New car seat for Orren!

UPS brought us Orren's car seat last night! I could not get the box open fast enough!! This thing is awesome. It's a Britax Marathon in Mossy Oak camo, EXTREMELY limited edition, and never being made again. We were so lucky to find one still in stock, and for suggested retail price, with free shipping (but on a car seat that costs almost $300 and weighs 20 something pounds, shipping BETTER be free!!)

We installed it in the truck this morning. It looks so cool! I asked Thak if he was going to be showing off his manly car seat to everyone at work, and he answered matter-of-factly, "hell yeah". Haha!!


OK, we now own four car seats:
-Peg Perego Primo Viaggio SIP, which is the infant carrier style one, long since outgrown.
-Britax Diplomat, which goes to 40 pounds, which Orren is currently using in the car.
-Graco Nautilus, which goes to 65 pounds and then converts into a booster. Erin uses it in both vehicles currently, but it will eventually be in the truck only since it's enormous.
-Britax Marathon, which goes to 65 pounds, and Orren uses in the truck (although Erin fits quite well in it, too.

All we lack is now a Radian for Erin to use in the car, and EVENTUALLY, within a year, we'll have to get a Radian for Orren to use in the car because he's going to outgrow his Diplomat at some point. In fact, once he reaches 30 pounds, we'll probably go ahead and replace the Diplomat with a Radian (save the Diplomat for the next baby) so that Orren can continue to rear-face for longer.

The Radian we want to get him rear-faces to 45 pounds, so with that, we might just make our goal of rear-facing him for at least 3 years. These other seats only rear-face to 35 pounds, and as big as Orren is for how young he is, and how fast he's growing, we would be one of those families who couldn't make even two years rear-facing. Even more crucial than weight is height, though. Orren's well into the 90's percentile-wise for height, and the Radian is the tallest rear-facing car seat on the market. That's a big reason we think we will need one in a year or so to replace the Diplomat, which is really short.

You may be wondering why we're so adamant on rear-facing for three years. Well, I read some research not long ago, stating that internal decapitation is SIGNIFICANTLY more likely in most types of car accidents if a child forward faces before the age of three. The reason is that sometime after the age of three, the spine becomes strong enough to not expand more than the spinal cord itself on impact. In kids under 3, the spine can stretch 2 inches, but the spinal cord can only stretch about 1/4 inch, so if they face forward, and get into most kinds of car accidents, they will die on impact, whereas a rear-facing child would not, because the seat back will not allow their head and neck to move much.

(Do you see now why I think people who forward face their kids at a year old despite there being tons of research available showing that it's a bad thing to do are complete morons?)

So anyhow, yeah, next project is Erin's Radian so we'll have a seat for each kid in both vehicles, then we'll be good for a while before we have to get Orren his Radian.

Right now, we're just thrilled with our Mossy Oak Britax Marathon!! I just love high quality baby gear. There is such a difference. It's easy to fit, easy to install, works awesome, and looks cool! Can't beat it!