The Little Silver Van

I used to talk bad about mini-vans. I feel bad about it. Not that there's anything wrong with mini-vans; some of my best friends are mini-vans. I just never thought I would own one.

After looking into the big white van and coming up with a big white no-go, I re-thought my choices and motives. The reason I liked the big white van was its pure utility. That made me question whether the Ford Flex was an option at all because it's a lot smaller than our Expedition EL and doesn't hold very much.

I did some more research and concluded that all the people who drive mini-vans can't be wrong, despite the things I've said about them. Mini-vans have walk-through access to the third row, which we need because we will have two carseats in the second row. They also have lots of cargo room to carry strollers and baby gear - not as much as the big white van, but still a pretty good bit. Other than it being a mini-van, there's not much to complain about with the functionality of a mini-van. On the inside, they are just like you and me.

I am a Honda/Acura fan. My last three cars have been Hondas and Acuras and, other than a battery cable or three on one of the Hondas, they were perfect. And Honda's van, the Odyssey, is made right here in Alabama. Naturally, I picked the Odyssey.

It's only 69 inches tall, so it fits in the garage. No measuring required, unlike the big white van.


My only problem with this purchase was negotiating with Heather on the optional features. Because this is "our" car as opposed to "my" car, I think I ran into more resistance and second guessing than I'm used to. Heather accepted my determination that: 1) a mini-van was the correct vehicle; and, 2) the Honda Odyssey was the best mini-van for us, but that was pretty much where her acceptance ended.

I researched the trim lines and optional features on the van and gave Heather my report on what we needed. She shot down every single one of the options. Not some. All. For each feature, Heather asked how much it costs. I told her how much and re-explained the benefits of said feature. She said no. Over and over. She told me I was to purchase this van with no optional features for the cheapest price possible.

Heather said it. Heather is pregnant. I don't argue with pregnant women. We will have a van with no features.

Although it went against every fiber of my leather seat loving, big stereo listening self, I bought a Honda Odyssey with no optional features. There is no Honda Odyssey one can purchase that has less stuff on it than ours. I bet even the one you rent from Budget Rent-A-Car has more stuff on it. I guess this makes sense because the Expedition, with all the kid friendly features and fancy things, is the primary kid hauler. Really, I don't need to know the reason. A pregnant woman told me to do it and I did it. Those are the rules as I understand them.

Even though both Heather and I still drive SUVs, we now own a mini-van. I don't know if that makes us mini-van people. I do know that Heather looked down at me from the Expedition when I got behind the wheel of the van at the dealership and laughed. Maybe she was laughing that we, as SUV people, bought a mini-van. Maybe she was just laughing at me. I know neither of us claim it yet. I've driven it a few times when I could have driven my SUV. I like it. I may have to take back most of the things I've said about mini-vans. I just had to take the time to get to know one.

Snacks on the Go

Today, we went to church and put the kids down for a nap a little later than normal. They ended up sleeping until about 4:00, which I though was going to put a crimp in my afternoon walk plans.

Our normal afternoon routine is: wake up from nap; play/walk; snack; then, bath followed by dinner. The kids usually want a snack by 5:00, so I didn't think I had time to walk and come back in time for snacks. Then it occurred to me that I could take a snack on the road - sort of like what normal parents do.

I packed up bananas, cheese and milk and hit the neighborhood nature trail.


I stopped on a wide spot, so the kids could look out over the pond.



I know most parents would have left the bibs behind, but I didn't feel like scrubbing cheese and bananas out of the stroller harnesses. I'm taking this whole flexibility thing slowly.


In any event, my afternoon walk time got a little longer today.

The Search for a Nannymobile

In addition to looking for a new nanny, we've been shopping for a third family car so our future nanny will have a big safe car at the house to carry four kids. The SUV I bought last year that fits three carseats in the back seat will be useless as a family car as soon as #4 arrives, so I want something to drive the kids around in too.

The car needs to have access to the third row without folding down the second row because the second row will have car seats in it. I narrowed down my search to three choices: 1) a Ford Flex; 2) a full size Chevy Express Van and 3) a Ford Expedition EL. Heather already has an Expedition EL and doesn't want another one, so I struck that off the list. I like the Flex, but it doesn't give us any utility that we don't already have with the Expedition. It's just a smaller version of what we have.

