Seat's Taken

It's been 52 hours since we left home on Friday night to head up to Boston for the weekend. And of those 52 hours, Kaylani spent 23 of them in her carseat. To put it in Asian/mathematical terms, she spent nearly 50% of her time away from home (okay fine, it's 44%) in her carseat. 12 of them are accounted for in the drive between NJ and Boston. But where did the other 11 come from?

We drove around quite a bit while we were in Boston, but everyone we visited was within a 15 minute car ride. So the fact that we made 5 different stops, most of them being back to back instead of roundtrip, totals to just about 2 hours. That leaves about 9 hours that Kaylani spent in her carseat, and none of those 9 hours were actually in a car.

Being away from home meant that we were limited to the places we could put Kaylani down. Sure she could lay on a couch or a bed or even a blanket on the floor while we were out, but there was little possbility that she would have napped in any of those places. That meant Kaylani's naps while we were out (which was all the time) were in the comfort of her carseat. And I use the word "comfort" in the loosest of terms because each time went something like this:

Go in the carseat and look around. Get out of the carseat and get held by people. Get real tired and get put back in the carseat. Cry a bit and get swung around in the carseat. Time to go and get put back in the carseat. Fall asleep in the car for about 5 minutes. Get woken up because we're at our next destination and start the cycle again.

On the rare occasions Kaylani would fall asleep because she was so tired from us screwing with her nap schedule, it would be in her carseat. Since it's not particularly comfortable and she's used to moving around in her crib, each nap lasted no more than an hour in length, and more often than not, lasted about 5 minutes. So 9 hours of Kaylani's weekend were spent napping, swinging, or just sitting in her carseat. Sounds like a blast right?

After Kaylani finally fell asleep on our ride home (after Mommy nursed her because she cried for the first 30 minutes), she woke up 2 hours later which was great, except we were still 2 hours from home. We did our best to distract her, but when she cried the last 40 minutes, even after we stopped for a quick dinner because she was crying already, we didn't complain. I would have done the same thing if I was in her position. But now we're home and we promised Kaylani that she wouldn't have to go back in her carseat again...until Tuesday.

Anyways, I'll try and post pictures from the weekend tomorrow. It's pretty late for all of us and I have to wake up Mommy and Kaylani and put them both to bed. Hopefully I can do it gently since Kaylani and Mommy are both sleeping while nursing. Luckily for Kaylani, she gets to sleep in her own crib tonight. Hopefully she'll actually sleep for a long time so Mommy can sleep in her own bed tonight too. But whatever happens, it's still better than being in a carseat.