Friday arrived and the kids were ready for the week to come to a close. Henry had definitely been running on fumes with all he has going on, and Amelia was ready to call it a week, too. Erin was feeling better, but still on the mend, and I was dragging pretty hard after a bit of a rough night with Henry.
But, he woke up ready to face the day. Here he is, at my desk, taking care of business, Graham cracker in hand.
But we all made our way through the day, and at lunchtime I got to chatting with Erin about Amelia’s car seat situation. Basically, our little girl is increasingly not so little anymore, and it looked to be time to move her up to a booster seat. Erin had done some initial research into this and it is wildly overwhelming and confusing. Boosters come in all shapes, sizes and price points and it’s a little hard to know what’s what.
So I called the safety store at Children’s Hospital and got some good counsel on the topic. From that conversation, we were able to narrow it down to a few possibilitie and Erin and I decided we’d reflect on it a little and probably make a choice in the coming days.
During that conversation, Erin admitted the whole seat thing was one of those touchpoints that really drove home how fast Amelia is growing up right in front of our eyes. I completely understand, and often feel that way too. It’s so exciting to see her grow into the person she is, but it’s also so bittersweet because it means saying goodbye to all those wonderful little kid moments.
I went about my day, and was out running errands, when Erin called me to let me know she’d found out that Target was having a car seat collection day, and if you turn in an old seat, you get 20 percent off a new one. They had one of the boosters we were considering in stock, so it felt as if fate had spoken. I ran back home to get Amelia’s old car seat and make the trade in happen.
When I was taking out the old seat, I saw an identification sticker I had put on the seat back when we first installed it and had a safety check on it. This was back when she was, I dunno, not even 2? And that was when I had my moment.
No, it wasn’t her first car seat…the first one was the little detatcable baby cocoon. But this had been her seat for the majority of her life to this point, and oh man, now I was getting misty too.
Amelia was super excited to graduate to a booster, but she is sentimental like me and insisted on coming out to say goodbye to her old car seat. We took one last picture together. (And yes, Amelia also absolutely rocks overalls.)
I frankly wondered if she would get emotional about the seat going away. Hell, I remember when she was really little, she cried when we got a new refrigerator and sent away the old one. But instead she said a very chipper, “Goodbye, car seat! You’ve been really great, but I’m getting too big for you now. Thank you for being such a great seat!”
And that was that. She was back in the house, and I packed the old seat in the car and made my way over to Target to make the trade. It was tough putting that seat in the box and walking away, but when I did it and got her new seat, I was able to channel some of Amelia’s positivity and smile at the fact that this is a new phase for her.
Our little girl is indeed growing up. And that is a good thing. It’s another sign that even in the insanity of the past year, regular life still keeps on stepping forward.
