Finally Facing Forward

Tuesday night we were finally able to get Ethan his 'big boy' carseat. We hadn't purposely been avoiding buying a toddler, forward-facing carseat, it just happened. First, when Ethan turned a year old, he still wasn't quite 20lbs. - and most of the carseats require them to be at least 20lbs. I think he was almost 19lbs. soaking wet with clothes on! Well, then he got really sick at the end of April - when he was basically on a liquid diet - and dropped down to around 17.5lbs, so we decided to wait. When we finally started seriously looking for a carseat, we couldn't find anything we liked in our price range. The 'cheap ones' were definitely too cheap, and the ones that we liked - easy to use with durable, easily washable fabric were all way out of our price range. We're talking over $150 and some up to $350, about double what we were hoping to spend.

So, we decided to 'bite the bullet' and settle for the one that we so-so liked at Wal-Mart. A good brand, but it still wasn't exactly what we were looking for. On a whim, we decided to check Target just one more time. What luck!! Almost all of their last-year models were on sale!! Half off - even better!! We were so stoked, we couldn't believe our great find. We ended up getting a very nice Eddie Bauer carseat - originally $120 for only $60!! And it had everything we were looking for - even the color was nice (and neutral)! We decided that it's not very often that you can get quality carseats for 1/2 price, so we found another model we liked that was less expensive and got that one as well. Now we are lucky enough to have a forward-facing carseat for each of our vehicles and we left the rear-facing carseat (technically he can use it up to 30lbs) at my parents for back-up. YAY!!! No more carseat juggling. What a relief. And, of course, our little boy loves his new 'big boy', forward-facing carseat - it's a whole new perspective on car rides!