Another Car Seat Drama

Funny thing about the blog, I now have people requesting that I write about a particular incident since they enjoy that story so much. I have been a blogger for a day and now I am taking requests. I swear I am part lounge lizard. Speaking of, sweet bebe gets his lounge lizardness from me: he kicks back in his high chair with his arms wrapped around the back of it. His expression says "Yeah, I own this bar." All he needs is fake chest hair and a gold medallion. He looks good, bae-bee.

So, Kim and I decide to go on second outing with bebe. This time I remember to bring the diaper bag. I am feeling great: have diaper bag, friend and baby. Seriously, I am part genius, part rock star. We go into Babies R Us. I hate that place. It is like Sam's Club in primary colors. Bad lighting, everything makes noise and the most disinterested staff on the planet. At some point, I will write about my only pregnancy meltdown which happened at BRUs. And, for the record, I hate places that are misspelled or incorporate Old English (Ye Olde Tea Shoppe drives me insane).

But back to the story... Kim and I get the car seat out of the base part and try to stick it in the shopping cart to no avail. We have seen it done a million times but, for the life of us, we can't sort it out. It is either at a ridiculous, capillary-bursting angle, tilting precariously over the edges or taking up the entire basket part. All we knew for sure was that it did not go in the dog food area of the cart. After 10 minutes we give up and head in to the hell hole. The first mom that walks by explains it to us and snaps him in. She makes it look easy. Whatever, bitch, can you do calculus or diagram a sentence? Ha! We can.

We buy our stuff and head to the parking lot where it is freezing and snowing. Lovely. AND NOW WE CAN'T UNSNAP THE FLIPPIN' CAR SEAT FROM THE CART! Oh the injustice. We are lifting the stupid cart as we shake the car seat. Sweet bebe is now turning blue from the cold so I shove him in a Whole Foods bag on the floor of the car while the two of us manhandle the car seat. I am still hormone soup so I am now crying and convinced that I am the worst mother in the history of mothers. Even those wackjobs who leave their girl babies to dehydrate and die under a tree are preferable to me, the mom-who-can't-work-a-car-seat.

I then have the brilliant idea to simply buy a new car seat. We can leave this one in the cart as a gift to the universe and I will simply start over. Halfway to the store (and how serendipitous that I am parked in front of the car seat mecca known as BRUs? It is amazing how an emotional crisis can change your whole perspective on things), Kim points out that we would have to reinstall the base thing if we buy a new one. The base install took three adults and two fire department visits. I kid you not.

So, now I am postpartum, sobbing, freezing, and wet in a parking lot with my newborn in a grocery bag. Seriously, war refugees would look with pity upon me. At long last, someone finally pulled into the parking lot. This was not her first car seat rodeo and she EFFORTLESSLY unsnapped it and popped it into the base. Then she made the snide remark of "Is that your baby in a shopping bag?"

Car seat 2 Me 0