I HATE the Britax Marathon

The time has come to upgrade our infant car seat for the toddler version. Yeah, Otter she is a-growin', and facing the back of the rear seat for entire car rides is WAY out of favor. And the new chair is hip, it's cool, it's cow-print for god's sake!

Since I had watched the CHP officer flail at installing our original seat, and put the base in my new car (with far better results than the CHP, I might add) I felt more than qualified to take on the new seat. It faces forward, after all, the way seats in cars logically should go. I had this one in the bag.

I had my first glimpse into the extent of my misconception after we'd spent a fruitless half hour trying to remove the instruction manual, which was inexplicably attached by industrial strength bungee and screws to the base of the seat, making it virtually impossible to utilize. "This does not bode well," I opined in what was soon to be the understatement of the year, as Bree tried to beat the screw into submission. Fortunately, he had the brilliant idea to actually LOOK at the manual, which demanded that it be kept attached to the seat AT ALL TIMES, or we'd still probably be out there now.

Allow me to share a few key differences between the infant car seat/carrier and the monstrosity that is the toddler car seat.

For one, the latter weighs about 30 pounds and is bulky as hell.

For another, the makers of this thing decided that parents would be convinced of the chair's greater safety by seeing a multitude of straps. These straps and latches protrude from every angle, or are tucked away in hidden compartments and serve no apparent purpose.

Thirdly, the aforementioned instruction manual is permanently attached at an angle that makes it extremely difficult to read while lurching around with the heavy-ass seat in hand. Further complicating matters is the fact that one must cross-reference three separate chapters to get through step 1 of the 10 or so installation directives. You see, when every part of the seat is labeled "LATCH _____ (fill in hook, strap, release, etc.)" it becomes quite confusing attaching the LATCH _____ to the LATCH Holder to the LATCH Strap. You get the idea.

Mind you, I consider myself fairly technologically minded. I can wire a stereo, set up the computer. But this damn seat, with its straps and latches and doodads has my number. After another 20 minutes of struggling, I was ready to take a hammer to the ungainly thing.

Today, I did what any modern woman would do and went online to see if there were any helpful hints. What I found instead was a 12-step (count 'em, 12 - just like AA and about as easy to complete) video anthology designed to simplify the installation process. I didn't get far though. Merely 2 videos in, I realized I'd skipped the first step and done the second incorrectly.

Maybe this weekend will find me on my lawn, laptop in hand, trying to install a seat that, once wedged in, is most likely never coming out.