Fitting 3 Car Seats in a Honda Fit

I've been meaning to write this post since September, but... I had a baby.  Which is the reason we had to fit 3 car seats in our Honda Fit in the first place, but also the reason I never got around to writing about it.  Now said baby is 9 months old, but our story actually starts about 18 months ago when...

Me:  "Mike, I think we are going to have another baby."

Processing, processing...

 Mike:  "How are we going to fit another car seat in our super-small, fuel-efficient car?  Crap!  We'll have to get a new car."

Don't misunderstand.  Mike was THRILLED about having another baby and actually, that was my first thought, too, after the first wave of nausea settled.  How are we going to fit a third car seat in our 2008 Honda Fit?  We loved our little zippy car and the fact we didn't have a car payment anymore.  So we got on the world wide web and searched for other brave souls who didn't throw up their hands in defeat and immediately upgrade to a mini-van.  (Not that one wouldn't be nice once in awhile, but there's no way on God's green earth city streets that I would ever be able to parallel park one.)  I'm not certain we found anyone who posted about fitting 3 car seats into a Honda Fit - the closest seemed to be a Honda Civic.  But I am posting now to help other fuel-efficient car owners realize their dream of an increased family size without an increased gas budget.

This is what we bought for a grand total of $624.25 on Amazon (through Amazon prime, with the option of free returns if they didn't fit, which they did):

2 Diono RadianR100 Car Seats (for our 5 and 7 year olds)
1Combi Cocorro Lightweight Convertible Carseat

If we had preplanned 8 years ago, we would have saved another few hundred bucks by purchasing these first and using them for all three kids.  But, that would be antithetical to who we are, and besides, car seats are obsolete a year after you buy them.  $700 is still a whole lot cheaper than a new van.

The Radian can be used from infancy through age 18 (or whatever age kids have to stay in a car seat these days), but we couldn't fit it in rear facing.  Hence, the expensive little Combi number that we'll get rid of when Baby #3 turns 2ish.  It was the smallest seat we could find, and the convenient removable kind with the base just wouldn't work.  So that's the one drawback - you can't remove your sleeping baby IN the car seat.  You just have to wake the poor thing up to take her out of the car.  (If her big sisters haven't already, which is more than likely.  Besides, it's the third kid and they are never going to get an uninterrupted nap.  Neither are the parents.  But I digress.  Because I haven't had enough sleep.)  I guess there is one more drawback.  Once you get these puppies in, you will refuse little old ladies rides home in the rain because you will never want to take them out.  It's a bit tricky to get the right fit.

If he could do it, my husband would attempt to fit all of us in a Smart Car but that's just a little ridiculous.  I mean, there's no backseat.  So when Baby Tierce goes forward facing, we'll have the moment of truth - can we fit another Diono Radian in?  I think we can, otherwise, you just might see us on a bicycle built for five.  

Books Read, to be Read, or to be Re-Read

There are so many now that I'm seeing red. 

Since Nourit one day started devouring books, I've felt this panic to keep the beast fed. 

So a query last week on Facebook I post-ed,

For material she can read by a light in her bed.

Below is a compilation of what you all said.

Hopefully it all will go to her head.

Some we've read,

Some are to be read,

And some will definitely be re-read.

Book List for Nourit

~or Other Girls Age 7~

(to be augmented and edited, as we go...suggestions are welcomed)

The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
A Little Princess - Frances Hodgson Burnett
The Shoe Books - Noel Streatfield
Betsy Tacy Books - Maud Hart
The Littles - John Peterson
The Mouse and His Motorcycle - Beverly Cleary
Ramona Books - Beverly Cleary
A-Z Mysteries
Wayside Stories Series - Louis Sachar
Anne of Green Gables
Trixie Belden Mysteries
The Boxcar Children - Gertrude Chandler Warner
Pippi Longstocking
The BFG, Matilda, James and the Giant Peach, The Twits -  Roald Dahl
Charlotte's Web - E.B. White
From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler - E. L. Konigsburg
Wrinkle in Time - Madeleine L'Engle
Nancy Drew Series
Percy Jackson Series
Judy Moody - Megan McDonald
*Ella Enchanted - Gail Carson Levine
*Spiderwick Chronicles - Tony DiTerlizzi and Holly Black
*Mrs. Piggle Wiggle Books
*Dimwood Forest Books  - Avi
*Little House on the Prairie - Laura Ingalls Wilder
*Chronicles of Narnia - C.S. Lewis
Floors - Patrick Carmen 
The Magicians Elephant - Kate DiCamillo.
Kate DiCamillo Books
Everything in a Waffle - Patty Horvath
*Rump - Liesl Shurtliff

 More Ideas and Links

The Diamond in the Window: For those starting chapter books
A Mighty Girl:  The world's largest collection of books, toys and movies for smart, confident, and courageous girls.

