When I was moving what mt wife calls the "Pack and Play" and I call "the playpen", I spent some time looking over the mechanism that allows this thing to collapse completely to a small bundle, and yet pop open and be rigid enough to contain a three year old. And the nylon "ballistic mesh" the side are made from has even withstood a run-in with Pebbles. Very clever arrangement of over-center latches and jointed legs. Cool stuff.
And the car seats today are so far advanced over the one we brought my son home in way back in 1986, that I almost hesitate to call them "just" car seats. With all the additional padding, webbing suspension, and multi-belts with a hit-to-release buckle, they're more like "Escape Pods" from a B-58 Hustler or XB-70 Valkyrie.
Took us nearly an hour to get it installed in the wife's little Hyundai, and that was only after I dragged it in the house to carefully examine. Once I found the Secret Handshake I was able to fully adjust it so The Little Guy fits in the seat snug, and the seat would several ounces of C4 to get out of the car. The Hyundai was designed for seats like this, and the seat has some features that enable it to be very securely fastened down.
And while out in the backyard with the dog tonight, I noticed something again that made me smile.
Crickets!
Chirping away quietly in the background with practically no other noises not made by nature.
And it's Saturday night.....in a "College Town", and our neighborhood is dead quiet.
Save for the crickets.
And the occasional All American V-8 going up through the gears.
Just lovely here!
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<i>The Fisher Saga</i> Continues - Act III -
Been working on this post since right after Thanksgiving. I'm making very good progress on the Fisher, and will most likely power it up...
Progress isn't always bad. Many memories of riding in the back of a pickup. My kids were treated better. My truck had a camper shell.
ReplyDeleteMy Dad would never allow it, but I saw many kids laying down on the parcel shelf under the rear window.
DeleteAnd when I was older, I spent many a ride in the back of a pick-up going camping, or boating.
Congrats on figuring out the modern voodoo, er, engineering of the car seat. The evenings sound delightful. Enjoy!
ReplyDeleteI had to plop it down on the floor, and go over it millimeter by millimeter with the instruction manual, and YouTube, to figure it out.
DeleteThe one latch we needed to undo was buried under the padding (it's not used much), and even though the padding had a "push here" mark sewn into it, it wasn't obvious how to push it. Push it in? Forward? Sideways?
A YouTube video showed how to lift up the padding and release the latch, and after it it was a piece of cake!
Yeah, those new seats are something 'else'...
ReplyDeleteThey sure are made nice, though. We let our daughter-in-law decide which one for my wife's car, and she picked some super-duper POTUS-grade escape pod....
Delete