You are here: Home / Archives for Minivans

Handstands in Heaven

April 26, 2011 by

Alternately titled: Car Ride of Random

We were heading home from Russian school, altogether as a family (in our smokin’ hot minivan that we now officially own, no less.  HAWT!).  It was raining.  Again.  We were tired and a little hungry since I failed in my mom duties and forgot to pack us dinners to go.  But we were together as a family and  that made everything a little bit better.

“Hey Mom,” Sloan piped up.  “Why do girls always pick on me and bully me?”

“Probably because they like you,” I replied.  I know the girls in question and I’m not entirely sure that’s why they’re picking on him.  I think they’re just ornery, but I felt compelled to give the standard issue Mom answer as clearly directed in Article 16, Section C of the Mom’s Bylaws for Dealing with Difficult Questions.

Lee turned around and grinned at Sloan.  “Told ya,” he said.  It’s the standard issue answer for Dad’s as well, apparently.

“But why do they like me?” he asked.

“Because you’re cute and you’re smart and funny.  Why wouldn’t they like you?” I answered.

“Hey Mom,” Tia yelled from the back seat.  It was raining hard, we had to yell.  “When I go to school and I wike some boys, I’m donna bully dem, okay?”

*This is the part where I desperately thumb through the Bylaws. There are no instructions.  No INSTRUCTIONS!*

“No, you shouldn’t pick on boys,” Lee answered quickly.

“Why?” Tia asked.  “You said dats what girls do when dey wike boys.”

DARN THOSE STANDARD ISSUE ANSWERS!

“Just don’t pick on boys.  Treat others the way you want to be treated.”

WAM!  The Golden Rule.  Works every time…

“Hey Mom,” Tia yells again.

“Yes.”

“Can we do handstands in heaven?”

Laughter ensues, but then I look in the rearview mirror and see a very serious face.  She wants an answer.

“Well, I don’t see why not,” I say.

“I think you’ll be able to do all the gymnastics you want in heaven,” Lee answered.

“Hey Mom, LOOK!” Landon screeches from his seat.

“What?!”

“I saw a kangaroo back dere by da road.”

“You saw a kangaroo?!”

“Yeah!  Turn around.  Mom, turn around,” he’s quite serious.

Lee looks back at him.  “Did you see a kangaroo back there buddy?”

“Yeah!” He cries.

“Was it a real kangaroo?” Sloan asks craning his neck.

“No.  It was pwetend.  It was a pwetend one, Dad.”

And then we were home.

Who says riding in the car is boring?

Filed Under: Family, funny stuff that happens, Kids, Kids do the darndest things, Landon, Lee, Minivans, Motherhood, Russian, Sloan, Tia Tagged With: , ,

The day I questioned everything I knew to be true

October 25, 2010 by

Saturday night found Lee and I in the minivan, kids in tow, heading out to the mattress store to purchase two new mattresses.  Never mind that the kids desperately needed them.  Never mind that Tia’s mattress was so cheap that is was literally falling apart and becoming a potential hazard.  Never mind  that both mattresses had been peed on so many times they could be deemed a health code violation.  Never mind any of those things.  The fact is simply this:

I went out on Saturday evening to buy mattresses and thought it was fun.

Hi, my name is Kelli and I am a  bona fide minivan mom.

Ah, but we haven’t even got to the best part of the story.  What?  Surely you know there would be more to this story than the fact that I had a hoot buying twin mattresses on a Saturday night, right?  A hoot!

It was the incident that occurred when we returned home that sent my world aspinnin’.  It started simple.  We came home so Lee could drop the kids and I off and return to the mattress store to pick up our most exciting purchases.  We had to remove the car seats and fold down the back seats and clean up a bit.  And it was during this event that I began to question my entire identity.

The title of my blog is Minivans Are Hot.  With the operative word being Hot.   I know, I know…Minivan and Hot together in a sentence is an oxymoron.  And most days I would beg to differ and would launch into a diatribe about how it’s sexy to be a mom and how minivan moms have it goin’ on and I would work my hardest to convince you that I was right.  Until Saturday night…

What I found in the back seat of my minivan was anything but Hot.  Let’s start with what I found under the seat, shall we?  It was sticky…it was brown…it had flecks of leaves and dirt stuck to it.  What was that?!

From there I removed the kids car seats to find enough dried, crumbled food to feed a small pack of wild baboons.  It was sealed into the lining of the seat fabric and had to be scraped out with my fingernail.  *heave*  Don’t even get me started on what  I found in their seats.

