When Cecelia Morgan and her husband, Dean Fitzgerald, learned they would be adding a fourth child to their rambunctious brood of boys, Morgan balked at exchanging her sedan for a minivan that could seat all four kids at once. Whether her husband would have a seat, too, wasn't a consideration.

"It was not going to be a minivan, not a chance," Morgan, of Frederick, recalls. "I was not a conventional suburban mother ferrying her children around in some boring boat of a car."

She could squeeze three cars seats in the back row and buckle the little ones in, she reasoned, consciously ignoring the climbing, tugging and pulling it would entail.

"So what if I banged their heads a little?" she says facetiously. "That there were going to be six people in the family and my husband's car seated only five was not my issue. We could drive separately."

When Morgan finally accepted that a fourth child would mean lifestyle changes not required with the first three, she gave in and took a look at minivans – surrendering to logistics in a way many modern-day families would recognize.

"Ultimately I purchased a Honda Odyssey, which is not the car of my dreams, but it does the job," she said. "At first I thought I would paint cool murals on it and make it an un-minivan, but then what would the other soccer moms think?"

Morgan is the sort of car shopper that Mark Sonn, head of sales at Fitzgerald Auto Mall in Frederick, laughs about – and sees regularly.

"They swear, ‘I will never be a soccer mom,'" he said. "‘I will never drive a minivan.'" But then the parents look at their options, consider the amenities, and take the plunge.

The car seat factor drove Jeff and Beth Sutterman of Frederick to "the ‘box on wheels' minivan category," too. Their minivan has ample room for two car seats and two boosters, Jeff says, but it's not the Mustang he dreamed about.

"You can change the color, you can jazz up the wheels, you can move the gadgets on the dashboard around, and add extra speakers, but it's still a box on wheels," he says. "At this point in our family life, safety, reliability, and accessible seating are the main concerns."

Sonn calls the minivan "the station wagon of the 2000s," but crossover SUVs are also popular now. The part car/part van/part SUV combination appeals to more and more Frederick families, he says.

"We ask them, ‘What are you trying to accomplish?'" Sonn says. Large vehicles come with a variety of seating options, in addition to navigation systems, computer ports, DVD players and other features. Buying a car is a major financial commitment; it's important to get it right.

"Do your research," Sonn says. "Don't get caught up in emotions. Look at what fits your needs."

If parents do their research well, they might wind up as happy as Charlie Effland of Frederick, who describes the SUVs he and his wife, Catherine, have owned with a fondness typically reserved for one's childhood sweetheart.

The Efflands now own their third four-wheel drive, a super-size GMC Yukon XL with plenty of room for two adults, three little girls and Ella the dog. Effland is only a little bit defensive about the choice.

"Yes, we own a four-wheel drive vehicle [only because of] a two-week trip to our beloved vacation spot once per year," he says. "Yes, it gets 18 miles to the gallon. Yes, I feel my family is happy, roomier and safe in this politically unfriendly beast."

Later on, when his girls become drivers, Effland imagines buying a "boxy, safe" Volvo station wagon. And maybe one day he'll get his dream car: a 1988 BMW 535IS, "black with tan interior."

Of course, you can heed Sonn's advice, do your homework, list your wants and needs, and still wind up with something that just isn't all that great — and gets poor gas mileage, too.

Laurie and Greg Vaudreuil of Frederick reluctantly chose a Ford E350 extended-length passenger van to ferry their seven children around. The van – Sonn likens it to "Noah's ark" – seats 14 but has "no bells and whistles at all," Laurie says.

The Vaudreuils considered a range of options, including buses, retired limousines and a customized stretch Suburban that would have cost about $75,000. In the end, the family didn't have much choice, Vaudreuil says, sighing. They needed a vehicle that holds five car seats.

"You close your eyes and say, ‘You've got to do this. You've got to do this,'" she says. "It's like buying the Model T. There was only one color and it didn't matter if black was your color or not."

But having to settle does not mean giving up hope. Like Effland, Laurie Vaudreuil has a dream car.

"A nursing home van," she says, and she is not kidding. Vans for nursing homes have everything her utilitarian van does not: bus doors, raised ceilings, reclining seats, room for luggage — and lots of cup holders. "I would like cup holders," she says.