Carseats

In order to help my loving husband out this morning, I agreed to take the kids to school.  He had an early meeting and lots of grading to do, so I skipped my normally slow Monday morning and hustled to get everyone ready on time.

Caleb was a pure delight.  Three of us were wearing coats and shoes when I realized that he was still eating breakfast in his pajamas.  After "patiently" motivating him to get ready, we finally all walked outside to the already running van.  You see, I was smart and started the van earlier so that it was warm and defrosted for us.

Somehow, when I ran out to start it, I neglected to glance at the backseats. 

As I opened the door with all three kids around me, I realized that I was missing something.  Noah's carseat.

Hmm.

I quickly ran through my options.  Not take the kids to school?  No way.  My head was already spinning from their volumn level.  Borrow another seat from a neighbor?  Perhaps.

Everyone had already gone to school, except for my next door neighbor.  I hesitantly rang his bell, knowing that he was probably asleep since he tends to work at night.  He never answered, so either he was really, really asleep or else he chose to ignore whoever might be crazy enough to ring the bell at 7:52 a.m. 

Then I regretted even drawing his attention to look out the window.  Since I was about to put Noah in the car without a carseat, did I really want my policeman neighbor seeing me in the act of the crime?

Looking around like a criminal, I handed Noah to Abby, who was sitting in the very backseat, and she carefully pulled her seatbelt over herself and her baby brother.  I cautiously drove my kids five minutes down the road to my carpool friend's house to grab their extra carseat.

Why not just ask them to pick up the kids in the first place?  Because they were all home sick with the flu.  Yep.

Finally got a state-certified carseat in my car, got the kids to school, then stoppped at Nick's school to get Noah's carseat from his car.  Oh yeah, did I not mention that is where the carseat was? 

The only consolation to my guilt as I drove Noah for five minutes without the proper safety seat was that for years, no one ever used carseats.  And somehow, babies survived.  So, that makes it okay what I did today, right?

Sorry Noah, you are such the third kid.