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March 25, 2006
Car Seat Makers = Agents of Satan
My wife and I are now in the last week and a half or so of the pregnancy and preparations are in full swing. We have the baby bag and the labor kit picked, the roon is completely set up and today, I installed the car seat docking station. Hospitals don't let you leave with your child until the thing is installed, so I figured it was best to do it now while we were mildly sane. Plus, I don't want to get yelled at by a maternity nurse. For some reason, I have it in my head that all nurses who work on those floors look just like Nurse Ratched.
Having no carseat installed would earn me the disapproval of a Louise Fletcher lookalike, and that really didn't seem like a good way to start parenthood, so today it was.
Oh, how I would love to meet the person who designed our carseat, and the person who wrote the instructions on how to install it. I would cheerfully inflict violence upon them. With the docking station. I first tried to loop the seatbelt through the back of the dock, and then put the locking pin on. After grunting and struggling with both, the seat was in. And it moved a good inch or so from side to side as though it were on an invisible hinge.
"Well, that won't work." I said. My wife agreed.
So I tried again. Same results. Great. Any sudden stops would turn our little carseat into a Mercury capsule - kid strapped in and ready to fly. Everytime we turned, the kid would move from side to side. This was no good.
It was then that I noticed a strap actually attached to the carseat. I removed it, and saw it was supposed to latch onto some anchors in the car itself. Whoa. Modern technology. I looked more carefully at my car and - thank you, Saturn - saw the right anchors. Latch them in, tighten the strap. Bingo.
Well, almost.
To make the experience even more fun for parents-to-be, the carseat designer put an indicator on the front of the dock. It indicates the safest level for the carset to be in, and ours was in the red, which of course equaled baby astronaut during sudden stop.
So after a few buttons were pushed in the back, and some straps tightened, it was in the green, which of course equals a safe and grounded baby.
For those wondering, things are happening that indicate the kid wants out. Maybe not imminent, but soon. I'll keep you posted.
Posted by slublog at March 25, 2006 03:11 PM
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