Wednesday, November 21, 2007

I'm a big girl now…

So, we've hit a major milestone in the life of Gracie. On Sunday I decided to throw caution to the wind and turn her car seat around to forward facing, even though she is only 9 months old. I decided that since my car seat instructions said you could turn the kid around when she reaches 22 pounds and Gracie is now 24 pounds and wearing 12-18 months (and sometimes 1T!) sized clothing, that I would ignore the dire warnings from the health nurses that she must be 1 year old before she can sit forwards or the world will come to an end.

You see, I drive a 1996 Ford Taurus; and I don't know how many of you have been in the back seat of a 1996 Ford Taurus (or what you were doing there), but if you have, you will have noticed that the seats and the back window are very, very sloped. So no matter what position I put that car seat in, the only thing poor Gracie got to look at was the roof and the sky.

She also hated not being able to see me, and I don't think she understood where I went while she was all alone in the back seat. It got so that I just put her in the seat and listened to the crying all the way to wherever we were going, because if I talked to her, I just made it worse. It was like she was saying: "Well if you're in here, why don't you come and get me? Where the hell are you?????"

So I turned it around, one-year-old rule be damned. I figure she's as big as most one-year-olds right now, so why on earth am I waiting for a magic number?

And boy does she love it! Yesterday I took her to the grocery store, and I wish you could have seen it. It was the best car ride I have ever had with her. She just grinned, and grinned and grinned. She could finally see Mommy. She could finally figure out where I was. She kept saying "Hi!" so that I would turn around and say hi back, and then she laughed her little head off. And she even waved to the people in the car sitting next to us at the red light.

I think I made the right decision.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I turned Chris when he was younger than that - about 7 months, because he was already heavy enough and his legs were so cramped against the back of the seat. He has VERY long legs. Best decision we made too!

Now we have to deal with him hating his booster seat even though he's no where near close enough to the 80lbs he has to be to get out of the seat. He's only 53 lbs now - and it's going to take some time before he hits 80. I'm thinking that when he gets older and a bit taller we'll just have to take the plunge and get him out. I would hate to have a 12-year-old still sitting in a booster seat. It may be embarrassing for him! ;)

Anonymous said...

That first forward-facing ride is always the best! The looks on my kids' faces were priceless! And, speaking as someone whose children were always in the 90+ percentiles, you have to go with what makes sense for your child. I think the rules were made up by people with insanely small children and they didn't want their kids to feel left out.
Give Gracie a snuggle for me --- hopefully one day soon I'll actually get to meet her!
Mary-Ann

Jenifer said...

I turned Cayden before he was one... and he still only weighs 22 pounds..at 15 months!!