Our need for a larger vehicle became apparent with the birth of our third child. I was waiting to be picked up from the hospital
with our newest bundle of joy when my husband, Oliver, called. He alternated between speaking to me and shouting at our other
two kids—who were running amuck. He informed me that he could not pick us up because the third seat belt in the back seat of our
family cruiser did not work.
This could be viewed as a failure in planning, but that is what happens with kid number three. With number
one, you have the nursery set up months in advance. With number two, you pull everything out and you are good to go.
With number three, the child is born into a second-hand world. Most of his clothing and toys already have nostalgic value.
Preparations are limited to orders I shout at my husband as he drives me to the hospital—after my water breaks.
"Don't forget to install the baby car seat!"
The discovery that we could not transport our family together was challenging. We recognized that it was time to move on from the
eleven-year-old vehicle we had dubbed the "Love Boat" (or LB), not because of any romantic associations but because of the way
it floated over the road. Even with the repaired seatbelt, it was no longer appropriate for our team.
Buckling three kids into car seats in one back seat is a major endeavor. You have to negotiate who gets to go first and who must
bear the onus of being last. Then you have to sit in one car seat and lift the baby over another seat to get him into his chair
while avoiding cracking his head on the roof of the car. It was time for a minivan, or "Viniman," as my five-year-old
pronounces it.
We cruised car lots on Sundays to a chorus of groans and complaints from the kids. Finally, after months of reading reviews and
figuring payments, we made the leap. We purchased the "Viniman."
Shortly before the arrival of the minivan, my husband began to clean out the Love Boat.
As I watched the kids
ride their bikes on the sidewalk, I noticed Oliver standing still, staring at our car.
He was taking in the scratches
on her sides, trunk, and roof, to the stickers on her windows.
"Where do all of these scratches come from?" he asked.
The answer to that question was obvious: from bikes, hockey sticks, tree limbs that became swords,
and my keys when I was struggling to extract
the diaper bag while cradling a sleeping infant. Each one bore hieroglyphic testimony to our lives.
"I can't believe that you let them put stickers on the windows," he exclaimed.
They had been earned during anxious visits to the pediatrician for shots, bronchitis, and the flu. Those stickers were emblems of
courage, and they deserved to be proudly displayed.
He opened a car door and grumbled about the toys, broken crayons, and the rocks and leaves our daughter had collected as a gift
for me and then insisted that we take everywhere we went. With disapproval, he sniffed the familiar frangipani of sweet treats,
dog, wet shoes, and vomit that characterized the Love Boat.
Despite the less than appealing aroma, I viewed the car as my retiring comrade in arms, witness to many engagements with the kids.
Oliver glanced at me with concern. "You won't let the kids trash the minivan, will you? You won't let them eat or drink in it,
right? You're never more than ten minutes from the house. There's really no need to feed them in the van. Maybe we should have
purchased something older, so it won't matter as much. Are we ready for this?"
I took a deep breath, realizing how little he grasped my daily struggles: the joy of three active children under six buckled
down in a small space.
He defended himself. "The kids won't dehydrate or starve to death driving from the park."
My volume rose as I explained the ends to which a mother will go to put a stop to the rising crescendo of three kids screaming, or
how Dilly bars went a long way to ensuring the continued well being of our youngest who sat between his two older siblings.
The bottom line is that I see the future of our "Viniman" in a whole different light than my husband. He envisions the shiny
new car that we have seen in pictures and on the car lots. I see an extension of our family—our moveable home. It will be a witness
to our daily adventures and interactions. It will transport us on trips and vacations.
And in doing so, it will change.
On that day in the distant future, a couple of years and several hundred thousand miles from now, when our new
"Viniman" goes the
way of all older cars, my eldest will probably cry for it as he did for the Love Boat. By then, the
"Viniman" will have become a dear
friend. It will have been loved. And I don't see that as a bad fate for a hunk of metal, cloth, and rubber.
About The Author:
Caroline Akervik has written several articles that have been published in magazines with national distributions. She also
writes women's fiction under the pen name Isabelle Kane and Young Adult fiction under her own name. Her romantic suspense
novel, Calypso's Secrets, will be released by Whiskey Creek Press in May of 2005. Visit her at Isabelle Kane
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