When you take a baby home from the hospital, you can't put it on your roof rack. This is according to our local Fire Department. Since they're experts on safely strapping in little ones in vehicles, I consulted them on installing our car seat. We've got a Graco, the kind you see above. It's got 22" chrome wheels, a V-8 engine and the power of 300 horses. Wait, that was the Nova that Xzibit turned into a hot rod on Pimp My Ride. This Graco has shoulder pads--not a joke--a foot warmer and a foldable canopy.After I drove into the Car Seat Check program building (which is conveniently located directly behind a 7-11 so you can get juiced on a purple Slurpee prior to installation) I heard these encouraging words from a supervisor as I exited my 2-door 2001 Chrysler Sebring. "You can always tell the first time parents," she explained to me. "They're the ones with the sports cars." She was right, my sporty days are coming to a close, but we still had to get this seat in properly and I was determined to have it in there as correctly as humanly possible. This is why I enlisted another human to make sure I was correct. The installer was Dan, a very pleasant fire fighter and 6 year veteran of car seat installations. I figured this guy has done probably a zillion seats like mine and this will be a cake walk.
That wasn't the case as my vehicles crude excuse for a back seat was at an angle that just wasn't friendly to a rear facing seat. After we both sat on the base a few times (I bet that's not a phrase you hear too often!) and after a more than a few moans and groans, it was as good as it was gonna get and we got the approval from one of the higher ups that signed off on the seat. Don't worry relatives--it's safe!
Next came the putting the baby in the seat demo. Dan brought out a doll that looked like the one we had in a baby class at the hospital a few weeks earlier--they must shop at the same baby prop store--and handed it to me. We went over the 5 point harness and Dan informed me that my baby was going to be strapped in just like NASCAR drivers are. It's basically the same harness, except I'm about to begin an endless circle of spending boatloads of cash on the baby and NASCAR drivers earn boatloads of cash for endlessly going around in a circle. I guess that shows what I know about NASCAR. Anyway, I figured out how to easily put in and take out our baby without waking them up if they happened to be asleep. As I exited and thanked him for being so helpful, he imparted some dad to dad advice I'm sure I'll learn on my own quite soon. "Never," said Dan. "Wake a sleeping baby."
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