This left me with the full size van. I did my safety research and found that Chevy offers full side curtain airbags, containment glass in the back that will keep someone from being ejected in a roll-over, and stability control that helps to keep the van from rolling over in the first place. The one-ton version of the van (the 3500) is also one of the heaviest vehicles I've found without a turret and cannon on top. I am a member of the bigger-is-better camp when it comes to car safety, so that's a huge selling point for me.

I found a 12 passenger Express 3500 in town and test drove it at lunch on Friday. It drove great and I really liked it. I even took it through some sharp corners at unsafe speeds to see if I could tip it over. I was unable to tip it over, but more than able to scare the hell out of Bernie the White Knuckle Salesman.

Friday night I reported my findings to Heather and she approved of the purchase. On Saturday morning, I drove out to the dealership and asked Bernie Whiteknuckles if I could take it for the weekend. I wanted to take it home, see how the carseats fit, see how it fits in the garage, show it to Heather, and just generally see how it works into our weekend routine. Bernie was happy to let me perform the remainder of my road testing without him, and eagerly got his boss's approval for me to borrow the van for the weekend.

Here's the van in our driveway:


It has loads of room in back and the door slides easily.


The second and third row will each hold three people or two carseats, and each has two LATCH systems and tethers to secure the carseats.

The fourth row is split, so you can take out half of the fourth row, seating two people in the way-back with a lot of cargo room, or take out the whole way-back bench and haul just about anything.

As much as anyone can be in love with a big white 12 passenger van, I'm in love. It's perfect for us now, and I think it would serve our family well over the next ten years or so.

Because we have limited garage / parking area, we're going to have to keep the third car in the garage. Heather and I will park side by side (tightly) in the driveway because it just isn't practical to move the nannymobile/van and one of our cars every morning when we leave for work. Moving just one car is a huge pain now. The car-moving results in at least five minutes of debate each morning. I can't imagine the unpleasantries that would fly while Heather and I were getting dressed if we had to move two cars every morning. Our neighborhood covenants prevent us from parking cars on the street, so that's not an option either. Our parking situation just isn't good.

I used to park on the right hand side of the garage until we added the arsenal of strollers, which now consists of a triple jogger, a double, a single and two double wagons. We'll probably add a single jogger and maybe a couple double joggers with the new baby. My car isn't going back in the garage for the foreseeable future.

Anyway, the van worked perfectly on my weekend test. If it passed the garage test, we had found our new nannymobile / daddymobile / vacation car.

Heather's Expedition is about 77 inches tall. A 77 inch truck gives us 6 inches of extra room, as shown here:


. . . unless Ford measured the 77 inches by including the optional roof rails, then we have 3 inches, as shown here:


Because the roof rails are options on Heather's Expedition, I figured we had 6 inches, and the van is only 4 inches taller than Heather's car.

I also measured, of course.

The opening to the garage is this big:


And the van is only this big:

See? No problem.

Just for kicks, Heather wanted to test the calibration of my fingers and have me actually pull the van into the garage. Admittedly it was a little closer than I thought.

Heather and the kids watched from the front door as I pulled the van into the garage. As I nosed in, Heather started waving her arms in a woo-hoo motion. I was like woo-hoo too because it was working and just grazing the rubber portion of the garage door opening. When I didn't stop, Heather ran out the door and then I realized her woo-hoo arm motion was actually a stop-stop motion. They look alike.

Heather: It's not going to fit.
Me: It's going to fit. The first two inches of the opening are rubber.
Heather: It's a lot bigger than the garage.
Me: Trust me.
Heather: I'm not watching.
Me: You have to; I need someone to tell me when to stop if it doesn't fit.
Heather: Now. Stop now. It doesn't fit.
Me: Spot me.
Heather: I'm not watching.

I got the van about half way in and it was taking up all of the rubber seal on the garage door, but not yet hitting the wood.

As the err-err-err of van sliding against rubber turned into the snap and pop of van crunching wood, Heather came back out and gave me the "I told you so" look. Really, it was just a tight fit until the back wheels went up a half inch from the driveway onto the house slab. Then it was wedged in the hole.

