Sunday, July 25, 2010

How to deal.....and chubby, sweeter than any other baby, Oliver.


Gary snapped this photo of Oliver and I right before his bath tonight. He is such a sweetheart right now. So happy and content. I feel like I know what he wants and can give it to him. One thing that is interesting is that he has started to scream. He's perfectly happy but it's like he gets excited and all he can do is make the loudest noise he can. It's adorable except when you are trying to nap in the next room or you are right in the middle of the quiet part of church. Each morning I look forward to seeing the little guy.

Also this weekend we had the pleasure of experiencing one of the negatives of owning a Dodge Grand Caravan. We were happily riding down the road in our '08 Grand Caravan when Gary hit the breaks and we heard grinding metal. There had been no squeaking brake noises or any indication at all of excessive wear on the brake pads. And this has happened to us before in another Grand Caravan. Now I was severely annoyed because there should be a wear indicator so I can get the pads changed before my rotors are ruined.
We drove straight to the dealership and were told it was going to cost $230 for a brake pad change and rotor repair but $430 if the rotors needed to be replaced. I knew they would have to be. I've heard that nasty noise before.
At home I was teetering on the edge of a flip out. Warranties don't include things like brakes although I felt like ours should since the car is only two years old, I don't thrash the car, and there was no wear indication at all. But I took a very deep breath and decided to let it wash over me. Not an easy thing for me I can tell you. I went to Borders, one of my happy places by myself to de-stress.
When I got home Gary had received a call from the dealership. Literally a week ago, Dodge had extended the warranty to include brakes on vehicles with less than 32 000 miles on them. (Ours has 23 000 on it) Apparently we are not the only people having brake issues. All we had to pay was a $100 deductible type charge for new brakes and rotors because of course they were done. HUGE improvement on what we initially thought we'd have to pay. And the new brake pads I'm pretty sure will give me some type of wear indication although I better double check that!

Maybe, just maybe, I should try and deal with adversity in a similar way from now on. What do you think?

1 comment:

Rachel said...

Great picture - love it - and what a blessing with the car!! x