for Mimi

Today is my mom’s 70th birthday, one of those big milestone ages. Last night, I cooked dinner and we had birthday brownies afterward.

Happy 70th birthday to my mom. We love you, Mimi!

My relationship with my parents is complicated, but for the most part, my mom and I have always been close. I know I went through a few years where I was an insufferable brat, like most teenage girls do (I think it peaked around ages 14-16 for me), and my mom deserves major credit for not murdering me at the time. But post-“Teenage Brat” years, I genuinely enjoy being around my mom, and I know I’m very lucky in that regard. I have a lot of friends with crappy moms, and I definitely lucked out with mine.

I will say, my parents living nearby has been a mixed bag. They help out so much, and save my butt with childcare all the time – just last night, after that picture was taken, I took Catie to her taekwondo class, and my parents took Lucy to their house to hang out, so she wouldn’t be bored sitting through Catie’s class. And sure, I could’ve left Lucy with Chris, or asked Dave to keep her, and that would’ve been fine, but Lucy loves getting her Mimi and Pop-Pop all to herself. I love that both of my girls get to be close to their grandparents as they grow up. Those are such important relationships, and I feel so fortunate in that regard. But my parents being local also means they unload on me more than they do on my siblings. Which is nobody’s fault, it’s just geography: my sister is in Texas, my brother is in Utah, and I’m a mile and a half away. They see me at least twice a week, so they’re more likely to nitpick with me about little things, and I hear about their squabbles (which are more frequent in an election year).

Both of my parents watch a lot of true crime shows, like Dateline and 48 Hours, and it makes them worry a lot more than they should. Chris and I joke that one of my mom’s catchphrases is “people have died!”

  • “You have to make sure your doctor always washes his hands before he touches you so you don’t get a staph infection. People have died!”
  • “You shouldn’t let the kids go on the crazy rides at the state fair. People have died!”

It goes on and on. We now use it as an inside joke for minor little things. “Better fold the laundry before it gets out of hand. People have died!”

Which is not to say that it’s all ridiculous, because it’s not. Some of the stuff my mom worries about is valid – like she worries about online predators with the kids. And hey, I worry about that too, but this is why I’ve already got a long list of rules: they’re not allowed to have any passwords on their devices that I don’t know, their iPads are configured so they can’t install any apps without my password, I won’t allow any social media until they’re teenagers, and they know that they can expect zero privacy because I can and will check up on what they do online. At this point, the closest thing to social media that Catie has is Google Hangouts, which she uses to chat with her cousins and a couple of friends from school. And she knows that I regularly check to make sure she and her friends aren’t talking about anything inappropriate. (They aren’t. They mostly talk about Minecraft.) So maybe I get the worrywart gene from my mom, because when it comes to my own kids, I tend to be a little overly cautious like she is.

For many years, I never saw my parents on their birthdays (and they didn’t see me on mine), because we didn’t live in the same area. They were in Mississippi, and I was in Memphis in college, then I moved to Wisconsin, Massachusetts, Washington, and eventually North Carolina. But I’ve gotten to spend their birthdays with them (and vice versa) every year for the last five years. It started in 2011, after Dave and I split up, when my mom moved in with me for four months while I sold my house and found a new one, and my dad sold their house in Mississippi and got ready to move.

Sometimes it strikes me just how huge that was. They lived in Mississippi for 40 years, from 1971 to 2011. Their entire lives, all their friends, all their routines – they gave it all up for me and Catie and Lucy. So yes, there are a lot of ways that my mom and I differ in our parenting styles, and I sometimes complain that she nitpicks about silly things. But I hope that if 30 years from now, one of my girls is having her life fall to pieces in front of her eyes, she knows she can call me and I will drop everything to be there for her without hesitation. Even if that’s the only thing about my mom that I emulate, I’ll consider myself to have been a damn good parent.

