Car Seat Dilemma

There's been a lot of press recently about keeping children rear-facing in car seats longer. The statistic that is most powerful for me from the New York Times article is that "children under 2 are 75 percent less likely to suffer severe or fatal injuries in a crash if they are facing the rear." More and more often I am reading recommendations that you leave your child rear-facing until they reach the height and weight limits of your particular car seat. Depending on which car seat you buy, that can easily be until your child is four or five years old.

I had read similar recommendations when I was researching moving Michael from his infant seat to a convertible car seat back in 2008. At that time, I decided to buy the Radian 80 car seat because it would allow us to keep Michael in a five point harness until he was 80 pounds!! It also had the highest weight and height limits for rear-facing. Well, he's three and a half years old and still rear-facing. Ava is a little over two and she's rear-facing as well.

All of a sudden it occurred to me that I'd better check those height and weight limits, because I simply hadn't thought about it for a long time. We were just going on autopilot. Well, as it turns out, the weight limit for rear-facing on our model is 35 pounds. Michael currently weighs 33 pounds.

We have two choices. We can turn his car seat around. He'll remain in the car seat forward-facing in the five point harness until he's 80 pounds. That's a really long time. Or we can buy the newest version of the Radian 80 which has increased its weight limit for rear-facing to 45 pounds. That's the highest available in the US. The 50th percentile for 45 pounds is 5 1/2 years old. Buying the new seat would allow us to keep Michael rear-facing for at least another year and probably longer.

It's safer. We don't mind having him rear-facing. He doesn't mind being rear-facing. His sister is rear-facing and it is convenient to have them both facing the same direction. Pretty much the only negative is having to buy a new, very expensive car seat when I didn't expect I'd need to.

1. What do you think about the new recommendations to keep children rear-facing until at least 2 years of age and preferably to the weight limits of your car seat (depending on the seat, until your child is five years old)?
2. Do you think keeping Michael rear-facing for at least another year is worth buying a new Radian?

The Weekly Review: Week Eleven

Blog Post that Puts All of My Weekly Accomplishments Put Together to Shame:

Jessica at Balancing Everything posted about her new kitchen table. You know. The one she made. Enough said.

Weekly Blog Post that made me laugh:

Swistle describes the possible thoughts school personnel have when writing school dress codes. Trust me. This post is really funny.

Guilty Pleasure of the Week:

So, when I didn't like our second attempt at chocolate chip cookies and we had no other treats in the house I put a couple of spoonfuls of brown sugar in a bowl and ate that as my dessert. It was actually quite yummy and completely did the trick at calming down my craving for sweets. Still, I ate a couple of spoonfuls of sugar straight. Probably not something to be proud of exactly.

Michael's Questionable New Behavior of the Week:

Outright defiance. Sigh. He engages in some kind of behavior I wish to stop. Often, he knows before he even starts that the behavior is unacceptable (throwing heavy objects around the room, for example). When asked to stop he pretends to not even hear the request and simply continues on as if I'm not in the room. Seriously? Where is this behavior coming from and how do I stop it?

Ava's Cuteness of the Week:

At bedtime and naptime, the last thing I do as I'm shutting Ava's door is to say, "Good night sweetheart!" and make two kissing noises. This week she has started making kissing noises back to me. I love it.

Project of the Week:

I am responsible for our public library system obtaining two new very nice children's picture books. I am trying to use the library instead of buying books for the children. I discovered a very sweet series of books about a Mole and his friends, Rabbit, Hedgehog, and Squirrel (by Jonathan Emmett). The library had two books in the series, but Amazon told me that there were two more that the library didn't own. Our library's website has a form to request new books. I requested the two other books (No Place Like Home and Diamond in the Snow) in the series several weeks ago, and they appeared on my reserved list this week. I picked them up from the library yesterday. I was quite pleased. The other two books in the series are Bringing Down the Moon and The Best Gift of All.

Be Prepared

With a two year old and a three year old you have to find the right balance when discussing extreme weather. You want them to take it seriously, but to not be terrified.

Ironically, my kids know what a "twister" is because of an episode of Wonder Pets. They enjoy singing the line, "They go round, round, round picking stuff off the ground." They know that sometimes there is a tornado warning which means that there might be a tornado nearby.

Last night a series of storms pushed through our area and we decided we needed to upgrade our plan of going to the basement with the kids and huddling in the darkness at the bottom of the stairs. We cleaned out the basement closet and put blankets, pillows, flashlights, snacks, water bottles, and a couple of just-in-case diapers in there. We also loaded up the iPad with episodes of Handy Manny.

Of course, by the time we got all that done, the storms had pretty much passed through, but by then the kids were excited about the "hidey cave" and so we went down there anyway and watched an episode of Handy Manny just to test it out. The kids loved it and protested when it was time to leave.

All in all, it was a pretty good upgrade of our What to Do When There's a Tornado Warning Plan and a great dry run. Now we just have to figure out what to do with all the stuff we pulled out of that closet and tossed into the center of the basement.