On Crashed Cars and Car Seats



It's crazy how much hullabaloo can follow a simple rear-ending.

Doctor's visits for the kids
Physical Therapy for Bill
New Car-seats
All sorts of insurance paperwork
and a swanky rental van

The family is fine. Wyatt loves the rental van (frankly, so do I! I never thought I'd be into vans, but this one is the limousine of vans and I refuse to give it back!) where he can see out the window perfectly and likes to tell us all about what he sees. 

"Tree, Mom."
"Yes, Wyatt, lots of trees."
"And a truck. A red truck, Mom. And a blue truck with round and round."
"Yes, a blue cement mixer."
"Cement mixer. Hah! That's crazy!"

And He randomly and without warning will state:

"White car is not broken. Blue car is broken, but white one is just fine. We not get crashed."

I wonder if the demolition derby will have any greater significance to him this year?

Bill has been going to 'physical therapy' and hates it. He didn't really want to go in the first place because he is a toughguy, but I put up a stink about things like repercussions and insurance is paying and free massage. But he's gone twice now, and I guess physical therapy is not just getting a great massage. I guess they actually do stuff that kinda hurts. Go figure.

We got the kids new car seats, too, 'cause once you've been crashed, your car seats are pretty much burnt and dead. 

"I wonder if there's a way to recycle the old ones," I mused to Bill the night we brought the new ones home. "Because this is a pretty big hunk of plastic to throw into the dumpster."

So we did some research (this is kinda like a Friday Fact, right?), and discovered that A) there is no way to recycle the old ones. and B) there are all sorts of shenanigans that occur with old, discarded car seats. 

Like miscreants who retrieve dumpstered car seats to re-sell them, the buyers being none the wiser. Let this be a lesson to you all - buy your car seats from the STORE! Not on craigslist, not at garage sales, NOT from shady men in alleyways who have car seats hidden in their trench coats!

We read accounts of people taking sledge hammers to their old car seats in an attempt to prevent the bad kind of recycling and making barely a dent. 

"Looks like these will be sitting around in landfills for a loooooong time," Bill said. "Seems like Graco should have to accept old car seats to dispose of responsibly."


Which made me snort, 'cause I pictured a world weary Graco representative sitting at a reception table with a loooong line of people waiting to give him their sledge-hammered car seats.

Regardless, we had a hay day tearing ours apart as best we could. Styrofoam, straps, buckles, padding flung all about our living room!

The new car seats are - in Bill's opinion - MUCH cooler. Daphne's even has racing stripes. They're growing on me. I think I am hesitant to love them (no crumbs! New-car smell!) because I think that Daphne has had to deal with a ridiculous amount of BOY looking stuff just because she's kid numero dos.

Never mind that I accidentally bought her boy pajamas. Brand new. They looked like zoo animals to me at the store, and when I got them home and opened them, they were definitely boy zoo animal pajamas.

Sometimes, Stepper, it's safer to just embrace the pink!

Tonight Bill is taking me to SLC for an AIGA reception and benefit. We actually get to dress and act like adults! I am terribly excited. I'll tell you all about it. 

Oh, and stay tuned also for the GREAT MACEY'S DEBACLE! 


So many stories, so little time.

5 comments:

McCrery said...

I TOLD YOU!! "Sometimes it's just safer to embrace the pink!" It will happen ;) Can't wait to see u guys soon!

Grandpa Rusty said...

Who is doing your body work on the RAV4?

Glad everyone made it through the accident okay. Bill, sorry you have to go to physical therapy. Been there. Done that. After knee surgery and injured back. The therapy hurts more than the hurt. I think they recruit only sadists for physical therapists.

That Girl said...

So ya gonna tell us what happened?! Musta been bad if it wrecked the car seats ...

Anonymous said...

Oh man! That stinks. Glad you are all okay, or at least relatively okay. Poor Bill. :)

Amber

Nae said...

Wow, that damage looks pretty intense! I'm glad all is well minus car seats and physical therapy. It's too bad that physical therapy has to do painful stuff, because the massages are absolutely amazing. Yes, I beg Richard to practice on my pregnant self. :) With all of the practice he's getting, he's probably the best one out there.