Happy 70th birthday, Mom. I love you. And your grandbabies think you’re pretty fantastic too.

in case you haven’t had nightmares lately

I’m sure I’ve mentioned this at some point, but my mom is one of 7 kids, so I have aunts, uncles, and cousins all over the place. And my grandfather was one of 16 kids, so I literally have cousins I wouldn’t even know if I saw them on the street.

(16 kids. Can you imagine? Three of them died when they were babies – I’m not sure why, just a lack of modern medicine in the early 1900s, I guess – but 13 lived to adulthood. My poor great-grandmother spent more years of her life pregnant than people spend in prison for murder.)

Back in May, my great aunt Juanita passed away. She was the last of the 16 kids of my grandfather’s generation. She was in her 90s and had been in failing health for a long time, but it was still sad. My mom and I flew to New Orleans for her funeral, and my sister flew in from Austin and met us there.

It’s rare to get my mom and all of her siblings in the same place at the same time, so at some point, we made them huddle up so we could get a picture.

truxillo_siblings

(My mom is the front left, the black & white shirt.)

And this happened, which I think is hilarious because the boys are all standing nicely for their picture while the girls are complete crack-ups.

truxillo_siblings_goofballs

See that guy in the back right, the shirt with fish on it? That’s my uncle Mark. Remember him, he’s important to this story.

Mark has always been the practical joker of the family. When he was a kid, he poked holes in a tube of toothpaste with a straight pin and waited to see who’d be the next person to squeeze it and get toothpaste all over themselves. It was my mom. She still tells the story about how he ran and hid behind their mother when she was about to murder him. My grandmother’s defense was, “He has a scientific mind, he was curious to see what would happen!” My grandmother was basically a saint.

Because our family was so big, we used to do Christmas presents via a name exchange – instead of having to buy a bunch of small presents for everybody (because who can afford to buy 30+ Christmas presents?), we all drew a name at random and got one nice gift for whoever we picked. One year, Mark got my sister Tracy. She unwrapped this pretty velvet jewelry box, opened it, and inside was… a rubber cockroach. With a safety pin stuck through it. The roach brooch. Or just broach. I believe there was also a real non-prank gift, because he isn’t a complete jackass, but this gives you an idea of his sense of humor.

(Side note: that rubber cockroach came in really handy as a gag. If you had long hair, you could pin it to your shirt collar, then toss your hair back at some point and completely freak people out. Quick way to know who your true friends aren’t: the ones who ignore it and don’t tell you there’s a cockroach on your shoulder.)

Anyway, Mark and his wife (my aunt Pam) recently moved to a new house in New Orleans, and they’ve been cleaning out some stuff that belonged to my grandmother, which they’ve had in storage since she died. He emailed me a picture of a doll that belonged to my grandmother, and asked if Lucy wanted it because he knows she loves baby dolls. It was the most horrifying thing I’d ever seen – not even really a doll, more like a potato sack with a disfigured face embroidered onto it.

My reply to his email was basically, “Haha, yeah that’s funny, don’t you dare send that thing to my house.” I also told him that he should burn it, and bury the ashes somewhere really remote, so that when it re-animated itself, it wouldn’t be able to find him.

Last week, we went over to my parents’ house for dinner, and my mom said “Oh hey, Mark sent a box with all kinds of stuff in that you should check out.” There was a photo album on the top, and I thought oh wow, that’s cool to have copies of all of these old photos. So I picked it up, and underneath the photo album was this nightmare.

nahnee_dinxy_doll

Not gonna lie: I screamed like I was in a horror movie. BECAUSE I WAS.

Apparently the story of this doll is that my great-grandmother (my grandmother’s mom, not the one who had 16 kids) made it for my grandmother when she was a little girl. And important side note: my great-grandmother didn’t know how to sew. OBVIOUSLY.

My grandmother was not quite a hoarder, but she had a hard time letting go of things. Like, her house was always tidy and clean, but the closets and attic were always packed to the gills. I suppose I should be grateful to have something that she deemed precious enough to keep all those years, but I just look at that doll and shudder. I’m waiting for it to come to life and strangle us in our sleep.

