Becoming a Soccer Mom in Four Easy Steps

It's official: come September, I turn into a soccer mom, becoming the proud owner of 2.5 children, a house in the suburbs, a good sized mutt named Spot, and a four-door minivan.

I mean, if you want to get technical, I won't be living with 2.5 children; rather, I will be living with Ali, and I'm sure she won't be too keen on borrowing 2.5 random children from some park and housing them for the year. So I guess we're more like spinster aunts than soccer moms - cranky spinster aunts who really don't want to spend too much time with their nieces and nephews but have to give an hour of free babysitting here and there to appease the rest of the family - but we'll gloss over that for the time being.

And I guess the house is in the city, not the 'burbs. But it is a house, and it is to be rented on contract for deed, which means that after Ali and I pay our father enough rent to cover purchase price, we'll become our own landlords. It's a good thing, too, because spinsters need to have independent living conditions.

And the mutt probably won't factor in either, seeing as 1) we have our beloved Chatty, who rules the Sleepy Eye roost, to consider, 2) I'm still getting over my childhood fear of dogs, and 3) what, are you crazy, I'm not ready for that kind of responsibility! Don't put a life in my hands; I'll put it down and then wander off somewhere and forget where I set it!!

But the minivan is all mine, baby. Today Michal made an over-the-phone deposit agreement on a new Prius, which, if all goes well, she should be receiving at the end of August. This means that in a scant month, our beauteous silver Chrysler Town and Country (2000 model) will be packing up and moving to St. Paul (yes, yes, along with me and Ali; couldn't let it go by itself, you know, it's too young to be finding its own way around).

Drivers of the Twin Cities, beware - soccer mom Emily is being unleashed on a highway near you.