ummm....duh!

A while back we decided that we were going to take Ellie's car seat in to see if it was properly installed. Justin had heard of an organization that does this throughout the state and so we found their website and located a time/place to get this done. We drove up to the Albertson's parking lot and it was packed out with people getting their car seats checked. Grant it most of them were doing this BEFORE their kids were born, but hey we plead ignorance! Finally we get through to the check in desk and are directed to an "bay" where two ladies are waiting to help us. We, of course, had Ellie with us and so they were able to see what a horrible job we had done installing this thing AND that we dared to have put our child in it!

They inspected the situation thoroughly before having us take Ellie out of the seat and then began "educating" us. We were there for a while....

Our handy technicians were super nice and one was a local pediatrician (Sexy Lexi - as I dubbed her) and her "sidekick" (I say this because Sexy Lexi pretty much just bossed her around, had her fetch various items she needed and treated her like her personal assistant although I'm sure in this setting they were equally qualified). Sexy Lexi proceeded to tell us, "You know how when you drove up your baby's neck was flopping forward....(me: "Yeah")....well we don't want that....that's bad." I knew this. I did. Hence why we brought the car seat in, waited in line, and so forth. She is ALL up on the car seat and telling Justin that THIS is how you have to do it to get the car seat in securely enough. She then instructs us that the car seat should be in the middle (which we already knew however it doesn't fit in the middle because the car seat is too big) and proceeds to take it out completely and attempt to put it in the middle. After much effort she proclaims, "It doesn't fit!"

Back out this car seat goes...back to where we had it. She once again is doing everything short of sitting in the car seat to get it secured. She sent her "sidekick" for a Noodle (one of those ones kids bang each other over the head with in the swimming pool) to properly tilt the car seat. She then has Justin demonstrate that he understands how to put in a car seat correctly. As they are doing this she notices a rather cute puppy mirror (plastic mirror) that is strategically placed so that I can see Ellie while I drive. She stops short in her tracks and says to Justin, "This is a hazard," and she surveys more, "I know it says crash tested, but has it been crash tested with this vehicle and this car seat?" Ummm....no...the puppy mirror has not been CRASH tested with this car and this car seat?!?! She urges us to take it off lest it fly off during an accident and hurt Ellie. I look in the back of the Explorer and see a million and one things WAAAY more dangerous that could hurt Ellie if it flew during the course of an accident. It made me think but NOT about the puppy mirror.

Finally, after a good hour, we are safe and approved to drive!

This service is awesome and it really showed us that we needed guidance in installing the car seat. Did you know that an estimated 3 out of 4 car seats are installed incorrectly?

To find a station next to you go to: http://www.nhtsa.gov/cps/cpsfitting/Index.cfm

Thanks to Sexy Lexi, her side kick and the Safer New Mexico (http://www.safernm.org) staff for this great service! Thanks to them Ellie's future siblings won't have to ride with flopping necks!! (Sorry Ellie)