Holy Cow(seat)!

At Kaylani's 1 year doctor appointment, she weighed in at a whopping 17lbs (2nd percentile) and 29". While she's technically underweight, she's completely healthy. Other than recommending we try to fatten her up a bit with yogurt, lard, and butter soaked yogurt with lard (kidding), they said she was fine and to keep doing what we're doing since she actually eats a lot. Both Mommy and me were (and still are...kinda) both "skinny", so its possible she just picked up our metabolism. While not a bad thing, it does mean that we didn't get the green light to flip her around in her carseat yet.

Kaylani actually doesn't mind facing backwards. She goes in alright, stares at us through her jungle mirror, plays with her toys (or shoes and socks), and looks out the window. She even falls asleep just fine still when we drive her around. The only problem is that she was getting too long for her infant carseat, which meant her legs were pushing up against the seat. Since we had already bought her convertible carseat, we figured we'd at least install that, even if it was backwards.

We bought a Britax Marathon carseat in none other than the Cowmooflage pattern. It installed just fine, with the super convenient latch system. It's definitely bigger than her old one, but Kaylani seems to like this one too. But for us, there are 2 main problems. First problem is that there's no longer a shade over her head. Since it sits up straighter, that also means that light can get in from both sides. And with a shade only on her window, she gets blinded whenever the sun is on her left. I'm thinking we need to buy another shade, because its getting difficult to find routes where the sun doesn't shine on the left side.

The other problem is that the cowseat is anchored into the car. Gone are the days of having her pass out on the way home from somewhere and easily transferring her into the house in her carseat. Instead, we play a game of chance to see if she'll stay asleep when we pick her up. And like gambling, or the lottery, our luck (and our chances) aren't good.

The cowseat says we shouldn't turn her around to face forward until she hits 20lbs. At the pace Kaylani's going, we'll be able to turn her around when she turns 2, if not a little later. Maybe she fattened up a little bit while we were at Disney (I know I did) and we'll be able to turn her around sooner. It's supposed to make a big difference for her since she'll actually be able to see where we're going. But since backwards facing car seats are safer for her, she'll just have to deal for now. And if she doesn't like it, well then she better start gulping down her butter soaked yogurt with lard. At least, that's what my advice would be.

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.