Zazie vs. Toy Piano

Not bad for a first performance, although we'll have to work a little on her hand position.  And perhaps on getting back to the piano for her encore.

If You Give a Mom Alone Time

For awhile now, I've felt a great weight on me, and it's not extra baby weight that needs losing.  (I can thank my mom's genes for that one.)  It's both the physical weight of a 20 lb-er who is in the Ergo more than not, and the mental weight of my to-do list (which includes the to-do list of everyone else in the household.)  Once or twice a week, though, the kids walk out the door without me, a stillness descends on the apartment, and the baby falls asleep.  For a millisecond, after I set her in her crib and shut the door to the bedroom, I'M FREE!  Lighter than air, I can do anything I want to do:  dust the furniture, scrub the toilet, or clean up the dishes from lunch (and yesterday's dinner, and the huge pot from dinner three nights ago...)  The possibilities are endless.  Just like my laundry.

Or, I can read a book.  Except my book is in the bedroom and I'd risk my precious freedom if I snuck in to retrieve it.  I could do some yoga, but my mat is in the bedroom, too.  (I didn't plan my escape very well.)  Practice piano?  Too loud.  Take a nap?  Too much coffee in the morning.  Clean the closet?  I don't want to get into the middle of a project and have to leave it undone.   (And yes, that does sound kinda fun to me, in a sick, sick way.) 

Okay, looks like doing the dishes has won out.  But there are snacks in the kitchen, and once I have my nutella spread on a graham cracker, I need to sit down to eat it.  Preferably at the computer so I can do something useful at the same time, like check Facebook.  The kitchen looks daunting anyway, and I doubt I would even make a dent in the mess before the baby wakes up.  I really want to make this time count since I have so little of it.  I need to do something rejuvenating, something that will give me back at least part of what the kids have sucked out.  Another snack.  Maybe read some news. But that makes me feel even more useless since bad stuff keeps happening in the world and I'm doing nothing to make it a better place.

Maybe I'll just sit still and continue not doing anything.  Breathe.  Meditate.  But from where I'm sitting, I can see the four gaping holes in the wall where the guitar hooks fell out last October, and the pile of books ready to fall off the shelf, and the dust bunnies fornicating under the front desk.  I'll put these on my mental list of 'things to do when I have an entire week to clean and fix the apartment' (or when hell freezes over, because I don't know who is going to take three kids for an entire week while I clean my home.)

Hmm....I wonder what I could do with an entire week alone? 

My Life So Far

It's been 7 months since I made my angry debut into the world, but I am definitely happier than I was that first night.  My mom thought she was in for it when I spent the first 24 hours with a scowl on my face, but now she's thanking God and her lucky stars that I am such a contented kid.  I roll over, I've sprouted two bottom teeth, and am starting to eat real food.  The usual baby stuff.  I have four big people that are around and I've divided them into the Big Parents and the Little Parents.  I have been taught to say 'Mommy', and I think it stands for the smaller of the Big Parents because she gets a giant grin whenever I say it.  The other Big Parent is nice, too, except recently he's been trying to pass this glass and rubber thing off as my milk source, and Mommy it definitely ain't.  I have thus far refused.

The Little Parents look very similar except one seems to come a great deal closer than the other, and by close I mean in-my-face.  I can't see her that way, but whenever she backs up and I can focus, she makes me laugh the most.  What a ham!  But she still scares me a little when she a) runs at me b) lays on top of me, or c) runs at me and then lays on top of me.  I'll get her back, though.  I'm a pretty big baby - bigger than either of my sisters were - and in a few years, I'll sit on top of her and see how she likes it.

Except that I'm really mellow and perhaps won't want to make the effort.  What I do really like, though, is when the Little Parents play music.  My legs starting moving and I can't help it - I love to dance.  I guess it is inevitable since I've been sitting through their piano and violin lessons from time-before-birth.  I'm going to be a kick-ass Suzuki student in a few years!

I'm pretty quiet at this point.  I do growl like a dinosaur when I want to nurse, but that's really all the effort I have to make.  I also don't cry much, but last week, just because I overheard someone saying "Wow, I really haven't heard her cry much!", I cried.  All week.  But it was only because I was sick, and my mom was crying too, and I figured misery needed company.

Since I've been born, I seem to have been supplied with a plethora of containers.  My first container was in the car - super comfy - makes me fall asleep every time I get in.  Then, I had this basket thingy on the ground, and then a teeny bed called a co-sleeper which I refuse to sleep in, so I just stretch out in the big bed next to the Big Parents.  I also have a container on wheels for walking around the neighborhood (and two more already in the garage for when I get older), and recently, I was put in a container that bounces and makes lots of noise.  But I'm not so motivated, so after a bounce or two, I just hang out quietly until someone takes me out.  I have a cool, blue stretchy container that sits near the floor and bounces me to sleep, and now I have a really tall container where they've started to give me food.  (I like-a the squash, but the hummous - not so much.)  But my favorite place to be is in one of Mommy's 3 slings.  With so many containers, I never need to learn to walk!