And for the record, my baby doll-loving Lucy looked at that doll and made a face. “What is THAT?” Even she knew something was wrong with it.

My aunt Michele made a comment about not having many things that belonged to my grandmother (her mother), so I’m thinking about mailing it to her. Preemptive apologies to the city of Atlanta when this doll comes to life and goes on a murder spree, but at least it’ll be a nice long distance from us.

In the meantime, I left it at my parents’ house. Just to be safe.

summer recap

I just realized I haven’t blogged anything since Lucy’s birthday, which was nearly 3 months ago. So! Recap time!

First, Lucy graduated from her pre-k program, and yes ok, it’s stupid to do the whole cap & gown thing for 5 year-olds, but this is the daycare where Lucy has been since she was 11 weeks old, and where Catie started going when she was only 2 years old.

Lucy getting her diploma from Ms. M

The girls may go there for the occasional track-out week, but other than that, we’re done there. It felt like the end of an era, that place has been such a big part of our daily lives for so many years. So I admit it, I cried. A lot.

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Summer vacation!

The kids got to hang out with their cousins, which they loved. (God bless my aunt Susie, who somehow managed five kids without murdering or losing any of them.) We spent a lot of time at our neighborhood pool. Like a lot. We’re at the pool pretty much every weekend that the girls are with me. Because the only way I can tolerate being outside during a North Carolina summer is if I’m submerged in water.

The pool is open!

We went to see the fireworks on the Fourth of July.

Waiting for fireworks. Happy 4th of July!
(I love this picture so much.)

Oh! And my parents and I took the girls on an overnight trip to the beach.

Girls on the beach

While we were at the coast, we went to a “princess story hour” event with the company that we’ve used to hire the princesses for Lucy’s last two birthday parties, so that was fun. (Well, it was fun for Lucy. Catie was very sweet about helping Lucy get the various princesses’ autographs, since Lucy was too shy to ask for them herself.)

And we went to the aquarium at Fort Fisher, which was cool. Eh. Scratch that. It was the opposite of cool. It was like 95 degrees that day. The inside of the aquarium was fine, but all of the outdoor stuff – like the big dinosaur exhibit – was soul-crushingly hot.

The aquarium has a dinosaur exhibit. A++.

But hey, the kids had fun, and that’s why we do these things. #CherishEveryMoment and all that, right? (…she said as she stuck her head in the freezer to try to stop sweating.)

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On our year-round school calendar, our summer vacation is basically the month of July, and that’s it. The downside is that it feels like there’s never enough time to do all the stuff we want to do. But overall, I feel like the 9 weeks on/3-ish weeks off schedule works out better for us. Just around the time kids start to get burned out on school, it’s time for a nice long break. And then on the flip side, just around the time they start to whine about being bored? Back to school you go!

So, here we are. Kindergarten for Lucy, and fourth grade for Catie.

Kindergarten and 4th grade!

Catie breezed into 4th grade like it was nothing. She’s been doing great, her two closest friends are in her class this year, and she’s been coming home from school and doing her homework without me twisting her arm to do it.

I knew Lucy’s adjustment to kindergarten was going to be pretty rough, and it has been. It’s all new people (kids and adults both), new school, new routines. It’s a lot for any kid to process, but especially for Lucy, who tends to be really shy and quiet in new situations. And while she’s been great at school, I know she’s overwhelmed by all of it, because she comes home absolutely exhausted. We’ve had to scramble our evening routine, because now there’s a mad rush to get Lucy some dinner at “early bird special” hours (you want to eat at 4:30 p.m.? OK SURE!), and then bathed and in her PJs, so when she inevitably falls asleep on the couch at 6:30… well, at least she’s fed and clean, so all we have to do is move her upstairs to bed.

(Last night, Lucy slept eleven hours. ELEVEN. I’m not sure she’s ever done that before in her entire life. And she slept so hard, she didn’t even wake up to climb in bed between me and Chris in the middle of the night, like she always does. I mean, hooray for kindergarten if it gets her to stay in her own bed all night. But poor baby girl is TIIIIIRED.)

