Safety First! Sanity Second! UPDATE

Today, my brother & I went to another Safe Kids event to have car seats installed. My sister is in California this month (she left her car with me), so I decided to take her car & car seat in to be inspected (my niece is three, so she's been using this seat for a while now). My brother, whose daughter was born yesterday, took his car in to be inspected as well. He has two children now, so he had two car seats.

My sister's car was inspected first. I'll cut to the chase: the car seat had been installed incorrectly. My brother-in-law is a smart guy (a bit geeky, but smart) and a good father, so I know he'll be highly offended to learn the seat wasn't secure. The police officer who installed the seat used all the belts I wouldn't have, so I can say I wouldn't have done much better than my brother-in-law. But the seat is in correctly now, and isn't that what matters? I get the feeling that won't soothe anyone's ego ...

As for my brother: to his credit, he had installed his son's car seat almost perfectly. The consultant adjusted it a bit, but my brother had done a pretty decent job. The consultant installed the infant car seat as well. After the consultant left, I said, "Did you learn anything new?"

"Well, yeah," my brother said, "but I think I could've done this by myself."

"Really?" I said. "So you think you wasted your time today?"

"No," he said. "It's good to be confident about it. At least now I don't have any doubts."

I reminded him of one thing, though. One day, when his son was old enough to be forward-facing in his car seat (which my brother had installed), we (my sister-in-law and my nephew) drove to a store. At one point, I turned around from my front passenger seat to offer my nephew a snack.

I said, "I think we should stop the car." My sister-in-law asked why.

"Um," I said, "go ahead and park, and I'll tell you." She parked and turned around in her seat.

There was her son, smiling and giggling--but in a car seat completely laying sidways on the back seat.

As I related the story to my brother, he laughed. But, he pointed out, he had learned from those mistakes and took steps to get it right. By letting someone help him install his daughter's seat today, I would say I agree with him.