Sing with me: Turnin’ the seat around
So we turned the car seat front-facing on Monday and I hadn’t realized what a pro I’d become at sticking D-money in his seat. We had a swing, a rhythm, kind of a scoop and swoop move we’d perfected to get him in the seat that I just don’t have putting him in facing the other way. I know it's odd, but it’s kind of a nice (if slightly cheesy) metaphor for our relationship—we get comfortable with a phase but we start to outgrow it and we find the early stages of the new phase to be pretty heavily laden with awkwardness. But we press on—because we have no other choice—and then we figure it out. And almost as soon as we do, we launch ourselves into another phase.
The car seat thing also reminded me that there were soooo many things I didn’t get before I actually had a child. Like I remember when my friend whose son is 2 ½ visited here in the spring. I asked her when she turned her son’s car seat around and was surprised to hear her say “Very shortly after his first birthday.” At the time, I remember thinking, “But it’s so much SAFER to keep them rear-facing. Why would you turn them before you absolutely have to?”
Well all I have to say to that now is DUH-HUH! Because the child’s legs are cramped up against the back seat! Because he can anchor his feet on the seat and arch himself up and make it impossible to strap him in. Because he fusses and wails sometimes if he can’t see you, which wears on the nerves. Because I haven’t been able to sit in my front passenger seat for over six months because the dang car seat is so friggin huge that when it’s rear-facing, I have to push the front seat up so far it looks like my Nana’s been driving.
And while we’re on that subject, can I also say this same now-that-I’m-a-parent-I-get-it dope slap also applies to Clorox wipes? I thought these things were the pinnacle of lazy self-indulgence. I’d see an ad for them and be all, “God, how anal and wasteful can you be at the same time? I mean, do you have to sterilize every freaking surface twice a day and use a whole throwaway cloth every time? Can’t you just bust out the cleanser and a sponge?”
Again, DUH. See, we use cloth dipes around here and when there’s a poopy one, we have to rinse it in the tubster ‘cause I’ve been to lazy and cheap to buy a sprayer that attaches to the terlet. So here I am, rinsing crap into my tub twice a day and sometimes, I’m just too overwhelmed with stinky to scrub out the tub. Or at least I was until I watched the D-mander toss his lovey Lambie into the tub. Luckily, I’d scrubbed it out after the most recent poop processing, but oh HORRORS if I hadn’t. But it was like a light went on the next time I saw an ad for Clorox wipes: Aha! THAT’S what those are for! I realize it’s silly because we use cloth dipes partly to help assuage the waste problem, but I’m all ABOUT some irony.
The car seat thing also reminded me that there were soooo many things I didn’t get before I actually had a child. Like I remember when my friend whose son is 2 ½ visited here in the spring. I asked her when she turned her son’s car seat around and was surprised to hear her say “Very shortly after his first birthday.” At the time, I remember thinking, “But it’s so much SAFER to keep them rear-facing. Why would you turn them before you absolutely have to?”
Well all I have to say to that now is DUH-HUH! Because the child’s legs are cramped up against the back seat! Because he can anchor his feet on the seat and arch himself up and make it impossible to strap him in. Because he fusses and wails sometimes if he can’t see you, which wears on the nerves. Because I haven’t been able to sit in my front passenger seat for over six months because the dang car seat is so friggin huge that when it’s rear-facing, I have to push the front seat up so far it looks like my Nana’s been driving.
And while we’re on that subject, can I also say this same now-that-I’m-a-parent-I-get-it dope slap also applies to Clorox wipes? I thought these things were the pinnacle of lazy self-indulgence. I’d see an ad for them and be all, “God, how anal and wasteful can you be at the same time? I mean, do you have to sterilize every freaking surface twice a day and use a whole throwaway cloth every time? Can’t you just bust out the cleanser and a sponge?”
Again, DUH. See, we use cloth dipes around here and when there’s a poopy one, we have to rinse it in the tubster ‘cause I’ve been to lazy and cheap to buy a sprayer that attaches to the terlet. So here I am, rinsing crap into my tub twice a day and sometimes, I’m just too overwhelmed with stinky to scrub out the tub. Or at least I was until I watched the D-mander toss his lovey Lambie into the tub. Luckily, I’d scrubbed it out after the most recent poop processing, but oh HORRORS if I hadn’t. But it was like a light went on the next time I saw an ad for Clorox wipes: Aha! THAT’S what those are for! I realize it’s silly because we use cloth dipes partly to help assuage the waste problem, but I’m all ABOUT some irony.
posted by the stefanie formerly known as stefanierj at 6:38 PM
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