Turns out it was a win-win afterall
14 VIPs have spoken »
We’ve been talking about booster seats here at Cardiogirl Manor — me and my almost nine-year-old. She’s 4 feet 6 inches tall now. Damn she’s only 14.5 inches shorter than me. Uh oh.
Anyway, Michigan law says children under the age of eight or shorter than 4 feet 9 inches tall must be securely fastened in a child safety seat. She delights in telling me that I suck because she has to use a booster seat. Of course what she actually says is, “You’re so mean!” but I know she would say, “You suck” if she could. And, to add insult to injury, every other third grader in her class does not use a booster seat.
Of course that makes me want to say, “If every other third grader in your class were snorting coke and shooting up heroin all day long would you want to do that, too?”
To which she would probably reply, “Hell yeah, dumbass.”
So I thought further about allowing her to snort coke and shoot up at school and decided that probably wasn’t in her best interest.
Instead I rearranged the seats in the minivan while she was at school. We have that bitchin’ Stow ‘n Go seating provided by Chrysler, which means our minivan is sort of like a mobile living room, complete with DVD player and CD system.
Here’s a before shot, with Emily angrily kicking the back of my seat, Allison raising her fists in fury behind Emily and Katie loudly protesting from the back seat. Please assume they are wearing seat belts. Didn’t have time to add that to the doodle. Also note the black clouds above each one’s head.
So Katie is now in the second row behind the front passenger seat and Allison is behind Katie in the back row. Emily is jacked beyond belief because she has moved to the coveted back row in her booster seat.
Now here’s the shot after where everyone is groovy. Everything is copacetic and the black clouds have been replaced with pink hearts and unicorns. But I didn’t have time to doodle a small unicorn above everyone’s head. Use your imagination.
I, too, am reveling in the glory because Emily can no longer kick the living shit out of the back of my seat. Now she can have a tantrum without touching me and the screaming is less intense to my ears, since we have an extra five feet or so between us.
And Katie can now pass things from me to the back row. It really is fun.
Not surprisingly, I guess, they all wanted to drive around town yesterday watching a new SpongeBob SquarePants DVD we picked up from the library.
So we all enjoyed twenty minutes of bliss because some engineer at Chrysler came up with a new take on seating. Thanks dude* — not only did you create harmony on wheels you also helped me and my kid Just Say No to Drugs.
*Note to the feminists out there, I use dude as an all-inclusive unisex term, so get off my back already.
So all the school buses in Michigan have the children fastened securely in child safety seats?
Yeah, tell me about it. It doesn’t seem right, but they’re rolling around in those buses like loose marbles. My kids don’t take the school bus only because it’s not available. But I would probably send them on the bus and try to put that fact out of my mind. (Bad Mommy.)
You had your third grader in a booster seat still?? J/k Not sure when I let Zach loose. Probably right before third grade. Joey (my almost 7 yr old) is so freakin tiny at 40 lbs he is still in an actual car seat.
Unfortunately I have yet to reach harmony in my van. I think I need another van complete with a driver for that. I used to have the 2 oldest in back and 2 younger in front. The 2 in the back would bicker constantly, driving me ape-shit. So now I have oldest and youngest in front with 2 middle in back. Now the 2 middle bicker constantly. I have threatened to throw son #2 up on the roof as he is the common factor in the bickering. I have even gone as far as putting piece of cardboard as a divider between them when available. Annoying kids.
Damn girl, your seven-year-old weighs 40 lbs? My 3-year-old weighs 32 lbs, I think.
Yes, the fighting is infuriating. And it comes and goes. Don’t you love it when one of them says, “Mom! He/she’s LOOKING at me.” I want to scream, “Then LOOK OUT THE F*CKING window!”
But I usually say, “Allison, stop looking at your sister. We’ll be home in three minutes.”
Dang you have it easy. When my 2 kids were in car seats I had a 2 door Ford Explorer. Now that was some fun trying to get the kids into their car seats!
Don’t you all know about the “Cone of Silence”? You invoke that when the yelling gets to much. It means shut the hell up and if you don’t there will be dire consequences. Insert dire consequences here. My kids are 14 and soon to be 16 and I still invoke the “Cone of Silence” if they argue or are talking so much that I can’t stand it any more. Since I started them out early, it continues to work.
Oh and when they were little if they are fighting, like slapping, punching, pinching, etc. they had to put their hands on their heads until we got to our destination. They were told if they didn’t I would pull the car over and they didn’t want that. Funny thing was, I never had to pull over, it was just the threat of it that got them to comply. It was great fun driving Chicago to Milwaukee or vice versa looking in the rear view mirror seeing their hands on their heads. I don’t know how I kept a straight face. I can only imagine what cars passing thought. But it worked and we got to our destinations safely and without my nerves frazzled to the ends.
I did have to drive our two-door Neon a couple of times with the two of them about six years ago and that bit it. Big time. I think I shall try the hands on the head deal as well. Thanks for the idea!
my then 8 year old was in a booster seat until she informed me that her feet touch the car floor and none of the other kids her age are in booster seats. so we don’t use it anymore – a valid point i can’t argue? she wins. now she wants to sit in the front seat, but since she doesn’t have enough discovery to support her case and i do, i win.
and tell me you’re not afraid of one of your children being taller than you. i am.
my kid would love to have someone to bicker with and when she starts with that “only child syndrome” i say, if you wanted a sibling you should have thought of that while you were in the womb and split. be glad you made it out.
