Labor Day weekend

I'm very glad to report that beside a lingering cough, Joseph is totally back to normal. Joe and I were actually kinda lamenting the disappearance of the super sweet, cuddly sick boy and reappearance of a boisterous, rambunctous two year old who was used to the week of being coddled and getting away with a lot more than normal. After a few days, though, he's back to his regular old self.

Friday he was able to go to "school" which he was super excited about. Joe didn't have any client appointments, so we dropped Joseph off together, and then had some breakfast while trying to decide how to spend the day, since it appeared we probably weren't going to be having a baby. We had installed the infant carseat in the RAV earlier in the week, and realized that although we knew space was going to be at a premium, it was really tight in the back seat with two car seats. And we had forgotten that the seat in front of the infant car seat needed to be pushed further forward to accomodate the whole infant seat. And there was no way Molly would also fit in the back seat, like we were hoping.

Last fall we had started researching minivans, but decided to put it off as long as possible. So on Friday, Joe suggested taking a look at them again, especially since there were some Labor Day sales and we knew there'd be decent prices on 2012 models. We had pretty much made up our minds on the Honda Odyssey last fall, but hadn't talked about trim packages, colors, etc. Of course, the "let's just go take a look" turned into astonishment at how much the dealer near us was discounting them and then one thing led to another and we were talking seriously about biting the bullet and buying the van now, not down the road.

We had to pick Joseph up from school at 2:30, so we took him back over to the dealership, knowing he may not be in the best of moods (he doesn't usually nap well at school and can be rather cranky for the rest of the day). Of course, on Friday he actually took a good nap, was in great spirits, and loved being around all of the cars. The icing on the cake for this 2 year old - the salesman immediately gave him a bright red balloon! Joseph was thrilled with the whole rest of the afternoon, and managed to be very good while we negotiated a deal on the van and the RAV as our trade in. The van we opted to buy actually had to be traded from another local dealership so we had to wait until Saturday to see it and take it home.

I still can't really believe we bought a minivan instead of having a baby, but it definitely took some of the disappointment of heading into overdue time away and was a great weekend distraction. Although at this rate, our weekends of waiting are getting more and more expensive, thanks to this late little baby - two weekends ago I broke down and bought the video monitor, last weekend was the double stroller, and a car this weekend. I'm happy to report she will be evicted by this coming weekend, as I'd hate to see what else we'd end up "upgrading" to while waiting longer! She's definitely becoming a very expensive kid!