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Everything outside of the kids is pretty standard. Chris is good, I’m good, our jobs are going well, we spend a lot of our free time going back and forth between watching election news (OMG y’all, this year) and binge watching different shows (just started season 2 of “Bloodline”). My parents are doing well. As for the pets: Spyro Jones is still around, Roxie is sweet and adorable, Beaumont got sick and scared us, but he’s on the mend now. He has hyperthyroidism and dropped a lot of weight really fast, but we have medication for him that should fix him up.

Oh! My brother got married in early July. He lived in Charlotte for years, but earlier this year, his job transferred him out to Salt Lake City, and Mandy (his then-fiancee, now wife) went with him. They eloped, no big wedding ceremony or anything. But they seem really happy, and it’s kind of cool to be able to say that I have a sister-in-law, because I’ve never had one before. And the girls love that they now have TWO aunts! (And although they love their Uncle Chris & Aunt Mandy a whole lot, I’m pretty sure my sister is still their favorite. Hell, they prefer my sister over me most of time.)

So, all is well. If my sparse blogging trend continues, I guess I’ll post another update sometime after Thanksgiving. We’ll see.

Lucy is 5

Lucy’s 5th birthday was yesterday. Which is weird, because I could swear I just gave birth to her like a week ago. But no, apparently it’s been five years.

I swear, I blinked and this happened. Happy 5th birthday, Lucy!

The girls were with me this past weekend, so we had Lucy’s birthday party a few days early. Last year, I found a company that hires out princesses for birthday parties, and we had Elsa and Anna come to her party. She asked if she could have a princess at her party again this year.

And ok, hiring a princess for a kid’s birthday party definitely qualifies as a frivolous expense, and she would’ve been fine if I had said no and that we were only having her friends over to our house. But you know, there are only a few short years where you can make special occasions magical for your children, so why not? Bring on Rapunzel.

Kayla, Sophia, Lucy & Rapunzel

(The funniest part of this whole thing is that I legitimately had no clue until the party was over – when my mom pointed it out – that Rapunzel was the exact same girl who played Elsa at Lucy’s party last year. I guess I figured that they had one girl who always plays Elsa, one who always plays Rapunzel, etc.? But no, apparently they’re multi-talented. I feel like an idiot because I was talking to this girl for over an hour with no clue that she’d been in my house and met my kid a year ago. But Lucy didn’t notice either, so we’ll call it a win.)

Lucy and Rapunzel

The kids all had a blast, and Catie got to hang out with her cousins, so even the non-Princess-loving crowd was happy. Overall, A+ birthday party.

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Funny timing: Lucy officially turned 5 yesterday, and tonight we have kindergarten orientation at the school where she’ll start going in two months. (TWO MONTHS! She starts the first week of August!) I know she’s nervous about going to “big school” because she won’t know anyone there, and she’s extremely shy with people she doesn’t know well. Hell, I’m nervous for her. But I’m trying to make it as exciting a transition as I can. (“You’re such a big girl now! You get to go to big school with Catie!”)

Her daycare is having their pre-K graduation program at the end of June. And I know the whole notion of pre-K graduation is silly. It’s not like she’s finishing college. But this marks the end of us going to the daycare where one or both of my kids has been for the last 6 1/2 years. Catie started there right before she turned 3, and Lucy’s been there since she was 2 months old. This place has been part of our daily lives for so long, it feels like the end of an era.

Lucy's pre-k graduation photo

And yeah ok, I’m super-excited that I won’t have to pay for daycare anymore. (Mama’s getting a raise!) But not gonna lie, I’ll probably cry during that graduation program.

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Happy birthday, Lucy Goose. I always think that it’s no coincidence that your name, Lucille, means “light” – you are an absolute ray of joy and sunshine in our lives. We love you so much, and I cannot wait to see what this year brings for you, my sweet girl.