But the piece de resitance came when I crawled into the way back and looked inside the cup holder.  It is here that I gasped, looked at my husband and exclaimed, “Gross!  This is why minivans are NOT. HOT.”  Then I clutched my chest with the gravity of my statement and fell in dramatic Disney Princess fashion onto the seat, the back of my hand against my forehead…

No I didn’t.  That last part didn’t happen – mostly because I wouldn’t want to lay on those seats for $100.  Maybe for $1000, though.

In the cup holder sat dried, crusted, molded bread.  It appears my children are stock piling food in the back seat of our minivan in the event that a giant meteor should come crashing down to earth and we need to seek shelter inside the car for a significant amount of time.  It also appears that they have eaten portions of a sandwich and then shoved the remaining portion in the cup holder and have, every day for who knows how long, been looking at this rotting sandwich and ignoring it.

It’s like I’m raising little cave people!

I promptly dug out the rot and marched to the trash can.  My husband, sensing my impending melt down went dashing for the Shop Vac in the basement.  Being the super hero that he is, he spent the next half hour sucking the muck out of our minivan while I went inside and lectured my children on the importance of throwing away rotten food.  I also tried to talk myself out of changing my blog title from Minivans Are Hot to Minivans Are A Place Where Horrors grow Beneathe the Seats and in the Cupholders While You Yourself Obliviously Drive From Here to There Thinking You Are Looking Fine When Really You Are Controlling a Moving Science Experiment.

But in typical Hero fashion, my man came inside just as I was certain that my entire online identity was going to have to be realtered and yelled “Ta-Da!”  I walked outside to see the seats clean (hey look!  The fabric’s grey…) The cup holders clean…er.  They still have a sticky substance that I can only assume will need to be chisled out at some point (probably just before we decide to sell the car).  And it smelled much more pleasant too.  It was actually quite nice in there.

I smiled at him and jumped into his arms.  Small birds flitted about our heads as he spun me around and when we kissed little animated hearts floated up into the dusky sky. 

Alright…that last part didn’t happen either.  Sometimes I wish I lived in a cartoon.

Despite the cleanliness of my car, however, I couldn’t shake the fact that I had outwardly acknowledged the un-hotness of my minivan.  And so I’m here to retrain my mind.  And if any of you are having a hard time believeing that Minivans Are Hot like I am, then why don’t you join in with me as we repeat the mantra over and over.  

Minivans are hot, minivans are hot, minivans are hot, minivans are not, minivans are not…

NONONONONO!!!!

Let’s try again.

Minivans are hot, minivans are hot, minivans are hot…

Do you believe it?

Filed Under: Family, funny stuff that happens, Kids, Kids do the darndest things, Lee, Minivans, Motherhood, Random Tagged With: , , ,

the one where I wax poetic

September 1, 2010 by

Just kidding.  I’m not going to wax poetic about anything.   I actually am going to partake in a little verbal vomit.  See?  Vomit.  It’s not a very poetic word.  I should change the title of this post, but I don’t want to.  Maybe I’ll be inspired as I write and maybe I will begin to wax poetic about life and it’s deeper meanings.

But probably not.

I really don’t have much to say these days.  Probably because I’m old and my high falutent weekend in New Orleans has made me feel a bit like I got beat with a rubber mallet then tossed to the side like a rag doll.  This mama isn’t used to seeing 2:00 am unless it’s to administer medicine to fevery babies or fill hungry tummies. 

I’m tired.

Speaking of last weekend, I must say that there were moments when I looked around and thought What in the world am I doing here?  I felt very…how shall I put this…midwest.  I was surrounded by all of these interesting, funny, stylish, green, city folk and here I was, the minivan mom from the suburbs.  I tell ya, I had to fight from saying things like, Well Golly Gee, or Aw shucks.  I think I may have had an I declare or two in me, but I held back.  And upon my return I had a strong urge to sell my car and start using public transit and to keep all the lights in the house turned off and check my carbon imprint (or is it my carbon print…or footprint?).  But, well, shucks guys, that would make this suburban mama a little less comfortable so I think I’ll keep trucking along as I’m going in life.

‘Cause it’s swell.

Speaking of swell…um, I really don’t have anything else swell to say.  I was looking for a transition.  That was a poor effort.  Did I mention I’m exhausted?  Sloan told me yesterday that he no longer wants to be a policeman when he grows up, but he would like to be a shark trainer instead.  When I informed him that he would have to be very brave because that’s a dangerous job he gave me the look that only a 7 year old going on14 can give.  You know the one, right?  It’s that look that says, Duh, Mom.  What are you, like, some sort of midwest hick?

“I’ll start working with the sharks who are already trained.  Then I will move on to their friends that need to be trained.”

