You know what is so fun? Installing a car seat for the first time. Honestly, it's such a hoot I almost want to have another baby just so I can wrestle with a car seat and belts in the cramped space of the back seat of a car. It's That. Much. Fun. Amirite? It's one of the great unsung pleasures of parenting, I'm sure you'd all agree. Why everyone complains about this simple task I'll never understand. Here are the 8 stages of installing a child seat. It's easier than you think! If by easy you mean so hard it'll make a grown man cry.
Step 1: You've got your car seat, and you haven't lost the instruction manual yet. You're already ahead of the game. This is going to be a snap!
Step 2: Pick a back seat that's relatively clean. Uh...
Step 3: After you've picked a seat, secure it using your car's seat belts. Which are nowhere to be found. Really, you've been driving your friends around in a back seat with no belts and no one ever told you?
Step 4: Dig around for seat belts, any seat belts. Take apart the back seat. Discover your lost Costco card, thousands of crumbs, your seventh-grade retainer (what the -- ), and a broken candy cane.
Step 5: Okay, now you're ready to secure your child seat with the belt. Only one thing -- the pictures in your instruction manual in no way resemble the reality before you. Did the manufacturer insert the wrong set of instructions? Is the manufacturer in fact from Mars?
Step 6: Pinch your fingers affixing that anchor thing. $%#&ing safety! Ugh.
Step 7: Untangle yourself from the seat belt.
Step 8: Take a nap. Decide never to go anywhere until your child is old enough not to need a child seat.
Is installing a child seat into your car this difficult for you?
Image via Prince Roy/Flickr