Mr. M's car wouldn't start yesterday, so he took my van. No big deal, right? We lived for the first decade of our marriage with only one car. We firmly believed a second car was a convenience and not a need, and planned our lives accordingly.
Last year when were given a second car it was a blessing. No more driving Mr. M to work when I needed to get stuff done. A smaller vehicle with better gas mileage for grocery runs. A bit of freedom to take the kids out during the day. It was nice.
Somewhere along the lines nice changed to necessary. We now have three school aged kids. They have "stuff" to do. Sometimes that "stuff" is at the same time on the same day for a couple of them. Yesterday was such a day. Mighty inconvenient day to have only one car.
To top it all off, it wasn't having "one car." Mr. M is usually home by four, but yesterday, he was scheduled in meetings until late. So it wasn't one car, it was no car. How were the kids going to react?
Chip was fine. As much as he loves football, missing one practice didn't throw him out of his groove. Our second grader didn't even realize he was going to miss his dance class until ten minutes before it was supposed to start! He was disappointed though...and consoled by the fact it was a one time thing. Besides, they'd only watched the first disc of their new Electric Company DVD set from grandma....(never mind how many times they had watched it!)
It helped that Mr. M got off work earlier than expected, and everyone still got to the church on time.
Maybe it's time for us to rethink our schedule....or maybe, it's just time to admit our family has grown into needing a second car.