I was emailed a horrible video about a family that lost a little boy because he was in a seat belt booster seat in a car accident and was killed. The message was that a five-point harness carseat would have provided him more protection and he might still be alive today if he had been in one.
We bought Sam a new carseat. It keeps him in a five-point harness up to 65 pounds. We've come out on the losing end of the statistics gamble too many times in the last few years...so we felt a need to upgrade and lower our risk as far as possible.
Now maybe Steve and I are just incompatible as far as carseat installation goes. Or maybe, as my coworkers confirm, carseats are just pure evil. I don't know.
Every single time we have installed or reinstalled a carseat in a car, I have turned into a completely crazed EVIL person. My hands hurt from the sharp plastic, my muscles ache from pulling on those damn straps that are supposed to be E-Z to install (which, by the way, is the STUPIDEST term a manufacturer can use and after four and a half years of this crap I'm apt to walk right past ANYTHING that says E-Z on the packaging), my eyes hurt from trying to read the instructions in the inadequate light of a car, I'm freezing because it is always twenty below whenever you have to do this...it makes me (in a word) CRANKY.
And I swear...a lot. Usually just random expletives. But if Steve happens to get anywhere near the path of my rampage, I usually aim a couple directly at him as well.
And it has always been this way. From the days of the infant carrier to the convertible car seat to the booster to the new carseat...I am always a bitch during installation. I'm beginning to think that carseats should come with a warning label indicating this particular hazard.
In fact, I'm such an evil person during carseat installation, my husband has been driving the minivan for two weeks because he would rather spend more on gas than deal with me during the metamorphosis into evil mommy. But today, since we were snowed in until the snowplow showed up at 11am, we had no excuses left. The resulting experience was...well...I'm just glad Sam was occupying himself shoveling snow outside and couldn't hear my colorful phraseology.
And Steve...I'm sorry.
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Me too! This latest one was the biggest nightmare...we got the Britax Boulevard. Only to find out that at 45lbs we have to undo the latch thing and put it in with the seatbelt instead (I guess latch isn't rated for 45+lbs.). Nathan had better watch out because I've learned some new words lately from my student callers....He might be surprised what I hit him with!
So...did this happen today?
As much as I often think back on all the "kid" related things I miss - carseats is NEVER one of them.
I know they serve a purpose and I know they save lives - but I'm also sure that somewhere their is a really sick guy in a white jacket rubbing his hands together whispering "they'll never be able to install this!" Muahahaha
Yeah, I actually have the video on my website, because it affected me so much when I saw it.
It is awful but it makes you think...and I am sympathetic about the pains in the hand. We always end up at one of those "help install the car seats days" at the police station lined up with the other parents.
I feel stupid, until I see the cops swearing and straining and hurting themselves too.
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