In cars

On Amelia's first birthday we bought her a forward-facing car seat. She was a tad under the required weight, but we thought it would be very exciting to let her sit facing forward in the car on her first birthday.

We had every intention of doing the same with Diana, but car trouble fouled our plans a bit. You see, the larger car we own that is normally driven by mommy with the girls in tow, no longer has a working air conditioner. At some point the air conditioning just decided it would no longer work and conked out. Trips to swim class in the afternoon were miserable, so daddy and I switched cars. Now I have the car with air conditioning, but this car is so much smaller that our usual car seats don't fit well in the back seat.

So while this was not our intention, Diana is getting to sit in a forward-facing car seat a little bit earlier than she otherwise would have. She seems to love it. Amelia likes it as well. From time to time the two of them will hold hands in the back of the car. Amelia even shared a box of animal cookies with her sister while we were on the road without much coaxing from me.

And now we are looking into buying a new car. Our first thought (really my first thought) was that we should buy a minivan. But after test driving a minivan, that handled great and had many wonderful features, I decided that a minivan would just be too big for us. What does the future hold as far as automobiles go? Only the Shadow knows.

But just in case we get a wild hair and decide to turn one of our current vehicles into a down payment, daddy and Amelia have spent some time outside washing the cars. Amelia is a great helper and it was a lot of fun for mommy to watch her work. She would dip her sponge into the bucket, wash the hood a bit, wash the passenger side headlamp, wash the front tire, then return to the bucket to begin the process again.

We have two very good girls.

Lisa