Monday, May 11, 2009

A Look Into the Depths

...of my van, that is.

Thursday night after my book signing, my friends helped me carry a heavy box of books and my video camera and tripod and such out to my car. As they put the things in the back, this is what they saw...

In all honesty, I didn't think twice about it. My van is actually fairly clean right now. These guys, however (or the ones who don't have kids anyway) thought it was hilarious that I had so much stuff in there. So, I decided to take pictures.

The view from the back - 2 baseball bags, a hockey bag, a case of water and a box of books...

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Here's a close-up of a wad of chewed gum. What? Where else would you put nasty, old chewed-up gum?

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Clay's bat bag, Jax's water bottle, and a bag with a little Video Now player (minus batteries) in it...

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Jax's hockey bag...

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Lexi's Nintendo DS. So THAT'S where it is!

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a naked Strawberry Shortcake doll (for some reason, all the dolls in my house and car are naked. Should I be concerned?), Matchbox car, stuffed doll, and a lawn chair...

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an Oreo cookie wrapper and a snow scraper... Yes, I'm aware it's May, but you just never know...

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Water bottle, softball, and a used straw just because...

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a naked mini Bratz doll with no feet Yes, I know my kids are probably disturbed. But check out that cool hairdo!

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a couple of Brooklyn's glamorous jewels...

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some of my reusable grocery bags and more jewelry...

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a broken hockey stick, another doll, and a cloth bag full of toys under the seats...

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a broken lid from a fast food soft drink cup...

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a pile of garbage...

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a pair of pants... I have no idea!

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an elbow length glove and a doll hairbrush...

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an empty bag from Disney World...

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a swim vest still in my car from when we went to The Dells in January...

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a pirate argh!

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a year book, baseball cap, sweatshirt, and poncho...

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Barbie keys...

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straw wrapper, cookie wrapper, and smashed dandelion...

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Brooklyn's sweatshirt, crumbs, and dandelion parts from the bouquet Brooklyn gave me the other day...

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Belle and the tray from the stroller that broke last month...

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another swim vest that's been in here since January...

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Moto Moto who repeatedly says, "Grrrr, I'm every hippo's dream" until we're all shouting, "Shut up Moto Moto!"

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a magnet that we made in Sunday school...

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another Sunday school project. The kids in my class kept asking Austin to draw them sharks to add to their fish.

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My area is fairly clean - 3 week old water bottle, coconut lip gloss, change and some misc. papers and CDs.

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Sleeping Beauty...

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a paper that Lexi drew on. It says, "I love you Mom!" Awww...

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The only problem I see here is that there is a serious lack of fruit snacks, fries, and Goldfish crackers. What's up with that???

68 comments:

  1. .....*sings* And a parrrtriiidge iiiin a peeeaaaaaarrrrr treeeeeee!!!.....

    *giggles*

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  2. wow, I thought a messy van was only my problem. But I have no hockey gear in mine.

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  3. I need a moto moto like that, where's it from?

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  4. So what made your friends think any of this was hilarious? They obviously don't have kids. I have five and the only difference is since my girls are all older, no dolls. And there are usually several Mc'D's take-out bags. Yeah, and there's several hoodies and a couple extra outfits (just in case of accidents) diapers, and wipes. But since we are in the van as much as in the house, don't we need extra toys, food and clothes in there? Of course, my mom would be mortified and disown me if I were to post pics of my van!! LOL

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  5. I love this, Dawn! Suddenly, "Clean out the van" has dropped WAY down on my To-Do List.

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  6. Sadly it looks very much like my car, except that for some reason I have three snow scrapers.

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  7. okay, I am going to just say it...
    Holy crap!!!!! That's a lot of sh*t :)

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  8. And the problem with your car is what??? Besides the dolls (the girls are too big for them now) this is about what my car looks like. When we are the chauffers of the kids, we live in our cars!

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  9. Hmmmm....looks like a pretty clean van to me. Of course, we have 2 that recently potty trained, so we have tons of clothes in the car, some clean, some...not.

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  10. Don't feel bad about the naked baby dolls...all the dolls at my house are naked too, and their clothes are no where to be found :X And at least you only have one ice scraper in your van...I have 2 in my truck. Might need it here in IL. Your van is much cleaner than my truck is...I won't even think of sharing pics, lol

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  11. Looks pretty normal to me. Heck, I think my van would give your van a run for its money, even. Of course, our junk isn't from such exotic locales as Disney and the Dells... ;)

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  12. Wait, you mean everyone doesn't carry tons of junk in thier car? We had a family reunion once and we did a scavenger hunt where we had to find things starting with each letter of the alphabet. My sil and I took the littlest kids and we won, cause we found almost everything in her van! (you know F is for old french fry, etc) I always tell dh that I live in my car so we need to have all that stuff.

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  13. The missing food might have composted?

