Gametes In Love

How far along: 18 weeks
Weight: 129.9 (and yes, I have eaten terribly and non-stop in the past week)
Sleep: Decent. I spent the week acclimating to PST, and last night was the first I not only slept until 7, but also did not wake up in the middle. I hope this continues.
Gender: Boy! … We think.
Movement: None yet officially
Feeling: Good. Occasional queasiness, but good overall.
What I miss: At this point nothing. I’m a happy clam.
What I am looking forward to: Fetal scan back here in a few weeks.
Food cravings: Vegetables. Especially sweet roasted peppers. Go figure.
Fetal development:
Head to rump, your baby is about 5 1/2 inches long (about the length of a bell pepper) and it weighs almost 7 ounces. It’s busy flexing its arms and legs — movements that you’ll start noticing more and more in the weeks ahead. Its blood vessels are visible through its thin skin, and its ears are now in their final position, although they’re still standing out from the head a bit. A protective covering of myelin is beginning to form around the nerves, a process that will continue for a year after the baby is born.

[while pointing at my shirt] G: Momma, down. Ball!

S: He thinks you have a ball under you shirt.

Me [while straightening the shirt and pointing to the belly]: No, buddy. Baby!

G [continuing to point]: BALL!

S [defensively]: I didn’t teach him that!

Oh yeah, this sure doesn’t give a pregnant woman a complex or anything.

S and I spent our Friday afternoon at the Honda dealership checking out the Honda Pilot. Why? We’re looking for the next car. With my car being nine years old, and S2 on the way, we’re thinking about what’s next.

I’m not thrilled with the idea of owning a giant of a car (Civic and Fit family here), but I’m considering our long term needs and local venue parking restrictions.

The one thing on my ‘must have’ list is a 3rd row. Right now with one carseat in the back, the back row will fit one person comfortably and two if they are very skinny and super friendly. With 2 carseats in the back, we might as well say good-bye to taking on any passengers. This means that whenever we have family/friends come out to visit we are tied to taking 2 cars out, AND we will have to remove the carseats out of the 2nd car to fit everyone in (since I do drop-offs, S pickups, both cars are always ready with baby seating). This idea just sucks. Also depending where we go parking one car is hard, let alone two. Hence third row demand.

Unfortunately, I don’t know any any non-SUV, non-minivan can that fulfill that requirement, so here we are looking at monster mobiles.

Additionally, I’m seeing this vehicle staying with us for a minimum of 7-10 years. We’ll be shuttling the boys and their bikes/friends/sports gear. The extra space will be a real convenience. My sister called this purchase “soccer mommish”, and I’m thinking ‘Yeah? Have you met G?’ (we’re interviewing a soccer class for him today, btw)

I’m struggling with this purchase, however, on 3 fronts:
– size. I just can’t drive a large car. I’m very uncomfortable
– ecological awareness. It’s hard to go from a 32+mpg car to one that gets at best 20mpg.
– cost. 40K for a car! Really? That’s 1/4 of a house purchase in some places!!!

So we’re hunting.

The Pilot was first because we have 3 friends that ultimately purchased this car after doing shopping on their own. S and I like it, but I’m not in love (actually I have 1  gripe about the third row) and ready to plop down money just yet. I want to see what else is out there, but above all I need to face my gripes above.

Also, we’ve talked about just getting another small car (since mine will likely need a pretty costly set of repairs coming up soon due to age/mileage) and renting a big vehicle when we have car-less family/friends in town. We need to look into this more. And make some spreadsheets (duh). We’ve idealized this scenario for car trips in the past and have NEVER done it (we got a car-hitch on my Honda with a trailer instead), so we need to figure out how realistic this will be. And yeah, it will be a 1K/week cash drop for a rental fee, but overall, cheaper than a 40K purchase… I think.

If you have any cars you feel we must check out, holler. We’ll consider Ford, but not other American makes. I’m not sure I’m ready for a minivan, though. That’s a whole separate identity I’m not ready to face.