Groeber Babies: Living the (suburban) dream

A few months ago in our discussions about when we might have a third baby, we thought we would be responsible and prudent in at least thinking about all the consequential or tangential costs of having a baby (once I started in on "its really not that expensive to have another baby--- we have insurance, swaddling blankets and onesies...). True, its really not that expensive. But, Baby Number Three means a little more than dusting off the old breastpump and recycling some white onesies. It means carseat configurations, little boys moving into the same room together, and more months off of work. For us, the biggest tangential cost of another little one was fulfilling one of my dreams..... a minivan. Three carseats would not fit in either of our cars.

God is Great and cares little for your "plans." Our marriage has been nearly 6 years of a beautiful and chaotic surrender (albeit difficult at times) to that fact. So, when I started feeling sick and tired one weekend and my temperature had not yet dropped (NFP'ers), and our "minivan fund" was at about $0.00, we naturally began to panic a little. We were "waiting" for a boost in income, a new car, a new station in life...right? Surely we can't be expected to achieve all we "need to" before this baby comes? Well, once I let go of all of our worldly and trivial fears and anxieties (they really are very trivial), things started coming together for us and our little baby. About a week after our positive pregnancy test my heart was still pounding most of everyday and then I heard on Catholic Radio (yes, I am turning into an old church lady) someone say "God knows what's best for you way more than you know what's best for you." Wow, this person was talking to me! It was so true, and I really began to let go.

Once I "let go," I focused the energy I had been using to worry about things on filling the Minivan Fund and kicked it into high gear. My friends must have been sick of hearing me talk about it. I skimmed, reallocated, added the numbers, did the tax return again, added the numbers again, found little pockets of savings here and there, pleaded with the parents, and cashed in 29 years of untouched savings bonds from my grandparents and GREAT grandparents! I scoured Craigslist and visited dealerships. I spent naptimes on ConsumerReports.com researching our future swagger-wagon. Things actually started coming together-- I got a lot more work all of a sudden in 2012 (God is so good), and new ideas for finding money kept coming to me. (On a sidenote, when we were just out of law school, poor, pregnant and unemployed, Cody and I had a half-joking prayer in which we would ask God to bless us with "money in the mail." The more we half-seriously prayed it though, we started finding checks in our mailbox. Money is out there to be found sometimes).

And the result of all of this, is our Suburban Swagger-Wagon.... our new (used) Honda Odyssey-- with leather seats and a DVD player. What. I know, I own a minivan, I should feel dorky or approaching some sort of life-crisis. Certain of my friends tried to talk me out of it in favor of a cooler SUV. But I feel really good and really proud of it. For a long time now, minivan=3 kids for me. And now we are living the dream: