What a racket

Have you been in the baby department of any store recently? If you have, you know I speak the truth when I say this whole baby gear industry is such a racket!

Wading through aisle after aisle of frivolous items posing as essentials to find the actual essentials was one of the more agonizing experiences of my pregnancy. Not to mention the emotional manipulation strategies used by these companies to convince you that you are only a loving, caring parent if you purchase brand A over brand B.

And heaven forbid you try anything generic.

Recently Derek and I darkened the door of the queen mother of these baby supply stores in Las Vegas and I was once again overwhelmed by the experience. This time though, we had about nine months of experience side-stepping the aforementioned marketing strategies to find essential, safe and still economical items. So it was with certain amount of confidence that we strode through the door on a specific mission: to find a larger but still rear facing car seat for our daughter.

What can I say, she’s blessed with height like her mom (I don’t like to claim the weight) so although she’s not quite 10 months old, she is close to the weight limit on the infant car seat and her little feet are dangling over the edge.

True, safety-conscious parents that we are, we are taking matters into our hands in advance of the problem so that by the time she moves over the weight limit, we’ll be ready and I am more than happy to buy something that will assure her safe arrival whenever we travel.

Yet, I have a complaint.

When we purchased the infant car seat we were thrilled to find you can get one actual seat and then buy an additional base or two separately for a fraction of the cost of an entire safety restraint system. Signs attached to these infant seats touted this very idea and I thought it was ingenious.

To me, the extra base is a necessity, not a luxury, and if you’ve ever had to strap a car seat in a car, I think you’ll agree.

We’ve loved having a base in both my husband’s and my cars, as well as a third base for Grandma’s car where Lydia spends many of her days. But now that she is getting bigger, it seems those days of convenience and ease are gone.

It’s as if the companies who kindly offered this time saving device have erroneously concluded that by the time your child is big enough to move to another car seat you must have downgraded the number of vehicles in your household.

In reality it’s probably some kind of safety issue, but I felt jilted nonetheless as I stared at the price tags dangling from these luxurious looking seats, wondering if saving money is worth the backseat wrestling match I will inevitably face: Lisa vs. the car seat in 100 degree heat.

The car seat would probably win.

To avoid such a disastrous defeat, I’m on the verge of giving in to my gut and buying two — maybe three — new car seats. Sure, it’ll be expensive, but really, who can put a price on a mother’s sanity?

Apparently baby stores can.