So here I am - 7 months old, with wonderfully fat thighs and cheeks that get a hundred kisses a day, and a family that seems to function a bit like a circus act.  Food, love, entertainment...what more could I want?

Finding S-E-X in a Word Search

I knew I wouldn't be ready when the day came to talk to the girls about sex.  I had no idea it would be today during homeschool lessons, and I totally botched Phase 1 of Operation: TTYKAS.   I was hoping to send them to their Aunt Chris for The Talk.  She's really good at those kinds of things and I, most decidedly, am not.  I've been mulling it over, planning to peruse Amazon for some incremental books on how to present everything in a developmentally appropriate way, but today, Nourit found the word in a word search and the floodgates are now open.

A couple weeks ago I had the brilliant idea to create a word search to help Nourit practice her spelling words.  The have some nifty little sites online that will formulate them for you if you just input your list.  I'm pretty certain that S-E-X is not a long-A word, but she found it this afternoon in that randomized square of letters, right between B-R-A-V-E and A-F-R-A-I-D.  The moment she said "sex", giggled, and asked, "What does it mean?"  I became very A-F-R-A-I-D.  When she and her little sister started chanting the word, I became downright terrified. 

"I'll tell you later." I mumbled. (Later, like, in a few years...) 

"No!  Tell us now!"  yelled Avi.  "Sex, sex, sex.  Oh, I hope the word doesn't slip out of my mouth at dance class today!"  (Rotten child.)

"NO!" I practically shouted.  "You can't say this word to any of your friends.  See, it's like telling them that Santa Claus isn't real.  It's up to the parents to decide when to talk about it.  So, no saying that word in front of anyone!"

Then it occurred to me.  Where had they heard this word before and how did she know it meant something, well, important?  I mean, they do know all the words to Gangnam Style.  At least, all the non-Korean words which would be..."Sexy La-a-dy."  Or perhaps they overheard me whispering to another mom that Mike and I had pretended like our computer was broken when a (very innocent and darkly lit) sex-scene came on in the PG movie we were watching with them about Mozart's sister.   I tell you, we are worse than teenagers giggling about sex.

At that point, I went to the room where Mike was composing and clued him into the situation just in time for Avi to waltz into the room and ask him what it meant.

"It's like Essex.  The county where Nanny and Papa live.  Get it?  Es-sex."  Nice try, Dad.  I rolled my eyes as Avi relayed the new info to Nourit.

"...and we can't tell anyone because it's where they live - in EsSex - and bad guys will come and steal their jewels."

"But that doesn't make sense." countered Nourit.  She's bright.

At that point, I took a deep breath and figured I'd bite the bullet.  "Okay, it's something that happens between a man and a woman who are married to make a baby."  Nourit's eyes lit up.  "Oh, so I can have sex with Lukas and Oscar since we're married and Avi and Ming Ming are married, and they can have it, too, and we can all have babies!"  Aaaargh! (Side note:  I had recently heard rumors that Nourit was married not only to Oscar, but to Lucas, too.  This was confirmed when she received a Valentine's card from Lukas with a picture of all three of them on it.  We've told her time and time again that that is not allowed in this country.)

I said, "No!  Absolutely not!"  and then left it at that.  I realllly was not ready for this conversation, and left it with a threat that they were not to talk about it to their friends.  Really, this homeschooling thing is for the birds.  Aren't they supposed to get this information AT school?  From a trusted source (their friends' older siblings) in an established forum (the playground)?      

Soon after, Avi left for dance class (please, God, don't let her say the 'S' word in front of the other 4 and 5 year olds.  Especially not in front of the teacher who has a teeny reputation for getting angry at her class for talking, which I totally get and do not fault her for, as she has Avi in her class.)  Nourit comes up with a silly grin and asks me to tell her more.  "What else do you know about it?"  I countered.  "Um, that a man gives his germs to a mom by kissing and they have a baby."  Yeah, I told her.  Something like that.  Did she want to know more?  No, she said.  It was too scary. 

Yeah, for me, too.  

The only thing more embarrassing about talking about sex in front of my kids is talking about sex in front of my parents, so Dad, just pretend like you didn't read this post.

Scenes from the Greenwood Commune Summer Camp

Avital, Lucas, Nourit, Oscar, Ming Ming and Anissa

Chinese Dragon Story 

(sincerest apologies for not realizing my video camera could tape horizontally...)

Greenwood Commune Music Ship

Here's a link to more scenes from the summer camp.