Show me your back seat!

AlwaysForgetful · November 2014

Lol I just had to reset my vehicle with our car seats. Come to find out, even with being so picky and having a tech install my seats and I am huge into car seat safety, I had 2 installed wrong.

Yes, I have 6 in car seats. Only 1 has a high back booster. Lucky since it allows easy access to the 3rd row then.

deedee1017 · November 2014

Omg. That terrifies me. I think you may need a school bus if you have any more.

deedee1017 · November 2014

how do you even buckle and unbuckle?

deedee1017 · November 2014

how long does it take for you to get all the kids settled before you can leave your drive way?

deedee1017 · November 2014

so many questions!!

sleepy33 · November 2014

I think my uterus just curled into a ball and died.

But srsly, my whole car is such a freaking train wreck right now, I would never in a million years post a pic. I wish I'd had time to do a major clean out before it got cold.

AlwaysForgetful · November 2014

Aww.... lol I thought someone else would have car seats. :-/

Ok, I will go through questions.
@deedee1017 - No more kids! lol really. I am having a tubal ligation done with this Csection (4 days!) and SO is having a vasectomy. When we are done, we are done. We are looking at purchasing a 12 passenger van in a year and a half. That has been in the works for some time. Mainly to make it easier to fit, but also because we do have some teens who we have over in the summer and family members who use to (lol not any more!) ride with us places if we had a seat open. Plus, at some point kids like to have friend over and other parents don't always want to drive.

How? I am a little bit of a car seat safety freak. Comes from having a dad work where he does. And Aunties who were ICU and ER nurses... LOTS of scary stories. Plus 2 of my kids are small. So they are in seats longer than others are. One is special needs and HAS to remain in his 5 point harness even though he is almost 7 1/2.... and is a whopping 36lbs.

So, look back at the picture? that red and black seat is the only High Back Booster (for now). It comes out, the seat flips down and that is how I access the 3rd row. The child in that seat and the infant will go in the front to stay warm while the rest load. So with the baby carrier out of the way, there is room for me to sit on the folded down seat and put the 1 year old in the far right side (pink) seat. Then I can put the 3 year old in the center. Then the infant seat can be clicked into place. Sadly the back row has only one tether. That is why there could only be one forward kid back there. Boy did I fail. I had 2 others back there. :-/ I know better now.

Anyway, so while I am doing that, the other 2 boys can load into the van from the other side and out themselves in their 5 point harnesses. Unless #1 is melting down (rare) and then he would be clearly first to load due to safety. So, I finish the back kids and then flip the seat back up, put the HBB back in place, and put the last child in.

I learned that I can get the 1 year old into her car seat from the trunk without much effort if needed. She thought it was funny. It was raining on Sunday here and Auntie was putting #4 in the middle seat, the boys were in the van and I did not want to be rained on. Auntie takes like 10 minutes to buckle one kids in. So I opened my hatch and put #5 in... I was done, out of the van, double checked the 2 2nd row kids and Auntie was still messing with #5. *sighs*.The 3rd boys was sitting in the drivers seat staying dry until Auntie finished.

Time? Keep in mind, #6 will not be here for 4 more days. I had all the car seats in for the safety inspection. And then I snapped a picture for giggles. With this configuration? I went from 5 minutes before with all 5 kids being buckled in to about 7 minutes. We have only loaded into the van 4 times. I expect that over time, we will get it back down to 5 minutes as we get use to it. The infant will be already buckled into her seat when we leave anywhere, so it is just a matter of clicking her into the base. Although we could be up to 7 for a bit since it is not safe to wear winter coats with car seats. The kids all have a light fleece jacket and a car blanket. Unloading in the cold takes longer than loading due to winter coats being put on. 3 kids can buckle themselves in and 2 can unbuckle themselves. So that helps.

@sleepy33 - Mine did too the first time I saw it and thought about loading & unloading. Or the days where the kids were not listening.....

You know, my car was a mess. I need to get a carpet cleaner and do the floors. :-/ The rest was cleaned when I took all the seats out. lol I found many interesting things under and between seats... And they are right about the Mc Donald's burgers. They don't decompose...

Edited because words and I are not friends today.

pmarie33 · November 2014

So how much milk do you go through a week?

Have you done an AMA?

Sorry - off topic.

sleepy33 · November 2014

An AMA with @alwaysforgetful could be very interesting

AlwaysForgetful · November 2014

@pmarie33 - AMA? Umm, No? I don't even know what that is (I bet if I looked on the stickies I would. lol). I will look in a minute and do it. I kinda sucked and went MIA after # 5 was born and came back about a month ago?

Milk? I buy 4 gallons of white and 2 chocolate (SO drinks 1 chocolate). Or that is what I got this week. Sometimes more, sometimes less. And I get 1.5 gallons a week with my goat milk share and that is for #5 because she cannot handle cows milk. The older kids don't like milk to much. We tend to eat more cheese and yogurt to make up for that. We are a member of Sam's Club. lol We save money that way. We really need to get a 2nd fridge for the garage.

Amjoy25 · November 2014

I thought you wanted a pic of our asses. I was like, @sleepy33 has that covered. Er, or uncovered. Hey-yo!

sleepy33 · November 2014

AMA = ask me anything. You basically start a thread and people ask you whatever questions they like.

AlwaysForgetful · November 2014

Yep, I just caught that on page 2... so NO, I have not done that. How about when I am in the hospital over the weekend and all drugged up? Or early next week when I am still in the hospital, drugged up, bored, sleepy, and all that fun stuff.

pmarie33 · November 2014

AlwaysForgetful said:

@pmarie33 - AMA? Umm, No? I don't even know what that is (I bet if I looked on the stickies I would. lol). I will look in a minute and do it. I kinda sucked and went MIA after # 5 was born and came back about a month ago?

Milk? I buy 4 gallons of white and 2 chocolate (SO drinks 1 chocolate). Or that is what I got this week. Sometimes more, sometimes less. And I get 1.5 gallons a week with my goat milk share and that is for #5 because she cannot handle cows milk. The older kids don't like milk to much. We tend to eat more cheese and yogurt to make up for that. We are a member of Sam's Club. lol We save money that way. We really need to get a 2nd fridge for the garage.

You have almost 6 kids and only one fridge?

We have 2 kids and three fridges.

::homers::

AlwaysForgetful · November 2014

Yep! One fridge.... 2 freezers. Well, not counting the fridge freezer. lol We work on it in stages as we need it. And my 2 freezers, 1 upright (so SO can get into it with his disability) and one mini 5 cubic foot chest freezer... Both are currently full with 50 or so freezer meals for when this baby is born. :-)

deedee1017 · November 2014

You sound like you have it all together, even with your 5.75 kids. Good job!

KerCo51 · November 2014

Just rename this thread as ama. This is fascinating

carawasa · November 2014

I litrally can't even begin to wrap my brain around strapping that many kids into that many car seats on a daily basis.

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