I love convertibles. When the Mazda Miata came out, I bought the 27th car arrived at the dealership, and pay way too much for it. But the fun of top down motoring !! Commuting became fun time. Weekend trips were amazing. When I drove up to the many typical Summer BBQ parties, it’s one convertible amongst a drivewayful of minivans. All my friends are having kids, driving minivans. I always said to them — “I won’t be caught dead driving one of those things”.

Fast forward many years. Their kids are grown, or grown enough. They are trading in the minivans for luxury SUVs, buying euro sports car and convertibles. Me? After unsuccessfully trying to fit a stroller, box of diapers, 4 cans of formula, two watermelons and a weekend of fruits and vegetable supplies into the Lexus sedan with two car seats installed, I had no choice…

So now I am a “proud” owner of a, eh, “lifestyle vehicle” called the Toyota Sienna. The kids and mom is happy. We don’t have to try to change diapers on one square foot of space in the passenger seat. I tell myself that, with the AC outlet, I can plug my laptop into the car, park outside Starbucks, and I have a roomy mobile office. Power sliding doors are cool. At least 14 cup holders. navigation system is fun. Have not really play with the rear seat entertainment system yet.

Just to make me feel worse about parting with the Miata, as I pulled up at the dealership with the Miata to trade it in, all the salespeople said “are you serious? You are trading in your convertible for a MINIVAN “? Yes I am !

(You can also read my review of the Sienna here)

I remember when I first started blogging (on the private family blog) about Guppy after his birth. I post at least one entry each day, keeping a detailed diary of all the new and mostly cool things that he is doing. We took, oh, maybe on average 10 pictures a day of him. The joke is that he has more digital asset (pictures, videos, blog entries) than me, and I am a technologist.

Comes Froggie, we certainly do not post a blog entry each day for her. We don’t even take daily pictures of her !! Not fair? It is not fair. We do try very hard to keep the content flowing, but it is more difficult. Honestly the main reason is that we have less time.

With one kid, each parent can take a break as needed. With two kids, we basically take one kid each, and it is non stop from waking up to bed time. Guppy will play by himself maybe 10 to 20 minutes at a time now and then, but that’s the time I run to do personal maintanance !

After Guppy reaches one years old, everyone told us that we can switch to cow’s milk instead of formula, once he adjusted to it. Some people also commented that it is much cheaper to use cow’s milk then formula. That seems intuitively true. But, don’t you want to really know?

Let’s work the math by calculating the cost per 8 oz bottle of formula/milk:

One can of Similac costs about $20 here. It contains 728 grams of formula powder. You use 8.5 grams per 2 fluid ounce of formula. Therefore one can makes 728 / 8.5 / 4 = 21.4 of 8 oz bottles of formula. At $20 a can, that’s 20 / 21.4 = 93 cents per bottle.

One gallon of milk costs about $4. One US Gallon = 128 US fluid ounces. Therefore, one gallon of milk makes 128 / 8 = 16 of 8 oz bottles of milk. Cost is then $4 / 16 = 25 cents per bottle.

So the different in cost is pretty high, 93 cents per bottle vs 25 cents. Not to mention, it’s quicker to make a bottle of cow’s milk.