My Mom tells me stories of when I was a little girl. Apparently I talked her--and anyone else who came near's--ears off.
It's not too hard to believe. To this day I'll strike up conversations with complete strangers, and my poor husband constantly hears my most frequent question: "Are you listening to me?"
Of course this answer is always yes, and I always proceed to have him prove it by reciting the last thing I said. Most of the time is close enough.
My daughter is no different. Even in her near 19 months of age, she's always babbling and telling us what she thinks. She's not much of a loner. At all. She likes being around other people, and us, and getting out of the house.
When we walk into stores she'll wave to passerbys and give a resounding "HI!" People smile and say hi back.
A lesson of "stranger danger" will have to come much earlier than normal with my friendly child.
In some ways I wonder if she is going to love talking even more than I do.
My mom tells me when I was young, and wouldn't go to sleep, she'd put me in my car seat and drive around town until I did. To this day, I can still barely stay awake in a car. If Lil' J is quiet in the back (and I'm not driving) I'm out.
My daughter on the other hand, is not this way. She rarely falls asleep in the car unless it's really late, or she is just extra pooped from a really long day. Otherwise, she's up talking my ear off and begging for entertainment.
I don't know if this is normal for kids her age, but she can't just sit and ride in silence. I mean, she did have a few months in there somewhere where she seemed to, but now she either needs to have a snack, a toy, or me singing her favorite songs.
Depending how far our trip is, the snacks usually run out, the toys fall, and I'm belting "The Itsy Bitsy Spider" as we are pulling into our neighborhood while I watch her do the hand motions from my rear-view mirror.
The funny thing is, no matter how much she seems to be ticked at me for making her ride strapped down in coach, she never wants to get out right away when we get home.
"Come on baby, let's go inside"
"No," This is her new favorite word. Though I don't totally hate it yet because the way she says it with her country twang accent and drawn out "O" it sounds more like a question. "No?"
I unsnap her buckle and try again.
"Don't you want to go see Daddy and Snoop? They are inside." She shakes her head and tells (or asks?) me again...
"No?!" And she buckles herself back into her seat. Yes... She knows how to do this, but thankfully can't undo it.
She has a love/ hate relationship when riding in the car.
The throne she sits in while we cruise around has varied since the day she was born. Being as tall as she is, she outgrew her infant seat fairly quickly, and the next seat up we had, didn't face backwards, so we got another. And finally, we have one more convertible seat for our second car. While a second seat isn't crucial, it's been a huge help to save us from days where one of us forgets to leave the seat for the other. And let me tell you, that's happened and it's not fun.
"Hey honey, how did picking her up from school go?"
"Well, I got there and realized I forget the car seat."
GAH!
What seat are we using now? Which is our favorite? Well, we have three Gracos, one that isn't convertible so she hasn't tried it yet, and a
RadianRXT Shadow. That last one sounds like a car right? Compared to the rest of them, it weighs about as much as one. And since we're on the topic of cars, I'm going to use this analogy to compare them.
I got one from
Diono to review and was totally excited to get it in the car and see what she thinks of a fancy seat. If all of our car seats were cars, our Gracos would be like Toyotas. Not very expensive, but reliable. And our new RadianRXT Shadow would be like a Lexus or a Mercedes. It has the reliability plus all the bells and whistles, but it's going to cost you quite a bit more.
As I assembled it (which didn't take very long at all, but there were a few belts I had to move around and adjust) I geeked out and used the QR reader codes with my phone to watch video demonstrations to make sure I was doing it right. And they have helpful people manning their
twitter and
facebook pages too.
There's extra padding, a steel alloy frame, it's the highest rear facing car seat,
NCAP tested, and they can ride in it starting at 5 pounds. It seems humongous to me and hard to picture my tiny infant in it, but there is an additional infant support attachment that came with it, that we can add. Kids can ride backwards in it up to 45 pounds, and it's narrow enough to fit three across. Based on reviews I've read with parents who have three kids and a sedan, this is a huge deal.
I'm pretty sure her favorite feature is the cup holder she can fit even her really wide sippy cups into. You can attach up to four(not sure why we'd need four but maybe one day I'll learn and buy more). That thing has come in handy when I've forgotten her cup and we go through a drive through to get an ice water. She kicks her feet with excitement and puts her drink in that thing. It's just a cup. Seriously. But it helps!
Now how much will this luxury car seat cost ya? About $339.99. Now some of you may be thinking "Oh that's nothing," and other like me are probably spitting out their morning energy drinks. But before you waste any more of that drink, I'll tell you that I just looked it up and they're only $289 at Walmart.
Still a bit more than the average car seat price, but so is a Mercedes compared to other cars. You can keep them rear-facing longer, which ultimately is declared safer. I'll let you decide if it's worth it
and give you a chance to win one (below).
I suppose in a few years I'll be glad I have all of these car seats (which luckily don't expire for 5-10 years). I'll have enough thrones, for all my little talkative (and hopefully some sleepy) rug rats.
How do your kids roll in the car? Talk your ear off? Sleep? Comment and you'll be entered to win. Read the rest of the rules below for more entries.
