Carseats. It's about time.

With your first kid, you are oh so eager for each milestone. Including carseats. (Who knew that was a milestone?) You begrudgingly pay for the convertible carseat after what seems such a short time in the infant carseat just because you are eager to turn that kid around and see what it is they do in the car all the time.

The second kid isn't in quite such a rush because that means the purchase of yet another carseat. But alas, you can only squeeze them into that infant carseat for so long.

By the time the third kid comes around, the first infant carseat is kind of trashed and the whole carseat system has been overhauled since your first baby. (Turns out carseats are updated and outdated about as fast as computers these days.) So you find yourself buying a whole spanking new carseat for this third baby who you are determined deserves some new things of their very own. And that new and improved carseat lasts longer than previous models. So this kid gets almost double the time in infant carseat. But, inevitably, the older kids are beginning to outgrow their seats and move into boosters, so you buy some more, spare yourself from totaling how many carseats you've purchased at this point, and shift everyone around.

The fourth kid? Yikes. More than two years later, you find yourself in the midst of this mess:

If you count carefully, that's four carseats in various stages of disassembly and disarray. And by now, shifting everyone around, cleaning, reassembly and installation ends up being an all day affair!

After a week of temps reminiscent of our days in the frozen tundra, resulting heavy bulky coats that make it nearly impossible to buckle a kid in a carseat, our 8th carseat of our parenting career finally arrived on our doorstep. Which means, at 2 years, 1 month and 3 days, it's finally time to move this cutie out of her "baby seat" and turn her around!

And just in time to make room for that puffy coat!