All About a Car Seat

It was all about the car seat, the baby car seat.

You know the type—the ones new moms or dads hold on one arm while transporting a sleeping baby? The ones that rock and have flexible sun shades? A few months ago, my two-year-old graduated out of her portable car seat. She didn’t grow out of her baby car seat, she’d just finally made the weight requirements necessary for the front facing chair. The transition happened without a hitch, she happily took to her new ride…until today.

One of the perks of being so small is that the baby car seat is her back-up. Today she needed her back-up seat for a friend to drop her off. So, I packed her baby car seat into the car next to her big girl’s seat and went back into the house to gather a few more belongings for our trip to my friend’s house. When I walked back to the car, there sat Felicity, happily smiling and cozily ensconced in her baby car seat. Naturally, expecting reason from my two-year-old, I told her she needed to sit in her big girl’s seat.

Devastation, complete, tear-drenched devastation was followed by my wrestling of her into the other seat. A little girl’s dream, her accomplishment had been crushed.

It seemed so small a thing, moving her from the baby car seat to the big girl seat, but in her little world, it was huge. And why shouldn’t it be huge? That seat sheltered her on her first car ride home from the hospital. Almost every day of her little life she spent some time in that seat. It was a cozy, comfortable place.

I paused.

How often do I take refuge in the cozy comfort of a loved place that maturity dictates I move beyond? Compassion should frame my response to my daughter, but also the knowledge that it is for me to teach her how to let go of beloved comforts and embrace the maturity of new spaces. Then I need to remember that I too, must move sometimes beyond comfortable places. And pray that I have the wisdom to recognize when a new maturity is being asked of me.

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