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  14. hee hee

    At least the Princesses are wearing clothes. :-)

    Alexia

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  15. Your van is WAY cleaner than mine!! I'm jealous! We've been missing a library book on CD for about a month and still can't find it - I KNOW it is i the van, I just know it. Wonder how many times I can renew before they figure it out that I have NO idea where it is!!??

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  16. That was great! My mini-van is fairly new (new to me at least) so I have put in place a no crumb-y type foods allowed! Grapes and apples, and water only! We'll see how long that lasts. :)

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  17. Looks like a normal van to me.

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  18. Dawn, you are certainly not alone.

    I just asked one of my kids the other day why we only ever have naked dolls in our house. Her little five year old answer was "cause I can't find the doll clothes".

    So, there you go. A perfecly simple answer to life's most puzzling question! LOL

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  19. how funny!my van is SO much worse!!!

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  20. Must be something about your camera, but your messes always look cleaner than my messes. Even that nasty old chewed up gum looks like nasty, newly-chewed up gum! If I can't aspire to actual cleanliness, I think I'll aspire to cleaner messes.

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  21. Exactly how big is your car Dawn?

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  22. I know where the snacks are... the kids ate them! What little kid could resist a delicious, off the floor, goldfish?
    Seriously, my car is probably as bad as yours(or worse) and I only have 2 kids. :)

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  23. umm... it looks like our car, except it's a sedan and there's only two kids... should I be worried?

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  24. Wait, how many cars participated in that photo shoot? Wow, that's a lot of stuff! Aren't you glad it's not all on your living room floor?

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  25. ooh! That could be my car! I can add my daughter's tennis racket from last season, which ended in August (well, you see, it's now in there ready as she's just began taking lessons again this week for this summer!)

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  26. I LOVE that your emails now give snipets of your blog and say click to my blog to get the rest of the story!!! Not sure if that was intentional by your web guru, but I LOVE it!! It's back to the good ol' days of how I received your updates in email. :-) You ROCK!! and...

    btw, I completely whole heartedly agree with you that "you are not MY mother" doesn't cut it. You are the mother of his children and he needs to set the example of how to treat the mother on mother's day and every day.

    Sadly, we have had many convos about this over the years in our house. Bed rest for 6 months with pg, emerg surgery for 4 day old baby, gall bladder removed from the mom 3 months after delivery and um... no mother's day card, no mention of the holiday, nothin'. Not the best start -i'm not asking for anything more than a card, really. A card.:-0 It has improved over the years,but there is a tad of a grudge over the initial one. Tuff one to live down.

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  27. Hey! How did you get pictures of the inside of my car??

    Now if we're talking my van...well, yours is clean as a whistle compared to that thing.

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  28. The only problem I see here is that there is a serious lack of fruit snacks, fries, and Goldfish crackers. What's up with that??

    My kids sneeked in and ate them.

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  29. No petrified food = clean! And 2 of the 4 dolls had clothes on. I think that's pretty good!

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  30. Looks about like my car. I almost always have a case of water in there. Currently there are 5 fold up chairs in there too. Usually a sax and my oldest has at least a full change of clothes tossed in there lol.

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  31. I don't usually comment, but I just had to cause I'm crackin up! The only I've seen worse than your van is mine!! We have 5 kids, and that's pretty much how it looks all the time! My husband jokes that we should just turn it on it's side and dump it out!! And as for the naked Barbies, I think that's just par for the course. You ever tried to put those blasted clothes on one of those stiff, immoveable things? Now imagine a 4 year old trying-it's just easier to leave them naked. Myself, I'd rather clean the van out than dress them!! ROFL!!

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  32. How ever do you fit the kids in the car?

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  33. Hi Dawn,

    I'm just reading your booking and laughing so hard -- everyword you say is SO! true, and I can relate to every story. I only have three kids, but I swear, every one of these things has happened to me, too (minus the dog licking up cream from the kitchen floor).

    I didn't even catch on to the humor of the scene in the grocery store, where you tell Clay to leave the grapes, he'll get candy instead -- I mean, in such a situation that's the most reasonable reaction, isn't it, *rofl*!

    And the fourth grade math being the reason why your kids would think they are smarter than you -- oh, how can I relate!! One time I offered my daughter, then in fourth grade -- to help her with her math homework, and she just looked at me: "Better not!" I did anyway -- and ended up with three wrong answers out of five (good thing my daughter checked before handing the assignment in, *lol*)... Hey, I went to grad school!

    Anyway, thanks for your book, I'm really proud that back when you put the pokemon cards on auction, I helped spread the word by sending around the links to friends and blogs, ;-).

    So long,
    Corinna
    (Graz, Austria)

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  34. It looks like the car of any parent. I will add to mine, though, that we have a mouse living inside the van. A live one. Or several. We caught two already. I blame the kids for leaving food laying around. The plus is that we don't have food in the van anymore.

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  35. Wait... there's a problem with that? I honestly had no idea!

