PILA Month day 12

Day 12 - something you are OCD about.

Carseats. Consumer Reports sights that 4 out of 5 children's car seats are installed incorrectly. I remember the moment I became a self appointed "car seat Nazi". I was a nanny for a family with one little girl. She was 2 and one day dad asked for my car seat so he could run some errands. Mom had the other one in her car so I took the seat out of my car and put it in his. I didn't install it. I just put it on the seat in his SUV. The next morning I went to get the car seat which was still in his car. It was not buckled in- AT ALL. I asked Dad if he had unbuckled it for me? He looked at me blankly. Turns out he had not even buckled it IN. He had assumed I did all that and just put her in her seat and took off.

Luckily, nothing happened. They got home safe and sound and no one was hurt. It could have been worse. Much worse. Every day you hear stories of children in car seats installed wrong and injured or killed because of it. After that day I demanded permanent car seats in my car at every nanny job I took. Not because it's too hard to take in and out but because it just leaves too much room for error. In hindsight I should have installed the car seat myself, since I knew what I was doing. I should not have assumed Dad did. I have never assumed that since. For anyone. I don't leave that in the hands of others. My charges seats in the past or my own children's seats in the present. So ya, I'm OCD about my car seats. And I am okay with it.

For the record I recently took my car to a professional car seat technician for inspection and am happy to report that I received a gold star and 100% approval for my installation. :)