Car Seat Mania

So, we're in the market for a new car seat. I always knew they were important, but to be honest, the biggest thing we looked at when purchasing our infant seat was price. But over the past few months, I've become aware of so many more considerations, like, say, safety.

I have done some reading and had decided we would be leaving Flynn rear facing for as long as his car seat would allow. Just understanding basic baby and toddler skeletal anatomy makes this a no-brainer (their heads are disproportionally large for their bodies, which can put a lot more strain on their little necks and heads in the event of a front impact car crash if they are forward facing). Then a friend of mine, who is a huge car seat safety advocate, posted a video recently featuring the story of an 18 month old boy who had suffered the effects of being forward facing during a car crash. The video is heart wrenching, but worth a watch as it definitely put car seat safety much further forward in my mental list of 'things of importance'. You can watch that video here, I recommend you grab the Kleenex first.

So I've had a few conversations with her about car seat safety, took note of the fact that the USA is once again behind the times (look to Sweden for the highest standards of car seat safety). I took my information home and talked to the fella (who also watched the above video). It's official. Whatever the price, our kid is going into the safest car seat we can find.

I stumbled across a link to Island Life via some other page (I wish I could give props, but I really don't remember what page it was) on my Facebook newsfeed. A chance to win a nice car seat? Sign me up! Then I watched the video as per required to enter the contest for the Britax Marathon 70.

WOW.

I can't believe it took so long to get car seats to have some of these features. We're not just talking safety, but ingenious convenience features.

First though, the safety features:
*Accomodates 5-70 pounds (up to 40 pounds rear facing), with the ability to tilt the seat and raise and lower the head rest.
*Audible 'click' to let you know when you're in the perfect snuggness range.
*EPP foam on the inside of the seat to protect baby's head and EPP foam on the OUTSIDE to protect other passengers! (BRILLIANT!)
*Safecell (TM) technology which compresses in a crash to help soften the blow and lower the center of gravity of seat and child.
*Secondary locks for the seat belt, in case the car's seat belt locks fail.
*STEEL REINFORCED, most seats just use plastic, which buckles and bends.

And OH so much more!

Convenience? Talk about a cover that removes WITHOUT removing straps or the seat from the car! (Probably my favorite convenience feature). And shoulder straps that raise and lower with the head rest, instead of removing the car seat and threading them through the next slot.

I'm sold. The fella is sold. I hope I win this contest, as the seat retails for $279, but if we don't, we have decided to start setting aside at least $25 a week until we can purchase it.

You just can't put a price on this kind of safety.

View the contest and video here.
Check out Britax and also view the video here.

Six Pack Conversion

I drive a Pontiac Aztek. I LOVE my vehicle. This was a replacement vehicle after totaling my Oldsmobile Alero on election day in 2004. I was so much younger then. Not just in age, but in mind. I hadn't yet faced so many of the challenges that would make me who I am today. I suppose that's true at just about any stage of one's life, but since getting this vehicle I have come out of an abusive relationship a stronger person and woman. I have lost my much loved grandfather to cancer and my best friend to a heart attack at a very young age. I've put to sleep my beloved dog and raised another from a pup. I've met and moved in with the love of my life. And perhaps the most life altering of all, I've become a mother.

When I got my Aztek, I was young and reckless... I wouldn't fall short of calling myself completely foolish a lot of the time. Not to say I was a bad person, just your average college delinquent partying with friends almost every night of the week, forming friendships over drinking games, dating prolifically and living like there was no tomorrow.

The Aztek came with a cooler, just perfect for a six pack, that slides in and locks between the two front seat where most cars have a center console or emergency brake. Aside from the six disc changer and heated seats, this was one of my favorite features. I taunted my mom with 'threats' to put a six pack of PBR in there for my long drives between Minneapolis and my hometown. The six pack cooler was an ongoing joke amongst friends and nary a person who rode in my car for the first time didn't mention the amazingly perfect proximity of six pack to the driver. To a college student, it seemed a strange and even foolish plan on the car maker's design.

Why am I blogging about this? Because it occurred to me the other day, as I was rushing out of the house juggling a wiggling baby, my diaper 'purse', my keys and, yes, my six pack cooler, I realized... My cooler had never, in fact, held a six pack of beer. Not in the time that I owned it. It HAD held Mountain Dew... Gator Aid... Food... And for several years, bags of sunflower seeds (they are as addicting as chewing tobacco, with the same revolting spitting habit)... It had also functioned as a second glove compartment, holding various papers and bits and bobs that had no real place anywhere else.

Then here I was, running up the driveway, hanging desperately to the handle of this cooler which was carrying two ice packs and two bottles of breast milk. Breast milk. Oi. Despite running super late for an appointment, my thoughts wondered to my younger days when this cooler could have little use but for beer... and here I was, filling it with breast milk. This wasn't the first time I had used it for transporting breast milk, just the first time I realized... I was not the person I used to be. My personality hasn't changed, just my function... and form, heh...

So there it is... Beer to breast milk in six years.