The van didn't fit, but I was able to un-stick it with no apparent damage to the house. A cursory inspection of the van showed no damage to it either. Although my van dreams are crushed, my height miscalculation didn't cause any property damage that I can see.

Even though I had use of the van through tomorrow, I went ahead and took it back today. It was a long sad drive. Just me and the big white van that will never be mine. I heart you big white van.

Hopefully Bernie Whiteknuckles won't call me tomorrow asking about the roof of the van.

Death of a Man Room

When Heather and I were shopping for a house in 2003, there were two things I wanted: a wine cellar and a man room. I didn't care if the wine cellar was off of, or part of, the man room. I just wanted a place to store a couple hundred bottles of wine and a place to drink said wine while playing pool.

After we looked at a few houses and our realtor gave a passable effort not to laugh at me for being critical of the lack of suitable wine storage in the houses, Heather had a little talk with me. She informed me that "people like us," buying three bedroom houses, didn't want or need wine cellars. We agreed to disagree on that one.

Having scrapped the wine cellar requirement, my last stand on the list of "wants" was a man room. When we walked in the house we ultimately bought, Heather and our realtor looked around, oohing and ahhing at the kitchen and master bath's pretty things. I went upstairs to find a giant unfinished room with a plywood floor, exposed studs, and no wiring, just waiting to become my perfect man room. I cared very little about the rest of the house after Heather told me that I could "have" that room as mine. Sold.

Even though I may have been a little naive in thinking that fellow poor people had or wanted wine cellars, I possessed incredible foresight in staking out 400 square feet of the house as mine. I didn't know, as I do now, that "our" house is just "ours" because I have a key and I live here. I live in Heather's house. "Our" house would not have fourteen decorative pillows on our bed or towels that I'm not allowed to touch. Somehow, even then, I knew that my man room would be my haven in our home. My only space.


I can put dead animals on the wall.


(That was self defense, by the way)

It's the only place in the house suitable for fish pictures.



I even have dogs playing pool.


Those silly dogs. See - He got hit in the nose. They slay me.

When we found out number four on the way, Heather and I started talking about housing options. We could move to a bigger house (Option "A"). We could turn part of the man room into a guest room (which is a must have for Heather's mom) by putting in a pullout couch and getting rid of the bar (Option "B"). Or we could add a bathroom and closets to the man room, turning it into a big bedroom for the girls (Option "C"). We weighed our options, including the prospect of marketing a house with a romper room for a dining room, and decided to use my man room to make our 3/2.5 into a 4/3.5.

It was my idea, granted as an Option "C," but it didn't take long for Heather to decide "C" was the way to go. I had actually thrown out Options "A" and "B" first without "C," but I accidentally started the conversation by saying we had three options. Heather put me on cross and pulled "C" out of me when no third option was forthcoming. I was planning on keeping "C" in my back pocket, but that's what I get for marrying a lawyer. Bye-bye man room.

We're going to put the three kids in the new bedroom when it's done and make their old room a nursery for the baby. Then we'll split up rooms by sex when the baby is older and on the same schedule as the kids, with the girls getting the new room and the boy(s) getting the room the kids are in now. The guest room / Heather's mom's room stays intact.

The first twelve feet of this corner will be two closets:


This corner will be the bathroom, with be the shower/tub against the far wall and the length of the bathroom coming out as far as the closets opposite the newly formed hallway:



Man Room: 2003-2010. Rest in peace my friend. I'll pour out a little of my 40 for you. Not in the house, of course. Maybe outside. I'll have to ask Heather.

Shoes Please - I Just Need Shoes

Rosemary has two unique characteristics among the kids: 1) she's a hoarder; and, 2) she's a shoe addict.

If she goes into the playroom to bring out toys, she brings an arm full - all that she can carry. When it's time to get in the bath and I have bath toys lined up on the bathroom floor, Piper and Henry grab a duck or other toy to take in the bath, and Rosemary gets an arm full of ducks and tries not to drop any on the way into the bath. She acts like those are the only ducks on earth and she'll never have the chance to grab ducks again.

As for the shoes, she wants her own shoes on almost all of the time, and she's generally obsessed with shoes. She likes to scratch my dress shoes with her fingernail, especially when they are freshly shined. This disturbs me to no end because I have a bit of a shoe thing myself. Not a freaky break-into-someone's-house-to-steal-shoes thing, but I like shoes more than most men.

