Instagram Smiles: The True Story Behind the Photo

Instagram is rapidly becoming one of my favorite social networks.

It's a quick, fun glimpse into the lives of my friends (both those I know in person and those I know only online) without all the extra baggage that comes with Facebook -- but it also posts to Facebook, so my friends who aren't on Instagram can still participate.

Plus it's a fun way to pretend that I have some sort of photography skill, which at least keeps me entertained even if no one else is paying attention.

Here's a photo I posted recently on Instagram:

We were in the convertible with the top down -- my husband was driving, so I had the luxury of taking silly photos with my kids. In online responses to the photo, I got comments like "I love your happy children" and lots of "likes."

But in the interest of full disclosure, I must confess that the real scene was not so happy. Here's what I didn't post on Instagram from the same ride home:

That's Junius banging his enormous hard head into his sister's equally enormous hard head, causing her to shriek dramatically in (presumably fake) pain.

So I fussed at him for "hurting" her and he proceeded to pout, duck down and hide behind my seat. I took about four photos like this while I tried to coax him back out again. He mostly moaned, groaned, whined and complained. Notice that Pippi is now only too happy to lean in and smile.

Then he finally sat back up in his seat, but refused to smile or look at me. The two of them took turns (hey -- at least they're sharing, right?) pushing and shoving against each other -- a dramatic re-enactment of the irresistible force paradox.

Eventually he gave up (she's younger, but I think her head is actually bigger), sat back and glared at me. In this photo it almost looks like he wants to smile, but I assure you he did not. As for her? Well, her favorite shtick is to be the opposite of him -- the grumpier he gets, the sillier she becomes.

Nothing like a 6-year-old grouch to take all the sunshine out of driving home with the top down.

For more stylish photos -- including one of my "dessert" cereal from last night -- you can find me on Instagram (and Twitter) @convertiblelife. This post was nudged by my friend Ms. S and by Mama Kat's Writing Prompts.

Subaru Love

Turns out you can't get a convertible with a third row.

Or at least you can't get one unless you're the guys on Top Gear and you saw the top off of a minivan (or a "people carrier," as they call it). And although the effort is admirable (and the episode linked there is brilliant), that's not so much the look I'm going for.

So today we bought a Subaru. It was love at first drive.

When we went to the dealership over the weekend to test it out, I came armed with two high-back boosters and one regular booster seat. The salesman looked at me like I had three heads instead of three seats, but I was determined to know whether or not they would fit.

Ta-da!

A little snug, but it totally worked. Then Junius proved that having the extra booster seat wedged into the middle wouldn't interfere with his comfort by promptly falling asleep during the test drive. Seriously, he just turns his head to the side and starts snoring.

Four days and several emails later, we were back at the dealership to trade in our Honda Accord and bring home the new car. 

This exchange marked the end of an era -- a decade with a car that saw us from newlyweds to new parents and beyond. It was the first big purchase my husband and I made together, then the first ride to bring home each of our days-old children. It saw us through interstate travels and tiresome commutes and at least a million trips to the grocery store. We have a lot of great memories tied up in that old car. 

But still, who could have predicted this?

That's Pippi trying to be brave while completely falling apart as I tried to take a photo of her and Junius in front of the old car. 

And that's Pippi sobbing on her daddy's shoulder while we wait on the paperwork. She cried for the better part of 20 minutes, only stopping to tell us that she wanted to keep the Honda until we died. (She's also wearing a turtleneck on an 85-degree day, but that's fodder for a different blog.)

It's hard to explain to a four-year-old that it's a good thing when we out-live our cars.

Junius managed to hold it together until we were pulling away in the new car. He teared up, looking over his shoulder as we left the Honda behind in the parking lot. Thanks to some Rock-O-Matic on the fabulous new stereo, he found his smile until bedtime, when more crying over the long-lost Honda ensued.

Who knows why they're suddenly so attached to a car that was slowly but surely falling apart from more than 137,000 miles worth of serious use -- maybe they're soft-hearted, nostalgic people or maybe they never realized that getting a new car meant giving up the old one. Maybe they just don't like change, even when it involves an upgrade. I really don't know.

What I do know is that, even though it's not a convertible, I'm going to love driving this Subaru.

Share your story... What car do you still remember saying good-bye to? Or how did your kids react when you bought a new family car?

A Week in My Life: Tuesday

Yes, I know it's Wednesday. But Tuesday was very full and there was no time for blogging -- but lots to document. I'm participating in Adventuroo's "A Week in My Life" project. You can see my Monday here.

Tuesday started painfully early for a good cause. If I look a little blurry in that first picture, it's because I was volunteering at my polling station at 6:30 a.m. in the RAIN in the DARK and I wasn't totally awake yet. The kids joined me at 7:30, mostly playing in the car for my last half hour of greeting. (Translation of J's post-it: "Christine is are [our] school board.") And no, no one wanted my little candidate flier.

Once our shift was up, we headed home to play. Also to lay out the newspaper across the counter because it was somehow soaking wet inside the plastic bag.

At 9:00 we got ready for our friend Baby J, who hangs out with us on Tuesday mornings. That means dumping out an entire basket of toys and then confiscating all the tiny things he might try to eat. We also got our They Might Be Giants station playing on Pandora (via TiVo, which I LOVE). You can see here that we all love Baby J very much. He loves us too, although sometimes I think he'd like a little more personal space.

At 11:00, we loaded up Baby J and took Pippi to her gymnastics class. Baby J took a nap while Junius played games on my iPhone.

