The drama of the car seat

So we bought a new car seat. Why are car seats so incredibly frustrating? Here are the top 5 reasons:

1. There are about 34,634 car seats to choose from. I have spent literally hours pouring over reviews online.

2. Car seats are important! They are supposed to protect my kidlet - they better be good. I better make the right choice.

3. Cash money, cash money! Car seats are expensive! I'm not complaining - obviously it's worth the money (see reason #2), but sheesh!

4. Installing car seats is always a chore to figure out. Always.

5. Cup holders?! On a car seat? Really?

So anyway. The car seat Henry is cruising around in currently will only last for about 20-ish more pounds, so we figured we might as well start looking for a new one. Now, I realize that it will probably take him the better part of 8-12 months to put on those 20 pounds (right?! I hope he doesn't balloon up 20 pounds real quick like!) but call us johnny-on-the-spot...we wanted to get it done! Probably because the whole process is so unenjoyable...and because the current car seat is borrowed.

So anyway. I did a whole bunch of research online. I always get stuck doing the research. Is it like that at your house? The wife doing the research, I mean? Goodness gracious. Anyway. I read up on lots of options, and settled on a seat from Costco. The benefit of Costco, I figured, was that if we hated the thing, we could take it right back, lickety-split, because of their awesome return-everything-ever policy.

Well.

Good thing that stupid seat came from Costco.

It was the absolute worst contraption in the history of mankind.

Maybe a little dramatic.

It just didn't fit in our car, like, at all.

I spent a good hour and a half wrestling that thing into the back seat, sweating, reading the instruction manual, throwing the instruction manual, and calling the car seat bad names in my head. Aaron, being the good husband that he is, was working in the yard. He would come over periodically and check my progress, shake his head, make a comment about how thrilled he was to be pruning the rosebushes, and walk away. So after all my hard work, it was finally installed, finally!! And look! Here is the result!

See? See how far the passenger side seat had to be pushed up? There was no way anyone was going to be riding shotgun, unless they could fold their legs up to their chest and ride that way, which sounds extremely uncool (and a little unsafe).

So we decided to just let Henry ride around like this:

Right? Way easier, cheaper, and cuter!

I am kidding. You got that, right?

Right.

And, as an extra TV bonus, I present this picture:

How cute is that? He feel asleep like that on the way home from church on Sunday. Playing with friends in the nursery really tuckers a guy out!

And yes, that's the current car seat. We ripped the new one out and reinstalled the old one.

So we accomplished: zip, zero, nada.

For pete's sake.