Car seats

My 1991 Volvo wagon, my beloved car, started having trouble on my way to work this morning, complete with burning rubber smell and awful sounds. I pulled over, called Homestead Mama who was only a couple miles on her way to work, and called for a tow. She stopped by the house to pick up breakfast for us since we had a little wait for the roadside service folks to arrive, and came and waited with me. The tow guy hauled away my car on the flatbed truck (since the wheels turning made the smoke happen) and she dropped me off at work. Hottie Friend agreed to come fetch me after work and pick up Pequita from daycare - this means we needed to finally get the extra car seat I bought installed in her car.



I get all my carseat installation help from the local University police, since they are close by, very accomodating to our schedules, and completely adorable. It is a pair of older gentlemen, both of whom had to sit through 40 hours of training to be licensed to install infant seats. One of them became a great-grandfather 3 weeks ago, the other is in his 60s. In their nice business suits, they crawl around in the backseats of our cars (dog hair and all) leaning all their weight on the carseats to affix them firmly in place, all the while keeping up a running commentary on the safety features. It is good that we did this today - they told me that Pequita is within a pound or two of needing to upgrade to a convertible or toddler seat - Little Miss 90th percentile! I had no idea.



So now Hottie Friend is having visions of springing Pequita from daycare early with some regularity to go down to the lakefront for stroller walks while Homestead Mama and I are at work. This is GREAT for us all, since Pequita loves to do this, and the less time in daycare the better. While I hope Hottie Friend gets a high paying job very soon after graduating in a few weeks, if she doesn't, she might have a little free time to play with the baby and now she can do so independently of us. Pequita is hitting the beginning of her stranger anxiety stage, so the more exposure to non-mom people the better. Boston Grandma & Grandpa stayed with us over the weekend, and were a bit of a shock to her - it took her a full day to warm up to my mom, and 2 days to smile at my dad.



We keep a sunhat for her in diaper bag now, after our unprepared first foray into the spring outdoors on Friday, when everyone got a little pink. She looks like a little dork in it, but all the experts say that she has to be kept from sun exposure for 2 years. Too bad berets don't offer enough sun protection - she looks very cute in those.