That is the best. Response. Ever! “… if you wanted a sibling you should have thought of that while you were in the womb and split.” That’s going to make me laugh for a good long while.
I am seriously afraid of my kids being my height or — perish the thought — taller. My 14-year-old niece is taller than me and it is daunting, baby. I don’t like it at all.
For some reason, my youngest kid didn’t ask to sit in the front seat until she got her driver’s permit. I kept waiting, but she kept hopping in the back seat, so I didn’t say anything. Safer back there, even for fifteen-year-olds!
Maybe there’s hope for me after all. My youngest kid is jazzed to be back there although she’s three.
This booster seat thing throws me for a loop every time I read about it. I have no memory whatsoever of sitting in anything in a car and I wasn’t 4’9 until I was like 12 or 13. What does 8 have anything to do with it if you otherwise have to wait? If you get pulled over, are you supposed to have proof of both? I don’t get it all.
My mother had a similar “Cone of Silence” called Shut Up While Momma’s Driving through insert metro area here. We always did, she’s a scary woman, and master of making your life hell. She always said, The kid really has to think you’ll impart bodily harm. Am I going to get put in jail if I have kids?
I *think* booster seats didn’t appear until the early 80s, not positive about that but I certainly didn’t use a booster seat and I was born in 1968. The thought of a one-year-old crawling around on the floor of the back seat really blows my mind.
Liz there is no way you will be put in jail if you have kids when Britney Spears is driving on the highway with her one-year-old on her lap.
I think IL law was through age 7. That was hard enough on ES. He would have wanted to kill me, too, if he had to be in a booster at age 9!
Word of warning: I casually mentioned that Cardiogirl wants him to draw a portrait of Mommy and MS has been frantically creating art for Cardiogirl. He insists on sending it. I won’t be offended if it ends up in the circular file instead of on your walls next to your own child-art.
Did you ever send that letter in response to my post about body de-tox?
Sweet! Send on the art!
This is so lame, Wendy but for some reason I feel the need to hand write your letter, which is slowing me down. Clearly I have a lot to say and I think I might just type up a letter and mail it out. I know you won’t hold it against me :) And next time I’ll write by hand again.
OMG! I am so trying the hands on the head thing next time!! the cone of silence unfortunately does not work with my bunch!
Doesn’t that sound like fun?!
Black clouds vs. pink hearts = classic Cardiogirl. Love it.
Thanks Cate!
I just love a doodle post. I also cannot believe these crazy booster seat laws as 4 feet 9 inches seems pretty big for someone only 5 feet tall. I am going to check what they are in Texas.
Please hold.
Ok I am back. The Texas Department of Public Safety says that children over the age of 5 and taller then 36 inches are not legally required to be in a booster seat but that experts recommend waiting until the child is over 4 feet 9 inches to stop using the booster seat. Interesting.
I find this most interesting because my mother in law is 4 feet 10 inches. She barely makes it!
It is wild when you consider the adults out there who are quite short. I used to know a woman who had to sit on a cushion of sorts while driving because she was so tiny. That definitely begs the question how were her legs long enough to reach the pedals, but I have no answer.
p.s. I like your hold music — it had a good beat and I could dance to it.
Oh wow. My 9 year old niece in a booster chair? The horrors inflicted on us all!
I remember when my dad wouldn’t let me help finish painting a cabinet and I threw a tantrum and said ‘I’m NINE now!’ (don’t you get it? a grown up!)
Yeah, my kid frequently throws out “I’m going to be NINE next month!” While screaming and yelling it. I’m positive she doesn’t get the irony.
What kind of parent ARE you?! No heroin, no cocaine, AND you make her ride in a carseat! The hell?! My kid is threatening therapy because I won’t let her have unlimited texting. Kids suck these days. I told her texting leads to sexting, which leads to sex, then drugs, then pole dancing, then prostitution. Texing = whoring. No way, babe. She’s still trying to figure it out.
My kids started fighting in the back of the van when Colin was 3 1/2 and Em was about 9 months old. They were screaming and fighting and Em couldn’t even talk yet!!! Kids are a buzzkill, dude.
Kids *are* a buzzkill, Lin. I need to get that on a T-shirt.
I enjoy your parallel philosophy. I know there’s an actual name for that theory. Remember “If A = B and B = C then A = B” which is always translated “If God is love and love is blind then Ray Charles is God.”
Using that logic, I can totally see how texting = whoring.
I really hate to burst any bubbles, but I was born in 1984.
I asked my mom, and she said carseats were just beginning to be mainstream with me and my sister. Carseats until 2, booster seats when we were three. It apparently had nothing to do with the law, we just liked them so we could see better…in the front seat. I remember my mom got in a fender bender once when I was sitting on the console in her Camaro. Oops…
Good point on the Britney Spears thing.
Liz I cannot get past the fact that you born in 1984. My brain has shut down and that’s all I can reply to. So you were a baby when I wrote in my journal about no privacy in my house. Gah!
@ Liz: I was probably at a house party drinking beer when you were born :)
Hey, nice doodles, dude! Now draw a unicorn!
We don’t have any more booster seats or car seats in our life right now. We have a 9 yr old daughter, and 11 yr old and 18 yr old sons.
I can’t wait until we have no booster seats either Tim. And when you put it that way — drinking beer at a house party — being so much older than Liz doesn’t sound too bad.