I Believe in Angels

My mom tells me that when my brother and I were infants, our parents would put us into a wicker picnic basket and set us on the back seat of the car to go places. No seat belt. No molded plastic protective bucket. No federally regulated standards with which to comply. Frankly, I'm not sure how we survived. I'm pretty sure now, since the wisdom of science and government regulatory bodies have shown that it's dangerous for babies to ride unprotected in the car, that everyone in the past three generations had hosts of angels defending them from all the sources of horrible death that can happen in a car. I am living proof that angels exist.

Today, if we got stopped by a state trooper with our kid in a wicker basket loose on the back seat, the conversation wouldn't center on the power of angels. We'd probably be thrown in jail for reckless endangerment and have the child taken away from us.

So we're doing what all soon-to-be new parents do: putting car seats in our vehicles.

Our birthing class teacher told us that we ought to be prepared to take at least twenty minutes to put in a car seat correctly. It's complicated after all.

There are straps, hooks, buckles, and various kinds of seat belt systems (retro-locking webbing is good; free-sliding webbing is bad!). There's the give of the seat under the base of the infant seat, which affects both the rigidity of the seat and the level. There's the question of which seat has the most stylish trim. (I think the most stylish car seat is the one given to you by a friend.)

Lisa (our birthing class teacher) told us--all right, it was really directed toward the dads--to be prepared for some salt-of-the-sea cursing as we tried to obey all the instructions and regulations. I think I had to undo and redo the belts in the Hyundai three times to get it just right. Sara helped by taking pictures.

Of course, to make sure that one's infant seat can handle a seven-pound-somethingish child, a 155-plus-pound man has to put his full weight on the plastic base in order to get the belts tight enough. Did I tell you that I'm over six feet tall, and I'm trying to install this thing in the back seat of a Hyundai Elantra hatchback? At least I know that I don't have to worry about teenage hanky-panky happening back there. There's no room.

I've got to hand it to those federal regulators. They've examined the car seat safety issue down to the last iota. The base even has to be level, with about five degrees of tolerance. In the picture below, since there's no orange showing between the two curved arrows, I've found the sweet spot:

Well, it was sweet until I realized I needed to put the car's seat belt across the base, in addition to the belt that's included with the base. So now I need to climb up and strangle it to the seat again. (The base is much less comfortable than the infant seat, I'm sure, especially to a guy with bony knees.)

After forty-five minutes (that's for two bases in two cars, by the way: eat that, Lisa!) and a sore back, I now know our baby will be safe in the car. We can now look down our noses at past generations, who didn't realize just how much danger they were putting us in.

With federally inspected car seats, what do we need angels for?

To boot, Sara and I will be safe from jail terms for poor parenting. At least until our kid learns to drive. Then all bets are off.

Maybe we'll need those angels after all.

~emrys