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  36. Oh, I am feeling such a bond with you, Dawn! :) My van is a perpetual crap receptacle (except when it's carrying my darlin' youngins ...)
    Life's too short to worry about a little chewed up gum. The drink holders in my van contain melted crayons by the way...

    Melinda
    www.parentingconfessions.com

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  37. I'm here to make you feel better. My van looks like that, and I only have 3 boys- that is to say, two sons and a husband. :)

    Two of those dolls still had their clothes on- maybe THATS when you worry?

    I loved your post.

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  38. Took more time to take photos and write this post than it would have to clean all that stuff up - at least with the car to trash can method.

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  39. The goldfish crackers migrated to my van after seeing the shark picture...

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  40. SOOO soo funny...and soooo true! How the messes do accumulate. :)

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  41. You don't take the scraper out until at least June! Even then it's risky.

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  42. Oh how funny! What a ton of treasure you have in there!

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  43. Add some petrified french fries and you'd have my van!! Gotta love being a soccer mom..or in my case a "baseball mom".

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  44. Thank you so much for making me feel better about my car, and our SUV. My family could exist for days without help from the outside world on what we could find in my vehicles.

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  45. That is hilarious and made me feel at home and better. I always say, my job in life is to make others feel better about themselves! : )

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  46. I was so excited this morning as I was driving to work and my favourite radio station (in CANADA, no less) was interviewing yours truly!!

    It was so cool!!

    Congrats on all the success with the book!!

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  47. Hey, we have that same Bell doll...........she's just not in the suburban at the moment :) I recently got ours cleaned out after the long winter. I refuse to freeze to vacuum out the vehicle. So, now, it's at least better :)

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  48. All looks norm to me!

    It all works out when it's show and tell with the letter 'fill in the blank' (and you forgot, again) and you have no problems finding an item starting with that letter in your car.

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  49. Are all your blog entries going to require us to click through from now on?

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  50. Seriously, you have six kids?!? Where are the piles of crumbs, fries, half-eaten cheeseburgers, and 'speriments?

    Show-off.

    lol :)

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  51. I could totally beat you with my van. Totally. We could have van wars.

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  52. Yours is a rather clean mess, I would say. Mine is not. And I don't have a van any longer...and my mess is almost as bad as yours...but you win, again.

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  53. Sadly, my car looks pretty much exactly like that and all i have right now is a husband who plays rugby and 3 teaching/tutoring jobs :) We are DOOMED when we have children!!

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  54. Yeah, what's up with those funny childless people anyway?

    I was wondering if that was your tripod but forgot to ask. Did you turn it on/off at the right time or opposite of your intention?

    Out of curiosity, after the pics, did you ummm clean out any of the detrius?

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  55. I just went to my library website and typed in "dawn meehan" to see if they have your book, and the search results came back with "Did you mean 'dawn elephant'?" That just cracked me up, so I had to share!

    (I know, I know, I should BUY your book instead of getting it from the library. But if I request it and get the libraries to buy a bunch of copies, I'm helping, right?)

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  56. I think you really should take your photos, create some fancy little rhymes, and submit them to create your own "I Spy" book.

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  57. What, no melted crayons on the floor heating vent?

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  58. Dont' tell anyone but my car has a tube of eyelash glue from when i wore falsies on halloween.

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  59. Dawn, my friend... you have got to try the new (or at least they're new in Canada) Kraft Dinner White Cheddar crackers! Seriously... the knock Goldfish crackers out of the water (pardon the pun, I couldn't resist)! They're cheese-tastic! And, no, I don't work for Kraft... why do you ask?!?

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  60. THANK YOU! I had to show my hubby that my car is not so bad - this was awesome!
    Coury

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  61. At least Belle and Sleeping Beauty were dressed! ;)

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  62. WOW~is it bad that I thought your van looked fairly CLEAN compared to mine? :-)

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  63. I STARTED cleaning out my van yesterday and considered taking a photo off all the stuff sitting in my grass when I quit but then decided it was just too embarrassing. I have a bunch of stuff from doing on location photo shoots but in addition to that I had 2 bags worth of random clothes/coats, and a large pile of other "stuff" all had been sitting because I bought a "full length" mirror and it broke before it made it out of the car....so I just covered it up since I didn't feel like cleaning the car out in the snow...that was ONLY 6 months ago.

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  64. Have you seen this video? I think they got your car!!!

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HEFE3B0Rje0

    (Just found your blog and I am loving it! Thanks for the laugh, Shannon)

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  65. PS - I hope you don't mind but this inspired me to write a a post of my own, and I included a link to your blog. :) Shannon

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  66. OK, so glad that I am not the only one with a minivan that looks like this!

    -Bridget

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  67. I just see "stuff" in your van. In mine, they grind goldfish bits and french fries into the carpet and melt crayons in the cup holders. Mine is filled with stuff and dirt! We vacuum it out every 6 months whether we need to our not.

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