people just give away vehicles! Oh wait, that's actually happened to us 3 times now! DH's sister gave us their early-90's Buick a few months ago because she and her hubby don't drive anymore. And though I am so thankful (DH's truck has no A/C, so it has been nice for him to drive this Summer), it does have some mechanical problems and somehow water is constantly soaking the floorboards (from the heater core?) and the whole car reeks of mold and mildew. Yuck.

So, yeah.....

At this point, a 2002 T0yota van that looks practically like it was just driven off the showroom floor might as well be a Rolls Royce to us! But I'm thinking it might look even better with some tassels and flame decals....maybe some ground effects and hydraulics. What do you think?

BTW, Scout rode foward-facing in her car seat on our maiden voyage, but I have since turned her car seat back to rear-facing like it was in my car. I just decided that I am not comfortable with her riding forward-facing yet even though she meets the minimum age/weight requirements to be forward-facing. Most of my friends and family think I am being ridiculously paranoid by keeping her rear-facing, but I still have this nagging voice in my head that is telling me not to install her seat facing the front. Keeping a toddler rear-facing in their seat for as long as possible (most convertible car seats have a rear-facing weight limit of 30-35 lbs) is the safest thing to do. It is much better on the neck and spine to be rear-facing if involved in a collision.

Labels: car seats, family, my car, safety, the van

posted by Unkempt Mommy @ 9:00 AM,

8 Comments:

At Fri Sep 05, 02:56:00 PM CDT, shoofly mama said...: Wow. I am not jealous, I am not jealous, I am not jealous.... You are so blessed!!!!!!!
At Fri Sep 05, 04:18:00 PM CDT, Girl said...: I think Mini Vans rock... it's makes us "cool" moms.
At Fri Sep 05, 10:03:00 PM CDT, Two Lines On a Stick said...: Wow, that van looks awesome. I would love to have something like that! Congrats on your new vehicle :)
At Sat Sep 06, 08:00:00 AM CDT, Dawn B said...: Welcome to the mom mobile club!!!!!
LOL We have a Dodge Caravan. And uh... seriously don't know what we'd do without it. Between toting the kidz, Ricky's drywall work stuff in it, and etc.. yeah, a Dodge Neon seriously didn't work for us before it. LOL You MIL ROCKS!!!!!
At Sun Sep 07, 12:32:00 AM CDT, Andria and Co. said...: Huh. I must not have the RSS stuff in my reader correctly for your site. Bummer, cause I love me some UM!
Anyway, congrats on the new ride!!! Woohoo!!!!
At Mon Sep 08, 10:42:00 AM CDT, Unkempt Mommy said...: I think my feed info was all screwed up for a while for some reason. I think this address works now: http://www.blogger.com/feeds/29877544/posts/default. Thanks for following me. Mwah! <3 <3
At Wed Sep 10, 02:12:00 AM CDT, MIP said...: Sweet new ride! I foresee a minivan in our future too.
At Wed Sep 10, 12:09:00 PM CDT, Danielle said...: Yes! Welcome to the dark side, my friend!!! I LOVE MY VAN! Love it! Enjoy!