Getting from here to there with three little boys...

The first new challenge with three little boys was how to fit all three in the back seat of Lisa's full-size sedan. That should be easy right? I mean, there are three seats back there and three seat belts too. So, why in the world would the car seat manufacturers make their products too big to fit? We bought the smallest infant carrier that we could find. Still, Jacob couldn't buckle his seat belt. What happened to the good old days when our parents just tossed us in the back seat and said, "Try not to open the door and kill yourself"? Back then, you could fit 6 kids in the back seat without having to worry about getting a ticket. I also imagine that you could strap an extra seat to the outside of your car like in the Beverley Hillbillies, but when I suggested that we try that, Lisa quickly shot it down.

There was only one thing left to do. We gave Jacob to Lisa's parents. Six years is enough time with your parents, after all, and we needed to give him some freedom. That solved the problem temporarily. Unfortunately, after about 15 minutes we really missed him. See, Benjy missed him in about 10 minutes, and without his big brother to annoy, he zeroed in on us.

I had to face it. We needed a bigger car. So, I hopped in Lisa's car and drove on down to the dealership. Fortunately for us, they were so desperate to make a deal that they didn't actually inspect our old car before we made a deal. Here is a short list of the things that I overheard them complaining about later: 1) the car was a 4-cylinder not a 6-cylinder like they had originally thought; 2) the shear number of stains from Kool-aid and icee made the back seat appear red rather than tan; and, 3) and no one had noticed the huge scrape down the driver's side of the vehicle where Lisa had gotten into a disagreement with a concrete pole about where it should have been placed. (The pole won.)

In the end, we traded up for a Hyundai Veracruz. No, its not manly - it's a station wagon on steroids - but it's big enough with seating for 7, it meets the requirements of Mexico, it has enough ground clearance, it has AWD, and no one will mistake it for a narcotrafficker's vehicle. Plus, it has seat warmers - which are awesome.

By the way, no one has actually explained to me what the narcos actually drive, but I imagine that they are 50% black SUVs and 50% El Caminos, and they are all playing "Lowrider" all the time.

Buying a new vehicle in Virginia presented a new problem, however. We couldn't register it in Georgia because we didn't have the time or inclination to drive all the way back to Georgia to go to the county courthouse to register it. (This is probably the dumbest way that I have ever heard for getting your vehicle registered). So we had to register the vehicle in Virginia, but to do that you have to have a Virginia driver's license. That meant a trip to the DMV - or as we were soon to learn, several trips.

Attempt #1 (Thursday): Benjy started running a fever. Attempt aborted.
Attempt #2 (Friday): After driving for 1 hour and 15 minutes in traffic, we arrived at the DMV, and they told us they wanted to see a better copy of our lease before they issued licenses to us.
Attempt # 3 (Monday): Discovered that we needed to get an emissions test and safety inspection of my car before it could be registered. (Tuesday) $200 for new brake pads later, safety and emissions test passed.
Attempt #4 (Wednesday): Arrived at 1pm only to be told that all of the license cameras in the whole state were down indefinitely. We decided to try back later.
Attempt #5 (still Wednesday): Arrived at 3:15, cameras were back up. Waited for 2 hours. Finally got it taken care of.

Interestingly enough, though, we were told by the workers that the Commonwealth of Virginia has passed a law that makes it illegal to smile in your DL photo. I'm not sure if it's true, but I don't think they have to worry about too many people being happy by the time they get through the process. I tried to smile anyway - you can't tell. Lisa looks scary.

On a lighter note, Jacob also got a new ride. We decided that since he is 6 and summer is fast approaching, it is time for Jacob to learn to ride a bike. After a couple of hours of shopping and nearly as long assembling the thing, he was ready to try out the training wheels. He has only crashed twice so far. Once was into the road where I had to pull him up out of the way of a car. Still he claims that both crashes were really "cool." Unfortunately, buying a bike for Jacob has made me miss my bike that I got rid of because I never used it. I know if I got another one, I would have to make an effort to go ride it, but I could go riding with Jacob. I guess I'll just starting looking for a decent used bike - then maybe we can both have some cool crashes and sore butts.