Don't hate me because I'm smart

Remember my comment yesterday about how I like puzzles. This is a tale of yet another puzzle I had to tackle. I went to Babies R Us a couple days ago to use a super fantastic coupon on cases of diapers. I had just placed an order from Amazon for a case and thought if the BRU price was cheaper I would just cancel the online order. I checked before I left work and my order hadn't processed yet so I left. This was my first time in a BRU and I couldn't believe how big it was. And well lit! There were giant signs labeling the aisles that you could read from any vantage point in the store. 5 feet in the door and I could see where the diapers, car seats and infant section was. And let me tell you about the selection - holy cow! No matter what you need or don't need, they have it. I took a quick trip down the bottle aisle. They had everything. Dr. Browns, Avent, Playtex, Soothies, First Years, Breastflow, Gerber. You name it, they had a bottle section for it. I probably did a bad thing when I grabbed a Breastflow bottle out of it's container to poke at the nipple part. I'm very tactile and need to touch everything and was curious about this particular bottle since my friend mentioned she would be using it for her son. Anyhoo, it's a two part system that simulates the breast, it's quite fascinating. So I poked at it, put it back and set out for the diaper aisle. The diaper aisle is set up on rollers, similar to the milk coolers at the grocery store. You take one out and the rest scoot down into place...it's never empty. Sure enough, the price was right and I loaded 2 cases into my cart and got excited about cancelling the more expensive online order. We'll see how long it takes JT to go through 372 diapers and sixty one dollars and ninety eight cents. I didn't have that much time for lunch to dilly dally so I headed back to the front so I could check out. Speaking of checking out, it was nothing short of a pissing contest among the women in there. I saw only one other shopper who didn't have a kid with them. Walking down the aisles presented you with two options - keep your eyes straight ahead to avoid getting sucked into an impulse buy or match the stares of the other moms to see what stroller they had, cart cover fabric they had and what outfit their kid was in. I did a little of both. : ) I made no impulse buys but I was checking out other kids. I've never been real good at guessing how old kids are and I thought now that I had one I might be better. Umm...nope. I got in the line of the giggly clerk and behind the woman who had a relatively cute little girl and a small amount of items. I stood there and looked at the way she was buckled into her car seat. It didn't look right. I ran my eyes down the straps, checked out the buckle and looked to see if it was different than mine. No, not so much. I got a cold feeling and thought, "oh no, she has her baby buckled in wrong!" I stood there and bit my lip while trying to decide if I should say anything. I figure as a fellow mom I have the right and duty to say something. Not too point out her wrong doing but to make sure her little bundle of joy was safe! I got lost in my self-debate and next thing I know the giggler is asking me for my phone number and if I found everything alright. The woman was gone. Pushing my cart out in the parking lot I was thinking again about the baby and the strap issue. I got to my car, threw the diapers into the truck and noticed another mom with her baby on the ground (in the car seat) and trying to figure out what to do with the cart and her baby. I offered to take her cart to the cart corral. She looked at me like I was on crack so I said, "i'm still learning how to do that stuff, too...dont' worry about it, have a good afternoon". She smiled and said thanks and went on her way and I felt good that my good mom deed had been done for the day. It wasn't until my drive home that I thought about the carseat issue again. I was picturing how we put JT in his car seat and how different it looked from the lady at the store. And the more I thought about it, the more I was certain of the truth. I got home relatively tired but not as sleepy as I was on the way into work. (I counted 1 police car, 1 sherriff and 4 red lights this time) As we were feeding the dogs and fixing my supper I told Kevin about the seat scenario. I squinched up my face and said, "I think we've doing it wrong all this time" as I put JT in his seat and buckled him in the way the lady in the store had her daughter. Sure enough, folks, we've been putting the kid in wrong. I mean, not in the seat wrong like he's sitting on his head, but we've been making the strap issue more complicated than it needs to be. No wonder the kid's been hollering! The last couple of times I found it hard to get his chubby legs through the strap and felt bad that they squished his (not so) little thighs. Well for Pete's sake! His legs aren't supposed to go through there at all! The strap was supposed to go over his shoulder and under his arm, not under his arm AND Leg. "I thought you read the directions? I was just doing it the way you showed me..." That was Kevin's response to my horror. Hmph. I didn't say I read it correctly. Don't forget that I was a ball of hormones when I put that together! We looked down at JT sitting in his car seat, correctly, all smiles and legs going a mile a minute. It's a good thing JT likes me so much - he seems to have forgiven me already. And I imagine that our next trip in the car is going to be a quieter and much more comfortable one.