Of course, some of the hardest parts of being a parent is giving up, giving in and admitting that you’re no longer the freewheeling couple that you once were. Bit by bit, kids chip away at any pretensions you might have of remaining young and/or cool. Thankfully, in my case that isn’t really giving up all that much–I mean, I was never really cool, so it’s not that much of a loss for me. My wife, on the other hand, was quite a bit cooler than me, and so she’s taking it a bit harder. Case in point–after much resistance, my wife admitted that a minivan would be a lot easier to get the kids in and out of than her little purple car. So she caved and now we have a shiny new red Toyota Sienna sitting out front. She hates to drive it, but already we’ve been putting it to good use…
On the plus side, instead of going directly through a dealership this time, friends recommended we use The Amazing Autowoman. Since Heidi is a buyer’s agent (i.e. works for you instead of the dealer), she really focuses on making the buying experience the most painless process possible. I’ve always hated the fact that when you go to buy a car you always end up with overpriced options that you don’t want because “that’s what’s available.” We went looking around the local dealerships to see if they had exactly what we wanted, and none of them did–so, of course, they pushed us to buy something with a different color or thousands more in options. When we called Heidi, we told her exactly what we wanted, she ordered it and we got it for an excellent price! (In fact, what we wanted was the base level of one of the models with NO options. When we got the car, we had to go and buy floor mats because that’s usually one of those options the dealership slips in there and charges you extra for. Definitely cheaper to go to Wal-mart!) If anyone is looking for a car, I defintely recommend checking her out!
Unforuntately, there wasn’t much she could do for my wife. At least we decided to keep her old little purple car so she can zip around when she’s just on her own and pretend…