The other day, Rosemary was upset about something. Henry probably took something from her; I don't remember. I was sitting at the bar and I picked Rosemary up to comfort her. I hadn't noticed, but there were three pairs of kids' shoes sitting on the bar next to my laptop. Rosemary was pouting. And she started picking up shoes. Each time she picked up a shoe, I could feel little waves of happiness roll over her.


She was able to get five of the six shoes on the bar and then couldn't reach for any more without dropping a shoe, so she just sat content with five of the six shoes that were on the bar. Just sitting in my lap holding shoes. That's all she needs.

I don't know much about kids, but I'm sure this isn't totally normal. If Heather and I didn't both have OCD tendencies, I might be concerned with Rosemary's quirks. But really, how can I even be phased by her behavior when I have a couple of these in my closet.

I won't uncover the real crazy by showing the dress shirt rack above the dress shoe rack with its shirts lined up by color.

Given that I would pull a Rain Man if someone snuck a blue shirt into the white shirt zone or misplaced one of my shoe trees, I'd say that Rosemary's little shoe thing is pretty much in line with the household norm. Who am I to get all judgmental and not indulge Rosemary's odd habits. So I will. And she'll get lots of shoes. And hoard them. And line them up in rows. And then, when she goes off to college and one of her roommates messes with her shoes, she'll pull a Rain Man and freak everybody out. Then she'll be pissed at me for not curbing her crazy when I had the chance. But I don't care. My little Rosemary gets shoes. She needs them.

Nice Weather - Finally!

The weather in Birmingham was beautiful today. It's been cold and/or rainy every weekend that I can recall. Today was sunny and in the mid-60s.

The nice weather came just in time. Heather took a spa trip this weekend, so I was flying solo with the kids. A nice weekend outside with the kids on my own can be a little tricky, bit it's a treat. Not that a weekend cooped up inside with bored angry kids isn't a treat, mind you; it's just better out there.

We took the opportunity to go to the (drum roll please) . . . zoo! We've been to the zoo so many times, I'm certain the kids have seen more giraffes and lions in their life than they have dogs and cats. It's just hard to beat the zoo for a place that accommodates a side-by-side triple stroller and has things for kids and adults to see outside.

We did the usual tour of the world's animals and took a cruise through the "kids zoo," which is a hands-on barn / petting zoo. I think this is a barn llama.


Whatever it is, it needs a toothbrush and some Crest White Strips. That grill is brutal. I saw it try to bite a little girl after her parents picked her up to pet it. The little girl freaked out. I didn't need that ugly Austin Powers looking bastard to lunge at us to know it wasn't our friend. Some people just have to test it.

We got up close with a peacock who was wandering around the sidewalks.


I didn't know this before, but peacocks have large talons. I noticed them right after I took the picture. I think a peacock could so some damage if it wanted to - - say, if you snuck up behind it with a four foot wide, bright red stroller carrying three handsy kids. After we made our way by, it went after a another kid. He looked OK physically. Mentally, not so much.

We had two up-close and personal "When Animals Attack" moments today. I've never really thought about the assumption of the risk you take by being at a zoo around animals. I get the part about assuming the risk of being hit by a foul ball when I go to a baseball game, but I sort of expect the more dangerous animals at a zoo to be somewhere where they won't maul me or the kids. Then again, maybe peacock and llama attacks aren't as dangerous as they look.

Surprisingly, the zoo wasn't as crowded as it usually is on a sweltering summer day. The big bonus of the zoo not being hot or crowded is that the kids got to play in the fountain / play area without any 140 pound 8 year olds giving them a flying forearm shiver while charging through the water.



I had always thought the floor of the fountain area was concrete, but it's actually little bits of rubber.



If I was MC Hammer, I would put one of these in our back yard.



Now that I know it's rubber, I might let the kids play in the fountain when it's 100 degrees - depending on the size and speed of the kids competing for the water, of course.


Henry was the only one who found the play area behind the non-functional fountain. I was thinking it looked more interesting than a thing that might be a fountain if it was turned on, but I still know very little about the decision making process of a toddler.


It was a good day. Hopefully we'll get some more nice weather next weekend and we can do it all over again with Heather - sans llama and peacock attacks.

