Back Seat Upgrades

My children got an upgrade in their car seats recently.   They have not one, but TWO cup holders each.   They are thrilled.    There’s more to it than that though, because they’re in the next stage of car seats.    These new seats allow them to use the included car seat to strap themselves in.     This is the upgrade I’ve been looking forward to.

They have gotten good at strapping in themselves fairly quickly.   They need to stretch the seat belt out, pull it downwards towards the connector side and then click it into the receptacle that’s down a bit below their sitting position, which is necessarily higher up.  My daughter insists on doing this herself, although her vision is preventing her from doing it quickly as finding the little insert spot takes some steady aim and clear sight.    She’s getting faster at it though.

The other advantage is the car seats aren’t connected directly to the chairs themselves, so we can move them to the back seat (third row) for longer trips or special occasions very easily.   Both children think sitting in the third row is pretty amazing stuff.    We’re going to save it for special occasions and rewards for now.

The Big Boy Update:  My son is becoming a calmer person for a lot of his day.  I believe this is due in large part to the start of the school year.   He understands there are times to be crazy, go crazy and make other people crazy, but he’s also more focused and generally more present a person for more of the day than he’s ever been before.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  I mentioned to my children we were going to go to one of their favorite stores and would the like to guess which store I was talking about?   My daughter piped up immediately and said, “I want to go to the place with my butter cups.”  I had to think a bit and ask some follow-on questions to figure out what she was talking about.   It turns out she was wanting to go to Five Below, a store where everything is five dollars and under.   She can pick anything she wants at the store—my son gets a gun-type thing or a transformer-isa toy—but she always ends up picking the ten pieces of candy in a bag for a dollar.   She loves the Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup minis there.   My daughter’s name is Reese.   They’re her “butter cups.”