After we returned Baby J to his parents, we loaded back into the car with lunch and headed to Daddy's office for flu shots. Junius, apparently exhausted from the morning, gave out along the way. Pippi managed to keep herself awake by singing the entire time.

Junius and I were very brave for our shots (Pippi already got hers at the pediatrician). Then we argued over who would get to push the buttons in the elevator.

On the ride home, we rocked out to one of our most favorite CDs: the aptly-titled Songs Your Mom Will Like by Big Bang Boom. That's Pippi beatboxing and playing the air trumpet on track 14. Buy it now and thank me later.

After a little rest time (read: 30 minutes of TV) at home, we loaded back into the car (are you noticing a theme here?) for some play time at our friends' house. Pippi showed us how she can buckle her own seat belt (which can take up to 5 minutes, depending on the amount of whining involved). We admired our friends' fabulous Halloween decorations, debated the scientific names of toy dinosaurs and generally had a whirlwind of fun.

At 6:00, we picked up Daddy and went out for dinner at a local restaurant that was having a fundraising night for our arts school. Junius impressed his friends by reading all the signs on the way in (yes, first-graders are that cool). The kids played with wikistiks while we waited for our food (smart restaurant), then Pippi cleaned her plate and part of Junius' too. My girl loves some pasta. I had the yummiest bleu cheese mac-n-cheese with bacon -- comfort food on a rainy night.

Back at home, we filled milk cups (I don't know why, but that blue cup is THE ONLY WAY Junius will drink milk and he MUST have it at bedtime every night) and went upstairs for bed. Junius brushed his teeth and protested all the photography. I spray-treated Pippi's shirt (why oh why do I ever buy white shirts for her?) and pondered the need for gender-specific children's toothpaste. Then Daddy showed the kids pictures from his day touring cool Raleigh locations like the science museum and the RBC Center.

It was my turn to read to Pippi. She picked out "The Shy Little Girl," a book I somehow still have from my childhood. I love how much she loves the book, even though parts of it are really dated. The trick to getting Pippi to sleep is to get her to be still -- see how she fidgets with her hands to stay awake?

Finally at 8:00, with both kids asleep, my political junkie husband and I settled in on the couch for election returns. With two laptops, an iPad, an iPhone and the television between us, we stalked the results, read tweets aloud, flipped news channels and cheered for the victory. Who says you can't have champagne on a Tuesday?

And so my day ended where it began -- worn out, but happy to support a great candidate.
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Spring Fling

We all have our own signs of spring that we watch for -- warm breezes, trees in bloom, daffodils opening, violent allergic reactions to every little thing in the air.

This weekend, while temps were approaching 80 degrees in Raleigh (good-bye February!), I added a new favorite sign of spring to my list: The first Sunday of the year driving with the top down and all four of us in the car, the fresh scent of biscuits drifting up from our to-go bag, with everyone singing "Molly the Moose" at the top of our lungs.

Everybody wants
...to feel the grass between their toes
...to feel the sunshine on their nose
...to taste the rain, to sniff the breeze
...to live their life the way they please
Everybody wants to be free

A perfect Sunday for the Convertible Family -- and a perfect way to welcome spring!

Note: I couldn't find an audio clip to link to that actually plays this part of the song, but you can order the CD here. And you really should, because it's awesome.

photo credit to antaean
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Baby Wants to Drive This Car

Several weeks ago, Pippi and I ventured downtown to City Plaza to preview the all new 2011 Ford Explorer coming out this winter. As you can see from the photo, she loved it.

Loved. It.

As in, did not want to get out of the driver's seat. As in, mommy had to peel her little fingers off the steering wheel and drag her wiggly body out of the car to give other people a chance to test it out.

To be honest, Pippi wasn't the only one who was impressed. The Explorer is clearly no convertible, but seems like a great alternative if we decide to go for a vehicle with more seats. It's loaded with safety features, including second row seat belts that inflate to soften the impact in a collision. The third row seats move at the touch of a button, hiding one or both seats to allow for more storage space. And it's a sleeker design than past Explorers, which makes it seem less hulkingly big.

When I did manage a brief turn in the driver's seat, I was pleasantly surprised. Don't get me wrong -- it's still a big ass vehicle, particularly compared to the convertibles I love best. But it didn't feel as big as I expected. As in, it felt like something I might actually be able to drive and maneuver into a parking space without crashing into everything around me.

They're claiming it will get better gas mileage than any other SUV -- which may be true, but is still a far cry from my Honda Accord. One of the Ford promotion guys hanging around told me there's a second version of the SUV scheduled for release in summer with an EcoBoost engine that will get even better mileage (you won't be able to tow anything, which is not a problem for me). That option has me intrigued.

When I asked the first few guys my most important question -- can you fit three car seats across the middle row -- no one knew the answer. But when I got to the VP who was at the event, he assured me that you can. Sadly, they didn't have three car seats on hand to test his answer, but I'm hoping he's right.

For now, we're going to keep driving the (paid-for) cars we have. But I'll be watching the release of this new Explorer and am curious to have a chance to actually drive one.

Maybe Ford would like to let me (ahem) borrow one for a few weeks? You know, take all those cup-holders for a spin and see how comfortable I could get? Lure me in so that I can never go back to not having seven seats again? Give my kids a taste of riding in big-rig super-safe luxury? Anyone?

Note: Ford did not pay me to write this post. They did give me a free Jimmy John's sandwich at the event, but they were giving those to everyone who walked by to look at the car, so I hardly think it counts as a bribe. However, I would happily take a loaner Explorer for a bit to see how it fits.
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