"I must use this power only to annoy!"
Parenting can be a rewarding experience. When a mostly helpless child looks up at you and smiles, content from the food you gave him, the playtime you shared, or just a little love between you, it melts your heart.
Those experiences comprise about 5% of a child’s wake time demeanor. The other 95% of their time involves annoying the bejeebers out of you. They throw things, remove things, climb things, and otherwise do exactly what you’ve told them a million times not to do. Since the last rule repetition was outside of their three-second attention span, it’s out of mind and fair game, assuming of course they’re listening to you in the first place.
I’m amazed at the new ways they keep finding to annoy me. Abbie finds one more scalable surface. The boys find one more unlocked cabinet to empty. They team up to find one more forgotten Goldfish that I neglected to pull from under the couch.
Tory’s latest annoyance involves his car seat. All three kids have seats with five-point harnesses, which are the safest kind because they’re so hard to strap a child into that I only risk taking them in the car when absolutely necessary. I have to slip the left arm through the left arm belt, slip the right arm through the right arm belt, snap the arm belts together, click the arm belts into the crotch buckle,* and finally cinch the arm belt fastener up to chest level. Then I grab one of the remaining children, assuming no one suffered injury while I was fiddling with one car seat, and repeat two more times.
I’ve been inserting children into car seats for over two years now, and I’ve learned to minimize the annoyances by moving quickly before the child squirms too effectively. Tory has me beat by arching his back as soon as I lift him into the car. Any crotch buckle veteran knows you can’t fasten a crotch buckle while a child arches his back.
Sometimes he’ll arch when I put him in his car seat, resulting in a position where his head is on the headrest, his feet are on the seat, and there’s about 12-inches of clearance between his butt and the seat. When he does this I wait him out, because there’s no way his 14-month-old muscles can support his gut in the air like that for long.
When he collapses into a sitting position, the fun begins. At least it’s fun for him. He laughs the entire time I struggle with him. He’ll arch his back, contorting his body to the curves of the seat, and slide onto the floor. I reposition him, hold his gut down with one hand, and slip his arms through the belts with my free hand.
I abandon the arm belt fastener for now and go after the crotch buckle next to hold him in place vertically. That’s a two-handed job, though, and as soon as I let go of his gut, it’s in the air and he’s sliding down. This time he gets halfway down the seat before the belts catch in his armpits.
I reposition him, holding the crotch buckle and his crotch down with the same hand as he moves, and quickly snap the crotch buckle into place. He’ll try to arch his back again, grunt, maybe giggle, and give up. I attach the arm belt fastener, and move on to the next child. While working on the well-behaved child, Tory might root around for a minute before finding a long lost Tasteeo between the car seats, and will immediately insert it in his mouth. It bugs me when he does that.
* If you have a better term than “crotch buckle,” I’d like to hear it. By the way, I’d listen to a band named Crotch Buckle.
Those experiences comprise about 5% of a child’s wake time demeanor. The other 95% of their time involves annoying the bejeebers out of you. They throw things, remove things, climb things, and otherwise do exactly what you’ve told them a million times not to do. Since the last rule repetition was outside of their three-second attention span, it’s out of mind and fair game, assuming of course they’re listening to you in the first place.
I’m amazed at the new ways they keep finding to annoy me. Abbie finds one more scalable surface. The boys find one more unlocked cabinet to empty. They team up to find one more forgotten Goldfish that I neglected to pull from under the couch.
Tory’s latest annoyance involves his car seat. All three kids have seats with five-point harnesses, which are the safest kind because they’re so hard to strap a child into that I only risk taking them in the car when absolutely necessary. I have to slip the left arm through the left arm belt, slip the right arm through the right arm belt, snap the arm belts together, click the arm belts into the crotch buckle,* and finally cinch the arm belt fastener up to chest level. Then I grab one of the remaining children, assuming no one suffered injury while I was fiddling with one car seat, and repeat two more times.
I’ve been inserting children into car seats for over two years now, and I’ve learned to minimize the annoyances by moving quickly before the child squirms too effectively. Tory has me beat by arching his back as soon as I lift him into the car. Any crotch buckle veteran knows you can’t fasten a crotch buckle while a child arches his back.
Sometimes he’ll arch when I put him in his car seat, resulting in a position where his head is on the headrest, his feet are on the seat, and there’s about 12-inches of clearance between his butt and the seat. When he does this I wait him out, because there’s no way his 14-month-old muscles can support his gut in the air like that for long.
When he collapses into a sitting position, the fun begins. At least it’s fun for him. He laughs the entire time I struggle with him. He’ll arch his back, contorting his body to the curves of the seat, and slide onto the floor. I reposition him, hold his gut down with one hand, and slip his arms through the belts with my free hand.
I abandon the arm belt fastener for now and go after the crotch buckle next to hold him in place vertically. That’s a two-handed job, though, and as soon as I let go of his gut, it’s in the air and he’s sliding down. This time he gets halfway down the seat before the belts catch in his armpits.
I reposition him, holding the crotch buckle and his crotch down with the same hand as he moves, and quickly snap the crotch buckle into place. He’ll try to arch his back again, grunt, maybe giggle, and give up. I attach the arm belt fastener, and move on to the next child. While working on the well-behaved child, Tory might root around for a minute before finding a long lost Tasteeo between the car seats, and will immediately insert it in his mouth. It bugs me when he does that.
* If you have a better term than “crotch buckle,” I’d like to hear it. By the way, I’d listen to a band named Crotch Buckle.
posted by Matt at
11:35 PM
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