In Praise of the Mom-mobile

Anyone who has known me (Mary) for any length of time has witnessed my adamant stance against driving a family van. I've had a lot of really fun cars over the years and six years ago, when I finally got a Pathfinder, I was in heaven. You can truly carry half of a garden centre home in a Pathfinder, and snowbanks are no match for the four wheel drive. It was great fun and it matched my cowboy boots.
Then I became a Mom and found myself cruising the insurance websites for the safest vehicles. Lifting Lil into her carseat became a problem as she got heavier but a few steroid injections to the wrist fixed that (as the orthopod muttered that only women seem to get these weird wrist injuries). When she insisted on getting into the car herself, the height of her seat just about required climbing gear for her to negotiate the task and we had a few clunks on the head (both of us).
One day while driving by our local Honda dealer I decided to drop in and take a look at the Pilot. Although it was a dream car, it had a third seat that even the salesperson couldn't figure out how to get into. And then he showed me a van. This salesman was good...he could take all the seats out and reconfigure them. Electric sliding doors, a rearview camera, in the floor hiding places for all my Winners finds, ECO mode and a DVD player sweeted the deal. I felt panic rising in my throat and sped home in the old Pathfinder. However, I dreamt about this car at least once a week for the next year.
I've had my van for a year now, and with the exception of getting stuck in a snowbank once, it has been good to me. Long trips with the Lil plugged into Dora the Explorer are heaven, the automatic doors allow me to press a button and off she is ejected into the school yard and YES, I even have bun warmers. And the day Lil had the stomach flu...well I took the van apart and hosed it down in the front yard.
So no, I still won't carry a Strawberry Cheescake Diaper Bag...thats not my style of motherhood, but this van is cool...and yes it is built in Ontario.