Eyes Front

As of a couple of days ago, our bathroom scale is telling us that Peeper is a full forty pounds (the rear-facing limit of a Graco MyRide 65 carseat) wearing nothing but panties, and we need to get a carseat installed in Shrike's tiny car (more on that in a bit) so I sucked it up and turned her carseat around forward-facing.

I had planned to get a photo of her in it, but my phone battery was dead when I picked her up from school, so that didn't happen today. I'll try again tomorrow.

In addition to turning it around, I moved it to the passenger side of the car, because if she's going to be putting her feet up on a front seat, I don't want it to be mine. (Shrike rides in back with her, so it won't be hers either.)

Speaking of Shrike, I'm thinking I should stop somewhere with a car vac before she needs to go somewhere with us.

Long story short, I dropped off a form at the pediatrician's office yesterday (yeah, that was a big nevermind, but I'll explain later) so I asked if I could have a carseat tech help me with installation, or at least inspect my installation, when I picked it up. I figured that would be around the end of the week, but they said, "Sure, can you come in tomorrow morning?"

So, I talked to Peeper about it last night and again this morning, and after I dropped her off at school, I went over and took care of that before I went to work.

This morning, she expressed concern about where to put her feet, but I assured her that she'd be able to put them on the seat back.

When I picked her up from school, I reminded her again that it would be turned around, and when we got out to the car, she flipped out.

Flipped. The. Fuck. Out.

She did not like this new arrangement at all.

"I'm not ready to ride like this! I'm still little!"

I tried explaining that "Most of your friends probably ride like this. G rides like this, and C rides like this, and J rides like this," but she wasn't buying it.

I did happy her up a bit  when I played up the fact that we can now see each other, and I had her "show me signs" (most of which are just numbers of fingers, these days) and told her what they were, and vice versa. It didn't last very long, though.

I also tried pointing out all the new things that she can see now, and that she can see where we're going, and not just where we've been, but this is definitely going to take some time for her to get used to.

So much for those anti-extended-rear-facing arguments about kids being uncomfortable because of the lack of leg room, and about how they prefer to ride forward, and don't like being made to ride backward "like a baby."