It’s late at night and even the most die-hard nightowls are probably considering that soft slab of plushness called a bed. Me too! But I hear Matt sniffling, rather smarfling, as the kids have given us both raunchy colds and I think I’ll sit here on the couch for a wee bit longer.
So the kids have grown over the summer. Most kids do grow. It’s something we want our kids to do. It’s a Good Thing as Martha Stewart would have us to believe. We think they grow evenly, all over. Their arms and legs and bodies grow the same rate at the same time. Ah, but do they really? My ds grew just over an inch and a half since the beginning of June while my dd grew an inch. Their growth charts are hanging on the wall in the pantry so it’s easy to compare the two side-by-side. Over the years, my ds has always grown more over the same time periods than my dd. Interesting, at least to me. Anyway, my ds grew proportionally for his body type: he’s got a 
tall torso, so that’s where he grew. His poor little legs are never going to catch up, lol. My dd still has awesomely long legs (and I speak from experience when I say she is going to have trouble for the rest of her life finding pants that fit!). We had an arctic cold snap over the weekend and we realized that our winter clothes from last year for the kids didn’t fit in their problem areas–ds had no problems with his pants because they all fit. My dd’s shirts all fit, but her pants came well above her ankles. I love watching my little science experiments grow! No wonder my dd still fits in an Alpha Omega at age 6 😉 .
Speaking of car seats (hey, was that AO enough of a segue?), I was thinking tonight about how much I dislike uninstalling/reinstalling my own car seats. There was a question on the new BabyCenter the other day from a poster who wanted a car seat that was easy to move from one vehicle to another because she was going to be moving it frequently. Well, of course we all told her she really should just buy 2 car seats. I think parents get into this mindset when they have an infant seat with 2 bases that they still only need 1 car seat when the infant seat is outgrown. I digress. My comment to her was that I really don’t like to move my car seats that much. I think it’s a PITA truth be told. I guess it’s because most of the time my garage is 110° and stifling and it’s no fun to install a seat that way. I don’t mind installing other people’s car seats at all, it’s just mine I don’t like to do. And it’s not that they’re hard to do either. I know my van and its tricks and can get seats installed quickly. Do you know what I mean? Surely there are car seat geeks that don’t like to install their own seats. Boy that sounds bad. We need a support group: Car Seat Geeks Who Don’t Like to Install Car Seats. 🙂
The old RA or the new RA? The old RA was just . . . a nice seat and I don’t think I’ve ever seen a new RA–just MAs.
Ollis are wonderful! I didn’t think I’d like the front pull that much but I do. I was actually talking to a friend the other day and I haven’t kept up with her car seat collection. She was talking about this great little booster she has and loves that LATCHes in. So of course I said Clek and she exclaimed “YES!” Such an easy little seat to work with.
Kat, I can’t tell you how many times I had to take out my Husky and forgot to attach the tether again. Because I’d flop it over the back of the seat and forget about it.
Yup! I looooove the RA. And I love it just as much now as I did in 1997. Not too many other seats I can say that about (actually none). lol
And Kecia? Yeah, the Olli is the only one I like right now…or the Roundabout…the Roundabout never ceases to amaze me with how easy it is to install 😀
Oh, it’s true! I’ve been surprisingly reticent to deal with my own seats for a long time now…I have a Frontier I should get out to see if the harness is coming off the splitter plate, but the long belt path it requires for installation is truly a pain. I have Recaro Starts in the third row of my van that have been there for what must be a record for us: I didn’t even take them out this summer when grandma drove the kids and they sat in the middle row in other seats, in spite of them blocking a huge portion of the back window and making the car harder to drive.
I’m sure the fever will return unexpectedly and I’ll have them all out for some reason or other (I wash covers once a year whether they need it or not, lol), but for now? ugh, I don’t wanna move ’em.
And as for kids growing at different rates? You should go to a Karate class… some kids have their pants rolled up, some have their ankles showing…some have the tops too short, some are too long, it’s a real eye opener as to how kids are all so differently shaped.
ITA. It’s just not as fun the 2nd time around. Or the 22nd.
I agree. Once the new-seat-novelty wears off – it’s a pain. Definitely not something I want to do frequently even if it’s a relatively easy install. The only seat that I actually enjoy installing and uninstalling is the Clek olli! lol
Nah, I personally have no worries that I’m going to do anything wrong when installing my seats in one of my own vehicles or my dad’s van. It’s just a pain. 😉
Perhaps some of it not only comes from the heat (or cold), the inconvenience, or even seats and cars that require tricks, as we are all pretty knowledgeable.
I think it is the fact that the more times you take a seat out and put it back in the more likely you will somehow do something wrong makes us hesitate to move seats constantly… even when those seats are our own.
I’m with you. I don’t particularly like having to move my own car seats around. They’re pretty easy to install, and they’re either going in one of our two cars or my dad’s car (so not much variety or room for trouble), but it’s still a pain. Maybe because whenever I have to move seats, I seem to end up with two seats to install on Sunday night, and it’s either sweltering or freezing. (Seriously – I almost always end up having to install my seats when it’s 90 or hotter, or 15 or colder.)