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By Laurie Whitman

The bane of any grandparent’s existence: getting the car seat installed correctly, picking up the child and trying to fit him in the seat, buckling the child without pinching his leg and tightening the straps so the child cannot move or take his arms out of the strait jacket/car seat.

Like everything, things change.

Our family, consisting of my parents, my two brothers and myself trekked in our ‘62 Chevy to Sheboygan, Wisconsin, about twice a month so my folks could go "home." We always had the four-door model with the back seat yards away from the front seat, enabling us kids to poke one another endlessly with no fear of getting swatted from the parents in the front seat. Also, our dog Fritzie was able to sleep on the floor in the back seat, with enough room for a 30-pound dog. My cousin has a photo of me proudly displaying my parakeet in its bird cage upon our arrival on Indiana Avenue in Sheboygan. I guess that bird cage must have fit in the back seat as well.

Car seats? Seat belts? Hardly. With my brothers four and seven years younger than I, we did a fair share of traveling with a baby. We had a ‘car bed." A car bed was constructed of canvas on a metal frame. No safety device to hold the baby in. I guess he slept the whole way. And survived.

When my granddaughter was born almost 12 years ago, I went to Babies R Us to buy a stroller. I had two kids, how hard could it be to open a stroller? The one I liked was on display, so I wheeled it off the bottom shelf and wanted to make sure I knew how to operate it before purchasing it.

After about 10 minutes of struggling to close it, I called a sales clerk to assist me.

And things have not improved, neither the user-friendliness or the user.

There are consumer reports about the best seats for grandparents to use for the grandkids. I have read them all. The checklist includes weight of the seat, ease of operation and safety features. Weight of the seat is one thing, but add a 10-pound child and you are enrolled in a weightlifting class.

In my experience, there is no such thing as ease of operation when it comes to car seats. First, the lap belt has to be snapped into a very small circle and the latch has to be positioned just so to ensure locking. Here’s my advice:

If winter, make sure you clear a spot from the winter coat so you can buckle the darn thing. If summer and child is bare-legged, please, please put your finger between the circle thingy and the child’s fleshy inner thigh. (I pinched my granddaughter once. I felt terrible for days, and stayed awake nights, hoping it would not leave a permanent scar.)

And hopefully the child (and you) are not crying. And the weather is not scorching or below zero, both of course miserable for all concerned.

The above is for infant travel. When the child or children can talk, THEY tell you how to place them properly with the correct number of clicks — counted off by the 4-year-old.

And should the 2-year-old release his arms from the strait jacket (how I have no idea) the 4-year-old will tattle.

“Mac has his arms out. Yay, you have to stop.”

“I can’t stop right now. I’m on the expressway.”

“MAC,” she exclaims, “PUT YOUR ARMS BACK IN. IT’S AGAINST THE LAW.”

Good someone knows the law.

Car seats of today are certified for up to 110 pounds. A kid can go to high school in one of these things!

But, fortunately the law is sort of on our side. At about age 5 to 6, they can sit in a booster and we use the standard seat belt across them.

And with four grandchildren now, ages 11, 4 and two aged 2, I gaze longingly as my neighbor, who also takes care of her grands one day a week, gets ready for an errand. The kids just hop in the car, jump onto the booster seat and buckle up themselves. I think to myself, “Oh, I can’t wait for that day” since presently the simplest errand takes 20 minutes of prep.

But, alas — it looks like my theme song will be "Car Seats Forever." My daughter is due December 25, 2023.

— Laurie Whitman

Laurie Whitman happily entered the "Magic Land" — the land of grandparenting 11 years ago. She has had essays published in the Chicago Tribune, wrote a weekly column about people in her community for the local newspaper and has appeared in the "True Stories" section of Readers Digest featuring a story about her granddaughter. Now with seven grandchildren (three 18 and over, long out of car seats), she is never at a loss for material. Many thanks to both the La Grange and the Brookfield writing groups.