I became a mother yesterday.

Yesterday I leaped over two painful and admittedly selfish hurdles, finally earning my Mom Badge. 

1.) I signed many a piece of paper and bought a minivan, even though I once vowed never to do so.

2.) After many years of professing my dislike for Dora, I succumbed to her ways and allowed my kids to watch Dora the Explorer in epic proportions this weekend.

I figured those two things right there… getting over my two most painful parenting struggles, has finally earned me the right to be called Mom.  Thank goodness, because I’m about to have a third kid and all.

The vehicle buying experience was nothing short of painful, though.  We had no idea how long we would be there or how long it would take, but apparently it takes almost 6 hours to buy a car and after missing lunch and nap time, we finally left the Kia dealership with a new vehicle – though I admit to being the Crankiest Person on the Planet.  The kids, amazingly, did very well yesterday and Raven only had one major tantrum that I recall.  That’s a miracle right there.

This week I will spend time bonding with the Kia Sedona we purchased by driving it back and forth to work sans kids and sans mess before I relinquish the van to Adam so that he can take the kids to school in the morning.  Adam needs no bonding time – he is giddy as a school girl with that thing.  He Loves It.

It was a long drawn out process to come to purchasing a Kia but we’re very satisfied with the Kia and the price at which we purchased it.  We’ll miss the truck but already Adam has gotten over the lack of truck bed thanks to the Buttons That Open Everything on the van.  And I’m pretty sure that I will LOVE the seat warmers on my way to work this week…

Regarding Dora… yet another thanks out to the hub for that one… he found Dora on Netflix a few months ago and occasionally let the girls watch it… I was none to fond… however, this weekend there was a million things to do and Julia had one wish – to watch Dora.  I taught her how to use the Roku remote so that she could keep up with Dora while I cleaned and cooked, and after sitting down and watching a few episodes, I decided Dora wasn’t so bad after all.  And besides, it is crazy funny listening to Julia shout out her own version of the Spanish words that Dora is saying.

Erin