Let me describe a typical weekday morning in my household.
5am - My husband gets up, showers and leaves for work (he's insane)
7:30am - My alarm goes off. I hit the snooze button.
7:39am - My alarm goes off again. I swear, and hit the snooze button.
7:48am - My alarm goes off again. I swear repeatedly, and throw my phone (the source of the alarm) across the room, realize that I didn't hit the snooze button first and the buzzer is still going off, get off the bed in the dark, stub my toe on the bed frame, and dig through the pile of dirty clothes the phone has landed in. Once the phone is located, I jab at it repeatedly until I turn the alarm off. I stumble back to bed - stubbing my toe again on the bed frame in the process.
7:49am - The cat, assuming that I am awake since I got out of bed, starts meowing loudly and repeatedly because she wants food. I fumble on the bedside table for things to throw at her and realize there is nothing because my phone is still lying across the room in the dirty clothes pile. I yell at the cat because she, in fact, has food out already, but it's the dry food, not the canned stuff she really wants. This goes on for a couple minutes until I resign myself to the fact that while my cat is probably perfectly capable of understanding English, she is - in fact - a cat, so she isn't going to stop bothering me until I give her what she wants. I get up and stumble downstairs to feed her - wondering how PETA would feel about me "de-meowing" my 13 year old cat.
7:53am - The dogs, realizing that I'm awake and feeding the cat start barking to be let out of their kennels and let outside. I let them out, and then have to "assist" my Dalmatian out because it's snowing outside and she hates the snow.
7:54am - The dalmatian barks at the door to be let back in. My Pit Bull refuses to come inside because she likes the snow.
7:55am - My pit bull barks at the back door to be let in because she realizes that no one is outside to play with.
7:56am - I finally get to pee.
7:57am - My son, awakened by the barking gets up and comes into the bathroom to tell me, in detail, about his dreams of the night before and ask for Chocolate Milk and Waffles.
7:57am and 30 seconds - My son, starts crying because I haven't materialized the chocolate milk and waffles yet.
Somewhere between 7:58 am and 8:30am I finally complete the clothing process for both my son and myself, and make it out the door to my garage in order to take my son to school. And this, is where I am faced with the part of my morning I detest the most.
I know, I know. They keep my kid safe. And believe you me, I belong to the set that would wrap my kid in bubble wrap if it was socially acceptable. I'll do anything to protect my son. But my God. There has got to be something more user friendly then these. A strait jacket and duct tape, bungee cords, teleportation come to mind as viable options.
I am convinced that the car seat engineers are a soulless and childless bunch of sadists that go to work everyday and try and concoct the most difficult to use piece of equipment in existence.
Car seats are also roughly a million and 24 times harder to use in the winter after I've dressed up my child like Ralphies brother in "A Christmas Story". Since I live in Wisconsin, this accounts for roughly 3/4 of my year. I stuff my kid into the seat, yank on the straps, and smoosh his parka padded arms and body through the arm holes. Don't even get me started on buckling the damn things. And, ever try UNBUCKLING a car seat with fingernails of any length?
Not too long ago, the government, deciding that bad environmental policies, a spiraling national debt and taxes weren't enough torture, passed a law requiring that all children remain in a car seat until they go to prom (OK. In actuality, the Wisconsin law states that they must remain in a car seat until they are 81 lbs AND 4' 9" tall or until their 9 years old. Good thing they put the age restriction in there. I have several aunts that wouldn't meet the height requirement.)
**sigh** only 5 more years to go...