King Cake!

It's Mardi Gras. In Birmingham, you have to look pretty hard to find any indication that Lent is around the corner and it's time to cram in all your food and beverage related debauchery. Fortunately, I have a coworker from New Orleans whose mom Fed-Exed her a king cake this week. I had one piece at the office and got dizzy from the sugar rush. It was sooooo good though.


She sent a giant hunk of apple filled goodness home with me under strict orders that it was for the kids. I've fallen a long way from the days when I was all about limiting the kids to baked items that were no sugar added, whole wheat and organic. It started with their first birthday smash cakes and went down hill from there. The kids are good eaters and they always eat their fruits and veggies. I guess if they don't replace good food with deserts, they need the extra calories anyway. Can you tell I'm trying to convince myself too?

I figured if we we going to do it, we should do it right. I cut each of them an obese adult sized portion.

Piper took to the cake in her typically reserved manner that makes us wonder how she is the chunkiest kid. She clearly liked it, but exercised some restraint.


Henry went at it like an angry land shark.


And Rosemary worked her way through it methodically.


The girls ate until they were full and called it quits. Rosemary ate about twice as much as Piper, which is usually the case. Henry put all of his cake away at least as fast as I could and looked like he could do it all over again.

When we put the kids to bed, Henry howled like a wolf (not crying, but actually howling - like a baby wolf) for an hour. Then he tipped over and slept all night. Dreaming of king cake, I would imagine.

Heather’s Pregnant

I think the appropriate term would be knocked up. Heather doesn’t want me to call it “unplanned” or “accidental” so we’re saying it’s a “surprise.” She thinks the other terms make the baby seem unwanted, which is certainly not the case. In her defense, it’s hard to call something like this an accident if you have a working knowledge of biology, yet take no precautions to prevent the typical results of your actions. I still think “surprise” understates the situation a little. We have three kids. I love my kids in a way that I never thought I could love anyone. But still - that’s a lot of kids. It’s precisely two more kids than I agreed to when Heather talked me into the idea after getting me liquored up on margaritas at a Mexican restaurant.

We then spent almost three years and the cost of a Porsche 911 on fertility treatments trying to have said kid, which turned out to be three kids. In a perfect world, I guess a surprise like this would have happened shortly after my consenting to impregnate Heather - before all the doctors, all the drugs, and all the treatments. But trying to get pregnant for three years made us both stronger. That ordeal helped prepare us for Heather’s difficult high-order-multiple pregnancy, which in turn was preparation for having three infants in the NICU. In the end, having three babies at home was, and still is, no big deal given what we went through to conceive them and to get them home safely. And if everything didn’t happen the way it did, we wouldn’t have Piper, Henry and Rosemary. Moreover, I might perform my parenting with the enthusiasm of a guy who agreed to have a kid because it was a slightly better option than getting a poodle.

I guess all of that is to say that everything happens for a reason. So there’s a reason for this. I just hope that we didn’t use our lifetime’s supply of good luck on the kids we have now, and that this fall I will have the pleasure of sitting in our living room with our new little baby, being thankful for life’s surprises with a bag of frozen vegetables on my boy parts - recovering from my vasectomy.

Tricks

The kids like to make Heather and I do tricks. Rosemary still requests that we paddy cake by clapping her little hands. Henry demands that we chase him by running and then looking disappointed if he turns back to find no one there. And Piper just makes us laugh. Not just by doing something generally funny, but by using a fake laugh to induce our real laughter. We feel compelled to do tricks for the others because we want to make them happy, but Piper's requirement for trickery is different in that her trick is involuntary on our part. The first time I saw it, Heather was sitting in the living room with Piper laughing until she couldn't breath. The more we laugh, the more Piper imitates us with her fake laugh. It's a vicious cycle.



I can't tell if she enjoys it because everyone is happy or if she likes human puppetry. I had a pretty bad stomach cramp during that video. Piper just watches. Then when we come up for air and she hits us again. It's rather maniacal.

Cat Watch - Day 27

How much could there possibly be about a cat, right. But add another cat and a mouse and you have yourself a blog post.

The other cat:

I thought the bristley cat belonged to one of our neighbors because it had a collar. It actually didn't have a collar though; it just had a line under its mane that made it look like it did. This, according to my rules, means that if we feed it and it spends all its time at our house, we get to name it.

