Carseat of DOOM/ Cabin Fever

Oh, the carseat. Yesterday could have gone so much better if I hadn't tried to put R in her carseat. I just wanted to go to the Target down the road and buy creamer! We now have three different bottles of creamer in the fridge and I doubt they'll last until next week. Girl has made me a coffee addict. So yeah, Target. Creamer. Easy. Right?

It was supposed to be perfect. I had just pumped my breastmilk (check!), fed the baby (check!), changed the baby (check!), and the diaper bag was packed and ready to go. She always wakes up in stores, so I figured it would work out better to have the outing be playtime, instead of doing playtime and then going out with an overtired baby who can't fall asleep. That's so smart of me, right? No. Oh, no. I did not check that the carseat straps were loose enough before buckling her in. R grows exponentially, and, sure enough, the straps were too tight. No biggie, I loosened them, and that should have stopped her screaming, right? Once again, no. No amount of carseat rocking, or jiggling, or pacifying would calm her down. She had an unpleasant memory from 5 minutes ago of the straps being too tight and she wanted them off NOW. So I had to pull her out, rock, sway, cajole, all to no avail: please calm down, baby, PLEASE. 40 minutes later and she still hadn't stopped crying at me. Partly because I had tried again to put her in the carseat. Yeah, like that would work. An hour had already gone by, I was losing precious time before needing to repeat the pump/feed/change routine, and she still hadn't slept yet, wasn't going to sleep, and certainly wasn't going to let me buy a bottle of decadently sweet creamer. I called Senpai and sobbed over the phone to him, as R sobbed in my arms, that she will never ever let me out of the house.

I should tell you that the only way we (note, I said WE) do leave the house with her is to have one person driving while the other sits in the backseat and holds a pacifier in her mouth. Oh, child, please discover that you have thumbs!! So me, being one person, can't possibly take her anywhere in the carseat (especially not when the straps are too tight!), and it's too hot outside to walk anywhere. So... I'm frothing at the lips trying to get out of the house. I don't even have anywhere to GO really, it's just nice to have the thought of, "Oh I could go somewhere, whenever I want to..." Haha, not in this reality.

As a step in the right direction (freedom!!!), tonight Senpai threaded the carseat straps through the higher shoulder setting and left them really loose. He gently placed a calm R-baby into the seat, and gradually tightened the straps to the proper fit. Then we all watched SYTYCD. Happy ending.

Sometimes I feel like we had R to make other people feel better about their babies. I don't mean that. Maybe I do. Luckily, she pays me in cuteness. And she pays well. I guess I can put up with this.