Me, Myself and my Minivan

They say confession is good for the soul, so here is mine…I love my minivan.

Okay, I said it.

I realize this admission confirms what my sisters always said about me: I'm just not that cool. That's fine with me. My minivan and I can take it. It's my badge of honor that announces to the world each and every day, I am a mom and I am proud!

Now driving a minivan may not seem like such a big feat, but let me explain a few things. First, I did not even learn to drive till I was 35, and I did that only because we were going to be moving to the suburbs where I was raised.

Unlike Manhattan and Queens, my former homes, driving on Long Island is a necessity. Overcoming my fear to drive once seemed impossible, but I did it. It required many driving lessons and a teacher that became a candidate for sainthood, but it's an accomplishment that I'm very proud of.

Second, I never thought I would have enough children to warrant a minivan. Children did not come easily to my husband and me, so once I had my second child I thought we were done.

Life had other plans. I got the happiest shock of my life when after two fertility assisted babies I found myself pregnant with our third child at 39.

For some reason, the minute you find out you will have more than two children, there is an amazing amount of pressure to announce this miracle by the car you drive.

Most of this pressure came from my parents, who thought it was practically child abuse to put their grandchildren in anything less.

This from the same people who took my two sisters and me on more family trips than I care to remember stuffed in the backseat of my father’s green Volvo.

I wish I could properly describe the five hour trips home we would make from my uncle’s dairy farm with my sister Sandy's feet under my butt. The smell of cow manure packed into bags and put into the trunk for my fathers vegetable garden. Sitting in the backseat with a very full bladder because my parents were bound and determined to only make two pit stops per car trip upstate.

Good times indeed.

Yes, now that they are grandparents they sing a very different tune. They get upset at me if I don't have pillows and blankets in the car when I take the kids home from their house. The house that is only six blocks from mine.

Oh how times have changed. But I digress.

Every time I get behind the wheel of my Mom-mobile I get an odd sense of pride. I did it. I became a mom. Look at my dirty minivan with cookies smashed in the carpet: I have arrived.

That silly sense of pride and even joy gets me through my toughest days.

Days when getting everyone into the car becomes a second job. Or when I imagine snapping my 12 year-old’s pants on his wedding day because the 10 years of occupational therapy seems to have done little to help his fine motor issues.

Times when I get tired of hearing my own voice telling my little dears the same things over and over again. The painful days when I realize that my beautiful daughter with a brain disorder is probably never going to be able to live on her own.

I hear the arguing, the singing, and the laughter coming from the backseat and I can’t help but feel blessed and grateful.

There were times I really thought that the life and the children I love so much would never be mine. There were so many obstacles to overcome. Yet, I did it.

I have become the mom that I always wanted to be.

My minivan is a tangible reminder that all the things I once thought were impossible are not impossible at all.



Authors note: The original version of this essay was first published on Momster.com in November, 2010 where I wrote it under the name BlessedMomof3. This version has been altered slightly. It is the first time I have put it on Blogspot.

Lessons Learned from my Dishwasher

I can't believe it, but it's been almost a year since I went to take a rare nap one afternoon and woke up to a mini disaster.

I've always had a hard time sleeping, even as a child. As a mother to three children, all who have some challenges, it's almost impossible. My girlfriends kept telling me that once all three kids were in school full time, I should get some sleep. It seems easy and logical, but how?

Experience has taught me when I let my guard down for a minute, that is the time the nurse calls me to pick up a sick child, or one of our parents is having a medical emergency or I oversleep and miss the bus dropping off one of the kids.

But a year ago, a miracle occurred and I managed to fall asleep--for almost an hour.

As I went to the kitchen to grab a cup of coffee before the kids got home, I heard what I thought was water running. As I entered the kitchen, I was greeted by a flood of almost biblical proportions coming from my eight year-old dishwasher.

The water wouldn't stop. Just when I thought I had it cleaned up, the dishwasher would start up again. Water was seeping into the basement. I was running up and down the stairs. It was a mess.

Frantically I called my dad and asked him to bring towels because I had used my large supply. Finally it occurred to me to turn off the water. My dad, who is so proficient at fixing nearly everything that my husband calls him "Yoda" declared the dishwasher officially dead. Joe and I bought a new one the next day.

My brand new and not inexpensive dishwasher started acting up the night it was installed. It worked perfectly when the men set it up, but about three hours it's true demonic personality took over. It would beep and hum and light up like a Christmas tree. This would occur at all hours of the day and night. There was no pattern to when it would work or just beep and blink.

The repairman came once, twice, three times. The dishwasher worked perfectly each time he left. Then once his truck pulled out of our driveway, all hell would break loose.

After the fourth time and a new part it finally settled down. It sometimes still acts up but I now know how to calm the savage beast.

As I was thinking about my soon to be one-year anniversary with my possessed appliance, I realized that as well as being a great name for my blog, this silly dishwasher has taught me some very important lessons.

First lesson: Do not overload the machine. 

This seems pretty obvious, but somehow it's a lesson I never seem to learn with both myself and my dishwasher. It's just so easy too overload myself, without thinking. The problem is, just like the dishwasher, when I stuff too much in at one time, there is always something that gets neglected. Most of the time it's me.

This can be verified by any doctor or dentist that I make an appointment with and then cancel because something has come up.

Second lesson: The dishwasher needed to be on level ground so that it could work properly.

This was not discovered till our second repair appointment. Apparently our kitchen floor is not level. This meant the dishwasher was not balanced properly.

I too need to be on level ground to be there for my family.This is easier said than done. Balance has never been my forte in life.

This was confirmed one Saturday a few years ago. It was an extremely crazy time in our lives. Our daughter, Lizzy, who has a undiagnosed brain disorder, was having symptoms that was setting off all kinds of scary bells to some of the top specialists in Manhattan. I was getting calls at odd hours of the day and night scaring the life out of me. Some life threatening conditions were being thrown around. We were terrified.

I was also dealing with every other kind of crisis one could deal with at the same time. Parents being sick, the other children's issues rearing their head and the middle of the holiday season.

My husband was out getting my mini-van repaired because I sheered off my passenger side mirror when I hit a repair truck while I was running from picking up Peter at pre-school, only to find out that Lizzy had to be picked up at her school because she was throwing up. Thankfully my mirror was the only thing damaged that day. Joe called to let me know what was going on with the van.

I'm pretty calm and pride myself on not really loosing it too often with my kids. I accomplish some of this by having spent the equivalent of a small house on therapy. The time I spend talking to someone who is paid to listen really helps keep me balanced. Of course with everything going on I barely had a chance to breathe not to mention keeping something like a therapy appointment.

That Saturday I was snapping at the kids in a way I just hadn't before. I overheard Tom pick up the phone and say to his father:"Quick dad get home. Mom has flipped."

This leads nicely to my third lesson from the dishwasher: If something is wrong, make noise.

Unfortunately my family does not have the power to read my mind, as much as I would like them to. If I need help I need to tell someone. Letting my husband know wouldn't be a bad idea.

Unless there's a flood in my kitchen or some other crisis, I really hate asking for help. Being a bit of a control freak I find it easier to do the job myself rather than explain how to do it.

I'm working on this. I have been pleasantly surprised to find out that I'm not the only human in the world who can make dinner or brush Lizzy's hair.

I love being a mother. It truly is something I adore doing and I feel as if I'm really good at it. I adore my children and my husband. But, I'm a human as much as I would like to believe I'm not. I need to do a much better job of caring for myself.

Who would of have thought that one possessed dishwasher could teach me so much?