Right.  What was I thinking? 

“Hey mom,” he went on.  “You remember that time when I was a baby and I met that shark?”

“Um, no.”

“Yeah, remember?  I was a little baby.  It was my first time to Florida and I met a shark.”

“Sorry, bud.  I don’t remember that at all.”

“Oh.  Well…I might have made that up.”

Gee willikers, my kid is super neato.

I should get up and get moving.  The dog is laying at the foot of my bed and I can hear her stomach growling quite fiercely.  I had all these lofty goals to get up early and get a lot of work done (because I have a lot of work to do) but I had the migraine of the century last night and didn’t sleep much.  Thank God for modern medicine, eh?  I may have overdosed slightly but I knocked out the headache so I win.  I offer my deepest apologies to my liver which is now working over time to rid my body of toxins.

So on that note, I offer you this:

May your day today be filled with joy, headache free and super duper swell.

The end.

p.s. I’m categorizing this post as random.  That sounds about right, wouldn’t you say?

Filed Under: Family, funny stuff that happens, Kids, Life, Minivans, Motherhood, Random, Sloan Tagged With: , ,

Further proof that I was right – Minivans Are Hot!

May 14, 2010 by

Filed Under: Family, funny stuff that happens, Kids, Life, Minivans, Motherhood, Random

Repost: My Minivan is Cooler Than Your Lexus!

May 12, 2010 by

Originally posted on October 20th of last year, this post still makes me laugh.  Mostly because I still remember how NOT cool I felt watching my minivan get a scrubbing in between all them fancy cars. 

Due to several car trips in the last few months, our minivan has taken a bit of a beating.  Covered in dead bugs, splattered with mud and sporting the drop marks accrued during our deluge of rain last week, her sleek black exterior has lost a little bit of it’s luster.

It’s not often that one reads the words “sleek” and “luster” in the context of a minivan, I know.

So yesterday afternoon, I took my rockin’ hot minivan through a specialty car wash.  You know, one of those car washes where actual humans scrub your car?

After pulling her loveliness into line, I got out and shopped around the convenience store for a few minutes before heading out to watch them remove the layers of dirt that had been holding her back all these weeks.  And what did I find when I came out?

I found my minivan sandwiched between two Lexus’s (is the plural Lexi?) who were also being scrubbed to shiney perfection.  Then a third Lexus pulled up, followed by a BMW and a fourth Lexus.

And finally, the Créme de la Créme – a gorgeous (and I’m not a car person) sports car pulled up and parked nose to nose with my van.  I have no idea what brand it was, but it was somthin’ fancy, let me tell ya!

And guys, I kid you not, my van blushed and giggled when that thing parked in front of her.

And so, there I stood, the girl who brought her hoopty van to a class act party.  I was the like the stray dog at a country club.  The sore thumb.  The minivan surrounded by Lexi!

I tried to play it all cool like this was only my day car, but you should see what I drive at night.  But my mom garb didn’t help the situation – that being my unwashed hair, jeans, tennis shoes and puffer vest.

Oh, then there was the fact that I forgot to bring cash to tip the boys washing my car and had to scrounge for enough change to make it worth their while.  I, my friends, am nothing if not classy.

The best part of the whole process, though, was watching the boys attempt to work my tricked out van.  What she lacks in style she makes up in sheer awesomeness!  I mean, hello!  She has an automatic back hatch and one automatic side door, which I have child proofed, so the poor guys kept getting stuck inside the car when vacuuming because they couldn’t figure out how to open the door and got confused as to which was automatic and which was manual.

Good times.

And then, of course, there are the multiple – and I mean mul.ti.ple – scratches on the car from the kids running their bikes down the sides.  Yep – that’s how I roll.

So when the guys finally finished her up and handed me the keys, I climbed inside my now sleek and lusterous minivan and started her up.  Next to the purring sports car, she sounded like some sort mammoth as she roared to life.

And with that I held my head high, looked down upon the lowly sports car and I pulled out of Lexusland, driving her hotness off into the horizen.  I hope everyone watching wasn’t too jealous…

Filed Under: funny stuff that happens, Life, Marriage, Minivans, Motherhood, Random

My Minivan is cooler than your Lexus!

October 20, 2009 by

Due to several car trips in the last few months, our minivan has taken a bit of a beating.  Covered in dead bugs, splattered with mud and sporting the drop marks accrued during our deluge of rain last week, her sleek black exterior has lost a little bit of it’s luster.

It’s not often that one reads the words “sleek” and “luster” in the context of a minivan, I know.

