Carseat or Toxic Landfill?

I feel like it's my job as a woman, wife, mother, and friend to share my nuggets of wisdom (when appropriate) with others to help them feel 'normal' or avoid unnecessary grief.

For example, many of my friends who had their first baby after I had Kennedy know the 'I don't even want her story'.  Similarly, Chad and I made it our mission to tell new parents that newborns sleep amazingly well in the hospital only to come home and forget how.  We seriously felt like some great people let us down by not telling us that our first night home from the hospital with a baby would be about 15 minutes on this side of the destination hades.

So, here's my newest wisdom. Those of you who figured this out and didn't let me in on the secret are on my Christmas list under 'Memaw's fruitcake'. That's not good, folks. 

Back to the nugget of wisdom...buying one of those 250 in 1 convertible carseats is a bad idea. First of all, those of us in Texas know that with the fairly recent law changes, kids need to be in a carseat until they go to high school. Well, maybe not all kids, but when you only have 1 person in 3 generations of family over 5 feet 8 inches tall, your kids can expect to take their booster seat on their first date. 

The convertible carseat seemed so obvious with child 3.  She was the last kid, so there would be no need to trade, upgrade, shuffle like we did with the older kids.  However, the seat is FILTHY. We don't typically let our kids eat in the car. It doesn't matter. Today I completely disassembled the seat. It was absolutely shameful. I hesitate to post these picture because CPS may be able to use it as evidence of unlivable conditions.  

Seriously, she's been using this seat for a little over 2 years. It has been spot cleaned a time or two. How does this happen?  Ugh. 

Here's the best part. Look at the ooey, gooey, sticky nastiness down in the seat. Biohazard is the word that came to mind as I began to scrape and scrub with disinfectant wipes.

Now for the last picture, I will say that I do take the seat out, vacuum underneath it and shake it out often. Seriously, about once a month the seat receives  what I naively thought was a decent 'shake down'. After performing said shakedown outside, this is what I dumped out in the floor while disassembling the seat. 

My thoughts are that a convertible carseat sounds great. Who doesn't love the idea of needing only 1 for all of the ages and stages?  However, the carseat becomes a toxic landfill before the child outgrows it.  

Unfortunately for me, I'm both a tightwad and a little OCD. The filth is gross, but the idea of getting rid of a perfectly safe carseat to buy a new, clean one just won't settle in my soul. Therefore, these tools and a lot of elbow grease had to suffice. 

I must say, the end product really wasn't too bad. 

Carseat looks pretty good, but I'm exhausted. All of those hooks and straps just pop right off. Not a single one just popped right back on though. I think I'll take on this project again in exactly 894 days!  

Those of you with babies and toddlers in your future, consider the reality of the toxicity of that convertible carseat over the course of 1-7 years. Might be ok to get one stage at a time and trash it when time to progress to next type of seat.