I present to you Thurston Bristlesworth, III:



Going on the premise that Thurston was previously homeless, I figured he needed a fancy name. Homelessness can lead to low self esteem, you know. If he's not homeless, we don't get to name him anyway so it doesn't matter.

The mouse:

When we made Francesca an indoor-outdoor cat by propping open the door to the screen porch, creating a direct path from the back yard into our kitchen nook via the car door, I was concerned that we would be invaded by chipmunks. There's nothing keeping any animal out of our house if it can figure out how to walk through a cat door. My money was on a raccoon, chipmunk or possibly a possum. Turns out it was a mouse.

Monday, Ann (one of the babies' NICU nurses and now friend of the family) was helping Nana for a day fill in for nanny while Brooke is out after having a baby. We we were making breakfast and Ann yelled "I just saw a mouse." I went into cross examination mode and tried to pin her down on exactly what she saw. I couldn't believe it was a mouse. I think I had Ann on the ropes and could have got her to admit that she wasn't sure she saw a mouse, but that wouldn't have been very productive. She settled on being 85% sure she saw a small mouse that was moving very quickly. Ann was a little freaked out and asked if we normally had mice - I think just to make sure that she wasn't about to spend 11 hours fending off mice. I assured her this was a one time deal.

I didn't know what to do. Ann told me where she saw it run, but I didn't know if I was supposed to shoot it or go at the cabinet and the mouse with a hammer. Heather had already left for work and I was pretty sure if I discharged a firearm or destroyed part of the house, Heather would have a hard time getting past those details to be satisfied that I neutralized the mouse threat.

I decided to pull out the yellow pages and put the responsibility and risk of failure and damage on someone else. The first place I called was one I had seen in the neighborhood setting up some sort of maze on our neighbor's yard to catch an armadillo. I said, "I think I have a mouse in my house." I suspect they heard a cash register sound on the other end of the line. They said the service call would be $245.00 to inspect and set up traps. Then they would come back and check the traps, charging $40.00 per mouse they removed. Now, I'm all for hiring the best people for the job, but I wasn't entirely confident that we didn't have "mice" as opposed to a "mouse." I didn't know we had one mouse, so how could I be sure we didn't have $400.00 family of ten in the garage, for a total of $645.00.

The second place I called was $350.00 for all the mice they can catch - coming back to check traps every other day for two weeks. Much better, but still pretty steep for a mouse. There are counties in Alabama where you can make a person disappear for about that. I ended up calling the people who do our termite control and got them to inspect and set traps and bait boxes for $70.00. I am in charge of mouse removal.

Our mouse expert couldn't find the mouse, but inspected the evidence. He said it was one small mouse that had been in the house for no more than a day or so. Apparently the cold weather will make them come inside, especially if you have a big hole in your back door to accommodate a cat. I suggested shutting off the cat door, but our mouse guy said we should leave it open so the mouse could get back out after he eats the mouse bait. Apparently the mouse bait makes the mouse thirsty and he has to get a drink afterward, which activates the poison, thus killing the mouse. Pretty nifty. I didn't think to ask about the door being a two way street for more animals to get in while we are waiting for this one to leave, but I suppose he knows what he's doing.

The mouse man also set about five sticky traps and said if we didn't get the mouse in a sticky trap in a few days, we could be assured he was deceased. It's been five days and I haven't caught a mouse in any of the sticky traps. I can only hope that the mouse ate some of the bait and then went outside to take a dirt nap.

Today, I sealed off the cat door, so if the mouse isn't out by now his final resting place will be in the house. I will then earn my $40.00 for mouse removal.

Back to the Cat(s):

The mouse raises the question of just what in the heck these cats are doing. Francesca and Thurston Bristlesworth are all over this place. Cats eat mice. At least they do in cartoons. I think that's why humans have cats around in the first place. Yet, we now have two cats (I think) and I have my first mouse. These cats are clearly not pulling their weight around here.

I have to admit, though, I slept a little better this past week with Francesca at the foot of our bed. Even though she has proven to be an ineffective mouse hunter, I'm sure she would make some effort to chase it (or run from it) and cause a racket to alert me to the imminent threat of attack. That's better than nothing, I suppose.