Car Seat Updates

I'm about to buy my third car seat in a month, the 4th in 5 months and the 6th seat we've owned. Why so many? The car seat safety maven are now recommending that children stay harnessed until at least 4o lbs or until they start driver's training. And although my sister wonders if the car seat manufators are trying to create a panic to sell seats, I follow the better safe than sorry rule.

Thankfully my dear husband just smiles and nods when I bring up spending $260 on 2 new carseat for Maddy and Mallory. They're both riding in the uber cool Graco Nautilus. Maddy was riding in a TurboBooster High Back Booster and is now so much safer with a harnessed seat and will remain that way until she's 65lbs. The Nautilus then turns into a high back booster to belt positioning booster and holds them until 100lbs .. which if family history is any indication will be about age 22. Mallory was in an UltraCarGo and could have stayed there without problem BUT once she saw Maddy's new seat she wanted the same thing. And thankfully we're able to afford her whim .. honestly though the Nautilus is awesome .. the thing has fricken steel bars for supports, the belt routers have been redesigned and are easier than ever to adjust, the chest clip and buckle are also new and are harder for kids to undo but somehow easier for parents. Daddy saw the first one and automatically voted on one for Mallory too. Thanks to Amazon's Prime shipping, Mallory was set to go 2 days later.

As for the third seat .. I did mention a third new seat didn't I? Miss Molly is soon to be graduating from the SnugRide. By soon I mean in the next few months .. the strap heights are never tall enough for my long torsoed girls .. Molly's on the top strap already! Infant seats are wonderfully handy for the first few months for things like resturants and not disturbing the sleeping baby .. but I've found that we generally don't lug the thing around outside of the car once the girls are old enough to say sit in a high chair for the length of a dinner out. So .. in the hunt for a new convertible car seat I discovered this gem, highly recommended by car seat techs, The First Years True Fit (pictured above). Its a wonderful seat that will last, hopefully, until high school graduation :) What sold me is its a whole shebang of a seat, rear facing, forward facing until 65 lbs and then a high back booster and then a belt positioning booster up to 100 lbs. Plus its pretty!

What caused the new look into carseats? A new car purchase! One of the perks of military pay is that its basically untaxed and only basic pay is considered income so our reported taxable income for the year is about 1/2 of what our actual take home is. So basically we have zero tax liablity to the federal government and fall into a low tax bracket so we get massive returns (to us at least) each year. Combined with a general thriftiness we have a nice budget to get something decent and safer than the Chevy Venture. Stay tuned :)