$25 well spent

We now have an officially approved car seat installed in our back seat!

I'll be the first to admit that I thought it was silly to pay good money for a "certified carseat inspector" to check the carseat. I mean, Mike and I are both reasonably intelligent people, right? We should be able to correctly install a brand new carseat with the help of the manual, right?  We certainly wouldn't be part of the 85% of people who apparently install their carseats incorrectly, right?   But all the baby books tell you it's a necessity, so I dutifully signed us up anyway for our inspection at the local fire station.

Well, color me purple, but Lieutenant S Glapa made a believer out of me!

Seriously,  it was so incredibly helpful! He showed us how to install the seat 3 ways (using LATCH, the safety belt in the base, or the safety belt in the seat itself). He showed us how to check that it's installed correctly each time.  He showed us how to install it in the middle vs the side of the backseat. He showed us how to safely adjust the seat to fit Baby.  Most importantly, he gently corrected our egregious error in our attempted use of the LATCH system.

Yep, that's right. We had the carseat installed incorrectly and unsafely.

How many PhDs does it take to install a carseat?

Ha! Trick question! No PhD, just a Lieutenant Glapa!

So if you're debating whether to spend the money for a silly little thing like a carseat safety check, I highly recommend that you bite the bullet and fork over your $25 for a little education and peace of mind.



Oh, and the best part of the whole evening? The nice Mr. Lieutenant Glapa didn't even say a word about the fact that he watched me make an illegal left turn and then drive about 20 feet on the wrong side of the road in order to pull into the fire station.

I guess we should be thankful that at least Baby will be well protected from any accidents caused by me violating the major traffic laws. Sigh.