Texas trip

Catie recently had her 3-week spring break, so we decided to do like we did last year, and go to Texas to visit my sister and brother-in-law.

The flying part of this trip felt like a big deal, because it was the first time I’d flown with my kids without bringing along a stroller. I was a little worried that Lucy might pull a “my legs are tired!” meltdown and force me to carry her plus our carry-ons, but I talked it up about how she’s a big girl now, and created a little reward chart, and both girls were great. (I wasn’t worried about Catie – for all of her tendencies to freak out at new situations, that kid is the easiest traveling buddy ever. She’s a champ. But I can’t promise a reward to one kid and not the other, because they are all about equity at this age, so Catie and Lucy were both on the reward chart.)

Survived the first half of our journey. Now we're boarded on our flight to Austin!

Before our trip, my sister had emailed me a link to the Exotic Resort Zoo, asking if I thought the kids might like it. It looked fun, so we decided to check it out.

The Exotic Resort Zoo is in Johnson City, which is a little over an hour from Austin. And it was amazing. You ride in a covered trailer through the park, and all of the animals come up to the trailer so you can feed and pet them. (You buy a bucket of feed before the tour, you can’t just give them regular food.) They had llamas, zebras, buffalo, camels, ostriches, emus, rams, elk, antelope, gazelles, and a dozen other things I’m forgetting. It was so fun.

Highly recommend the Exotic Safari Zoo in Johnson City, TX. We got to feed and pet llamas, zebras, camels, deer, elk, buffalo and a dozen other animals. SO COOL.

Catie spent the entire tour halfway leaning out of the trailer trying to pet every animal that came near us. Lucy is a little more unsure about animals, so she spent most of the time picking up big handfuls of feed from the bucket and throwing it out of the trailer for the animals to catch.

We also took another trip to downtown Austin to try to see the bats when they fly out from under the Congress Avenue Bridge at dusk.

Catie, Lucy & Tracy waiting for bats

And look, BATS!

Bats!

(As I kept reassuring Lucy, these are not scary bats. These are bats who eat all the mosquitoes. These bats are our friends. In fact, I’m wishing I could set up a bat colony in my backyard.)

We did a lot of other fun stuff: had dinner with my aunt and uncle, and the girls got to play with their cousin Jackson who they hadn’t seen since Tracy’s wedding. We got to try out some fun local restaurants. We went to Mt. Playmore twice, and I’m still so jealous that we don’t have a place like that here, because it’s so much fun.

And on our last day, on our way to the airport, we found longhorns! (Lucy was tired & wouldn’t get out of the car for a picture. And you kinda have to zoom in a LOT to see the longhorns behind Catie. But they were there!)

We found longhorns!

The flight home was pretty uneventful, the kids did really well again. Chris picked us up at the airport and brought us home. And even though Chris took good care of the pets while we were gone, Roxie was so happy to see us that she did literal back flips when we got home. She stood on her hind legs to do her little happy dance, but her tail was wagging so hard that she kept falling over backward.


(This is what we call the Roxie Happy Dance.)

Catie’s back in school now, but it was a fun trip and I’m really glad we were able to go.

4 months until kindergarten

Lucy starts kindergarten the week of August 1st. That means it’s officially less than four months away. That also means I only have 3 more daycare payments left, and OMG, it’s going to be like I got a huge raise as of August.

We’ve been talking a lot about kindergarten at home, and she’s very excited to go to “big school” with Catie. Although funny thing I realized: the girls will only be at the same school for 2 years. Catie will be in 4th grade while Lucy is in kindergarten, and the following year when Catie is in 5th grade and Lucy is in 1st. After that, Catie will be off to middle school. By the time Lucy goes to middle school, Catie will be starting high school. And by the time Lucy goes to high school, Catie will be in college. So, that’s it. Two years is all I get, and then I’ll have to start doing a lot more juggling. Middle and high schools start and end their days at different times than elementary, it’s going to be a lot to manage. I’m already overwhelmed just thinking about it.