So yesterday afternoon, I took my rockin’ hot minivan through a specialty car wash.  You know, one of those car washes where actual humans scrub your car?

After pulling her loveliness into line, I got out and shopped around the convenience store for a few minutes before heading out to watch them remove the layers of dirt that had been holding her back all these weeks.  And what did I find when I came out?

I found my minivan sandwiched between two Lexus’s (is the plural Lexi?) who were also being scrubbed to shiney perfection.  Then a third Lexus pulled up, followed by a BMW and a fourth Lexus.

And finally, the Créme de la Créme – a gorgeous (and I’m not a car person) sports car pulled up and parked nose to nose with my van.  I have no idea what brand it was, but it was somthin’ fancy, let me tell ya!

And guys, I kid you not, my van blushed and giggled when that thing parked in front of her.

And so, there I stood, the girl who brought her hoopty van to a class act party.  I was the like the stray dog at a country club.  The sore thumb.  The minivan surrounded by Lexi!

I tried to play it all cool like this was only my day car, but you should see what I drive at night.  But my mom garb didn’t help the situation – that being my unwashed hair, jeans, tennis shoes and puffer vest.

Oh, then there was the fact that I forgot to bring cash to tip the boys washing my car and had to scrounge for enough change to make it worth their while.  I, my friends, am nothing if not classy.

The best part of the whole process, though, was watching the boys attempt to work my tricked out van.  What she lacks in style she makes up in sheer awesomeness!  I mean, hello!  She has an automatic back hatch and one automatic side door, which I have child proofed, so the poor guys kept getting stuck inside the car when vacuuming because they couldn’t figure out how to open the door and got confused as to which was automatic and which was manual.

Good times.

And then, of course, there are the multiple – and I mean mul.ti.ple – scratches on the car from the kids running their bikes down the sides.  Yep – that’s how I roll.

So when the guys finally finished her up and handed me the keys, I climbed inside my now sleek and lusterous minivan and started her up.  Next to the purring sports car, she sounded like some sort mammoth as she roared to life.

And with that I held my head high, looked down upon the lowly sports car and I pulled out of Lexusland, driving her hotness off into the horizen.  I hope everyone watching wasn’t too jealous…

Filed Under: funny stuff that happens, Life, Minivans Tagged With: ,

Looking Cool in A Minivan

June 8, 2009 by

Follow these very simple tips and you too can rock the minivan!

http://theguysmanual.msn.com/?Category=catID3&Id=v3&source=msneditorial&gt1=25050

Filed Under: Minivans, Random Tagged With:

Minivans are HOT!

March 29, 2009 by

One year and four months ago, I became a minivan mom.  It was a necessary step.  I was roughly 15 months pregnant with Landon and there was no way on God’s green earth that three car seats were going to fit into my SUV.

Lee and I sat in the grey-walled room of the car dealership and worked out the details of the sale with a very kind man and all the while my stomach churned.  I mean, it’s just a car.  It’s no more than a mode of transportation, right?

Then why was it so painful to transition to driving a minivan?  I asked this question many times in the weeks following our purchase (that and why in the flippin’ world do minivans cost so daggum much?)

After Landon arrived, I had to admit, the van was extremely convenient.  Especially given the fact that Sloan figured out quickly how to buckle his own seat belt, thereby making our transition from home to van much more manageable.  And we stuck with the standard black minivan with a grey interior because somehow, in my distorted little mind, that seemed just a little bit cooler.

Today, I am very resigned to my status as a minivan mom.  I even completed the look by arriving to my son’s preschool several times this year still in my pajamas.  Niiiice.  Might as well look the part, eh?

You see, the problem is that my mom was a minivan mom and, well – no offense mom – but she was my mom.  You know, the older more mature, wiser woman in charge of guiding me through the waters of life.  Certainly I’m not old enough to be in the position.  It was only yesterday I was heaving a loaded bag of books across Baylor’s campus, worrying about my impending finals.  How did I become that mom?

But alas, I am that mom.  There’s no way around it.  I have three babies (the oldest of which is no longer a baby and preparing to enter elementary school!  Don’t even get me started on how I feel about becoming a PTA mom)  And, I gotta say, as much as circumstances permit, I am rockin’ the minivan. 

So here’s my encouragement to all you minivan moms out there struggling with the stigma.  Your minivan doesn’t lower your cool factor – oh no.  You, my dear friends, drastically up the minivan’s hot factor.  Minivan’s don’t define us – we define them!  And I say they’re hot!  Can I get an Amen?

Welcome to my blog.

Filed Under: Blogging, Family, Kids, Life, Minivans
« Previous Page