Sometime within the next few days, I'll be getting a new car. I will be saying goodbye to my Mazda3, which I've had for three years, and hello to a new Honda Civic. I've been planning on getting a new car for the past few months, and was leaning toward upgrading to a small SUV, thinking it would be better for toting a baby and all the associated gear around, but changed my mind due to the following:

• the price of gas. That shit cray. 
• when I go back to work in the fall, I'll be commuting most days. When I was thinking SUV, I was also thinking I'd be working from home 90% of the time. But my place of employment has a new (awesome!) studio in Halifax, and now that I'll actually be driving some distance to and from work, a smaller car is a more economical option.
• we've been managing just fine with Eli's seat, stroller, and other necessary baby-transporting junk in my small car so far. My parents carted three kids around and only ever drove mid-size cars and we all turned out OK. Ish.
• the big one: I suck at parking at the best of times. I could be parking a Smart Car in a space big enough for a school bus and still get sweaty palms. Bigger isn't always better, friends.

I always get a little sad at car trade-in time. You make a lot of memories in your car. (And I don't just mean the kind of back seat "memories" that result in having to install a car seat about nine months later.)

This is the car we drove to the hospital in when it was time to have Eli. I remember looking out the window as Peter sped like a lunatic to the IWK, feeling so excited but knowing things would never be the same. That the next time we got in the car, the empty seat in the back seat would have a tiny little person in it, and there'd be three of us, not just two.

That was a Wednesday night. On Saturday morning, we came home from the hospital with Eli snugly buckled in the back seat, fast asleep. Peter drove about 30 kilometres under the speed limit the whole way and we kept peeking into the back seat, unable to believe they actually let us leave the hospital with a baby. I remember him wondering aloud if we should take the highway home or go the "back way" because it would be safer. It feels so funny now, because we drive on the highway every single day, but that first day we definitely breathed a huge sigh of relief when we arrived home safely with our tiny boy.

There has been much singing, swearing, and flipping off of other drivers in that car. Speed limits have been broken, illegal texts have been sent (not since the baby!), good coffees and shitty coffees alike consumed (and spilled on the seats). Music has been played loudly. Lately, the music has been a little softer and a tiny voice chimes in from the back, in between naps.

I'll miss my little car, but I'm looking forward to all sorts of memories in my new one. Kickin' in the front seat, chillin' in the back seat, Rebecca Black style.