It’s funny that as much as Catie complains about Lucy – which I think is part of the job description of big sisters, to complain about their little sisters – she’s actually very protective of her. She’s talked with Lucy about how next year, when they ride the bus home after school, Lucy can sit with her and Catie will make sure she’s ok. Those moments may be few and far between, but they’re very sweet when they happen.

Fancy girls on Easter

But while Lucy is this hilarious little goofball and a non-stop chatterbox at home, she’s a completely different child with the rest of the world. She gets incredibly shy and quiet when she’s around people she doesn’t know. When other adults speak to her (like if the checkout lady at the store offers her a sticker), she won’t answer, she just buries her face in my shirt and tries to hide. If Catie is there, she’ll answer for her, but I often find myself apologizing for her, so people don’t think she’s being rude. “Sorry, she’s a little shy today.” This morning, she saw a new doctor (a specialist for some of her GI issues), and she wouldn’t answer any of his questions. She’d nod yes or shake her head no, but she never spoke.

Last weekend, I took her to a friend’s birthday party, and she spent most of the party on my lap with her face buried in my chest. She eventually got up and went to play, but it was toward the end of the party. Afterward, I asked her why she was so shy when most of the kids there were her friends, and she said, “But I’d never been to their house before!” So, new environments throw her off.

Even at daycare, where she’s been going since she was 2 months old, it took several weeks after she moved up to the Pre-K class for her to adjust and get used to the new teacher. She (the teacher) told me later she was worried that Lucy might have some sort of speech delay, because she never talked. “But now she talks my ear off all day, so I know she’s fine!” And while it’s reassuring to know that she’s doing well in her class now, it’s still a little disconcerting that her teacher would think there might have been something wrong with her.

Lucy was upset we ran out of baby carrots. "What can I have with ranch on it?" (She is so my child.) Salad FTW! She's had 2 bowls & counting.

So, in light of all that, I’m a little worried about my baby girl starting kindergarten. It’s a big change going from a daycare class of about 6 to 8 kids to a classroom of 20+ students. She’ll be shy with the other students at first, but especially with the teacher. Before the first day of school, there will be a kindergarten orientation where we meet her teacher, and she can check out her new classroom and get a little more familiar with her new surroundings, but I think it’s probably going to take a while for her to settle in.

My mom called me out of the blue the other day, and said, “Oh my god, it just occurred to me: what are you going to do about Lucy’s lunch when she starts kindergarten? She won’t speak to the lunch lady to tell her what she wants!” Catie buys her lunch at school, but I was already planning to pack Lucy’s lunch for her, since she’s lactose intolerant and I don’t want to risk her eating something with milk or cheese in it. The other motivation for packing Lucy’s lunch – to keep her from needing to talk to strangers – hadn’t occurred to me, but I guess it’s an equally valid reason.

I don’t know if this is a phase or just who she is. Maybe she’ll always be shy around new people and in new situations. And that’s ok, we can adapt to it and help ease her along. But I hope that someday, everyone else gets to see the Lucy that I know.

Post-hair wash, wearing her shades and my fleece socks. As one does.

Because that kid is pretty fantastic.

Traverse-ing

I mentioned a while back that I was looking at getting a new(er) car. Looking back, I’ve been wanting to get a bigger car since I was pregnant with Lucy and had to try to make room for two car seats. For a long time, I thought I wanted a mini-van. I know they’re uncool and boring, but whatever. All that space! But after test driving several and doing a ton of research, I decided that I really liked some of the 3-row crossover SUVs over the mini-vans. They felt easier to handle when I drove them.

The problem is, a lot of the 3-row SUVs have teeny-tiny third row seats, which are ok for small kids, but not for bigger ones. I figured that since I’ve had my Subaru for 15 years, this next one would be my car at least until Lucy goes off to college. So whatever car I bought, I wanted one that would be able to haul my someday adult-size teenage children around.

