Friday, January 31, 2014

New Challenge - Car Seat


Getting Scott in and out of the car and car seat is a huge challenge for me.  Not impossible though.  My husband's work schedule changed so I now have to pick up my daughter from preschool in the afternoons.  My babysitter leaves at 2pm, so I have to take Scott with me to pick her up at 3pm.  We only live 5 minutes from her school, but I allow myself 15-20 minutes. 

This is how I get Scott in the car:  I bring his stroller into the house, put him into his stroller and wheel him out to the garage.  I open the car door opposite his car seat, I move Kiana's booster seat out of the way, then I sit down on the back seat.  I pull the stroller right up to me, unbuckle him, and lift him into my lap.  Then I swing my legs into the car, scoot over closer to Scott's car seat and lift him into it and buckle him up.  Buckling him isn't very difficult, just takes some time; for the most part he is pretty helpful in putting his arms through the straps.  Getting him out is the reverse process.  This sounds like a fairly straight forward process, but there are days that Scott doesn't want to get into his stroller or his car seat and arches his back in protest.  I am also a mentally anxious person so even before I start I anticipate in my mind that it's going to be one-of-those-day that he doesn't want to get into his seat, and then I stress that I'm going to be late (Which really?  What is the big deal if I am late?).  I just end up putting more pressure on myself, making the process more difficult.  It's do-able and I will do what I need to to make this work, even if it takes me 40 minutes.

Thank goodness one of her teachers walk Kiana out to the car because it would be so difficult for me if I had to repeat the process of getting him in and out in the parking lot at the school. 

2 comments:

  1. Thank you!

    Thank you for writing this blog, I really appreciate it. I have SMA III and following a brief conversation with my Dr about the possibility of children in the future and her not knowing ANYTHING. I resorted to google, finding NOTHING at all. Google just talks about people with children that have SMA but nothing about mothers with SMA, your blog has reassured me and made me feel a lot better. I was literally in tears earlier feeling as if I had no chance.

    I'd love to talk to you in more detail, please feel free to email me on kellymaygee@me.com i'd love to ask you a few questions, even though you have cerebal palsy and I have SMA I think our level of ability (strength wise) might be quite similar so i'd love to ask you some questions.

    Hope to hear from you soon.

    Thanks again,

    Kelly

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  2. I hear that. I am a mom with a disability also, and car seats are difficult. At about age 18mo my son started buckling himself, and all I had to do was tighten it. And now, at 4 years old, he helps me buckle his 7 mo old sister. It gets easier!

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