The Many Uses of a Minivan

Besides the obvious uses of a minivan, such as shuttling many children here and there, DVD player that is a savior for long road trips, and excellent space for changing a squirmy toddler’s diaper. Today I discovered a new and very important use of a minivan. It can double as a home office!

For all moms out there who have ever tried to do something VERY important when your child is supposedly napping, I know you will feel for me here. Let me paint you the picture of my afternoon. As a work at home mom, I am very careful about planning important conference calls because I know the timing has to be perfect. After rescheduling this call twice, I absolutely had to take this call today. I scheduled it when I was positive my son would be fast asleep (he consistently naps 99.9% of the time every afternoon). Guess what today was? The day he chose to skip a nap!

I have a home office with beautiful pocket French doors that are just right for chubby little hands to silently slide the door open and announce “All done nap!” I frantically tried to mute my call, but soon realized that I was using my new cell phone and I had no idea how to mute it! I started gesturing the quiet sign and trying to entice my son into the living room w/ a Dora DVD. All the while in his adorable, but very loud voice, he is saying ‘Mommy play with me…. I want a pretzel…. I need juicy”. Needless to say he was not at all interested in Dora, or the fact that I was on the phone. I heard the running of little feet across my kitchen floor and I knew what was coming. I grabbed my laptop and dashed out my office door. My toddler was now screaming ‘more pretzels’ at the top of his lungs, just as I escaped to my front porch. He immediately found me and pressed his little face against the door window and screamed some more. If anyone has a 2 ½ year old, you will agree with me that when they are in full tantrum mode, you can certainly hear them down the block!

I made the last minute decision to get into my minivan which was parked in the driveway. As I shut the door, I realized I could no longer hear my son screaming. In fact he had begun to calm down and was playing on the floor with our dog. He giggled as he saw me wave to him, the pretzel tantrum momentarily forgotten. Miraculously I discovered that my wireless connection worked out in my minivan and I had quite a bit of room to spread out my files and kick back in the bucket seat and continue my conference call.

Now, I certainly don’t condone racing away from your toddler and leaving him screaming for pretzels, but desperate times call for desperate measures. I am sure I could have rescheduled the call for the third time, but I was bound and determined to fulfill this appointment and my minivan certainly came to the rescue! My new ‘emergency office’ space was very effective today, but I will certainly have to check my confidence in my napping toddler and be sure to schedule important business when he is truly asleep. The joys and woes of a work at home mom…. it is always an adventure.