Musical Chairs

The other day, I went to the CHP office to get our car seat installed. Now, many of you may think that the California Highway Patrol has more important matters to attend to, and there is no real need to involve law enforcement in attaching a plastic seat base to a car with seat belts. You may assume that parents who go the the CHP are either A) too neurotic for words or B) too lazy to do what should be an essentially brainless activity themselves. I thought so too...

Until Bree and I actually took the seat out of it's box and attempted to install it. And by "attempted to install it" I mean took it out of the box, turned it over a few times, stared blankly at it like chimpanzees asked to operate a space ship, put it back in the box, and phoned the CHP to make an appointment.

As I mentioned after my last encounter with baby car seats, one needs an advanced degree to make them work. If installing a base is on your agenda, don't even think about it until extensive study and research have been completed, and you've acquired instruction manuals for the seat itself and your car. I would also recommend a compass and a map, preferably with directions to your local CHP branch, where you will invariably end up anyway.

In spite of all evidence to the contrary, I arrived on Monday afternoon still naively thinking that this would be a simple 2-step process that would have me leaving 10 minutes later, slapping my forehead and saying, "Gosh, that was so simple! I can't believe we didn't try that!"

I won't bore you with all the details of the installation, the 3 positions of the seat base and the seat handle, the straps that lock into magical, secret compartments that all post-2003 cars have (since apparently parents were too inept to just attach this thing with a regular seat belt [and if you're car is pre-2003, you're S.O.L.]), or the level on the side of the seat that will tell you you've installed the base properly and your infant won't go sailing through your car in case of an accident.

All I know is that at one point, Officer Tang was on all fours in my back seat, putting his full weight into the base of the seat, while yanking at some straps with all his might. And that before I left, a swimmee was somehow involved in keeping the seat level. Giving directions the entire time, he was asking if I was clear enough to explain this to my husband. All I could think was "Who thought of this? What did we do before car seats? How the HELL does a pregnant single mother manage to get this thing in?"

The test is yet to come, when we attempt to install the second base in our other car, all by ourselves. In the meantime, thank you Officer Tang and the West Valley CHP for keeping She-Blob a little safer.

Image by Zoonie