Last week I drove over to help clear some stuff out of my grandma's house.
We took my car into the shop and I didn't even think about H and B's car seats.
Well, fortunately, we have two spares.
Unfortunately, H has outgrown them rear facing.
H is technically big enough to be forward facing. Well, if we are talking technicality so is B. But I'm not comfortable with him being forward facing at all. Nor am I really her either. I realize eventually it will be inevitable. She will have to forward face most of her life. But not yet. Just not yet.
Although she is nearly a full year older, she is still smaller than my friend's 3 yr old boy who died last September after being rear ended. He was internally decapitated, and that phrase always sends a shiver down my spine.
He was forward facing. If he'd been rear facing, he'd have walked away from the relatively minor crash with his momma.
I all ready planned to rear face as long as possible, because there is too much information out there proving it is safest. But that terrible tragedy really enforced this belief. I still think of that dear, sweet boy almost daily. As much as it hurts my heart, I cannot even begin to imagine how much it hurts his momma.
So driving over an hour one-way with H forward facing really had me on edge. When I got home I told J I can't. I can't have her forward facing, even on rare occasions. Not yet. Sure, she'd probably be just fine. Most kids are. Obviously most children survive cars. They survive being buckled incorrectly. They survive car seats not installed correctly. They survive being moved out of 5 point harnesses before they're 65lbs, etc., etc. They survive.
But some don't. And how on earth would I live with myself if something happened to one of my kids and I knew - I knew - there was a safer option? I don't think I could handle it.
J didn't even think twice as he read his credit card number to me and I ordered H a new seat for his car.
In my car she rides in a Radian. And she's in my car like 98% of the time, if not more. She'll rear face in it for a long, long while yet. We almost bought another Radian for J's car, but we decided to go with a Graco Size4Me, since I think H will likely outgrow her Radian in length long before weight. And if she does, well, we can switch car seats for a while.
Mostly, I need her to rear face until we're comfortable letting B forward face. Because having them opposite directions would be trickier since they're so close in age. I mean, it might happen that they have to be, because B is just so little and he has a long while before he ever catches up to her.
But at least this buys us more time. At least for a while longer, I know that they are their absolute safest. And their safety is just too important to gamble with.
*** It's really important for me to state that I do NOT judge anyone who makes different car seat choices. I know we all come to different conclusions for different reasons. And if we were in different circumstances, other factors might be more important - like living in a hot climate and having no a/c in the car, etc., etc. I cannot even pretend to know anything about why someone else may make their choices, and it is not my place to have an opinion, but I feel that this is TOO important, not to talk about.
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