So, even though I liked the Toyota Highlander and the Kia Sorento, those got ruled out due to tiny third rows. I liked the Mazda CX-9 a lot, but Consumer Reports advises against them because they did horribly on their crash test scores. The one other car that I really liked was the Chevrolet Traverse. Which surprised me, because never in a million years did I think I’d buy an American car. My family only owns Hondas and Toyotas. But the Chevy Traverse got great reviews (so do its “sister” vehicles, the GMC Acadia and Buick Enclave – they’re all more or less the same car with different trims/features), and I really liked driving it.

Side note: I surprised myself during this car buying process, when I learned that I’m really good at haggling. (“We have the best price for this vehicle.” “No you don’t, the exact same car is over at X dealership for $700 less than your price.” Or, they’d try to tell me how much a car was worth, and I’d be all, “Oh here, let me pull up Kelley Blue Book’s website on my phone and show you otherwise.”) I had brought Chris along with me, because I felt like I needed to have a man with me to negotiate, but then I ended up doing it all myself. At one point, some salesman had brought over his general manager to try to argue prices with me, and the GM kind of looked at Chris in desperation. Chris just shrugged and said, “Don’t look at me. It’s her money, she’s the one you have to deal with.” That was a weirdly empowering moment.

(That same GM asked me later if I was a lawyer. And he’s not the first person to ask me that, just in the past month or so. Apparently I missed my calling, because I’m pretty good at arguing with people. I made my dad proud.)

It took a while to find the car that I liked, but I settled on a 2015 Traverse that we tracked down at a dealership in Johnston County. It had been owned by Enterprise and used as a rental car, so even though it’s only a year old, it already has 24K miles on it. I was hesitant about the idea of buying a car that had been a rental, but I talked to our mechanic, and he said that typically buying a rental is a pretty safe choice. As he pointed out, you can guarantee it was serviced regularly, and if there’d been any damage or issues, they would have had it fixed on their insurance, so it would’ve shown on the vehicle’s CarFax. That made me feel better. Plus the higher-than-average mileage brought the price of the car WAY down.

Oh, and did I mention that it’s purple? They call the color “Sable Metallic,” and I guess it’s really more of a purple-y brown. But I love the color. PURPLE CAR.

chevy_traverse

Chris joked that he was going to get a picture of me in front of my SUV, wearing leggings and Ugg boots, holding my tiny purse dog in one hand and a Starbucks in the other, just so I could hit all of the Middle-Aged Suburban Mom cliches in one go. Instead, we got this one semi-awkward picture that the salesman at the dealership took. (I suppose we could recreate the Uggs/Starbucks/tiny dog picture at home, but it’s too hot for Uggs.)

That night, after we got the new car home, I was happy about it – I mean, of course. I got the car I wanted, and I waited until the last day of the month and negotiated a really good price for it. But I’ve been saving up for a car for the last few years (I didn’t want to finance it), so I also had this sort of shaky, panicky feeling, like, “OMG my entire savings account is GONE!” But that savings account existed for the purpose of buying a car, so yeah, of course I drained it. Still, it was a weird mixed feeling.

And honestly, I’m glad that Chris is keeping my Subaru and that I didn’t have to trade it in. I love that little car so much. It’s the first car I bought new, and I bought it by myself. I’m pretty sure that if you’d told me back then – when I was 25 years old and single – that I’d someday be driving that car with my 2 daughters in the backseat at age 40? I would’ve thought you were crazy. But it’s been a great car, so I’m happy that we’re keeping it around. Whenever we do have to trade it in or replace it, I’ll probably cry.

Both of the girls love the new car. The middle row is 2 captain’s chairs, so they have space between them. (No more fights about, “She’s in my space!”, “She’s touching my side!”, etc.) Lucy actually prefers to have her car seat in the third row so she can have it all to herself. She also likes to announce, “I’m riding in Mommy’s trunk!” Which is probably going to lead to an awkward conversation with daycare at some point.

I suppose people buy cars all the time and it isn’t really a big deal in the grand scheme of things. But since I’m apparently the type of person who only buys a car every other decade or so, it feels like a pretty big life milestone to me.