You learn by doing. Or in this case, by not doing...

So if you ever thought to yourself, "Those car seat buckles are too complicated. Surely you don't need to buckle more than the chest strap. That double-crotch-buckle is overkill, right?" you were wrong.

And let me tell you why.

In a sleep-deprived fog, I strapped a screaming O into his car seat and got behind the wheel. About 90 seconds later he is screaming in a much more adamant tone, but slightly muffled. I am alarmed, confused, and snap out of my haze to pull over, turn around fully in the front seat, and see what the problem is.

My child, the wiggly one who can't sit still for more than a nanosecond unless he is strapped down/in, had wiggled himself down and rolled over, with the chest strap of his car seat mushing his face into the seat of it, his legs all askew against the back seat of the actual car, and his arms crunched underneath him.

Oh horror of horrors!

It really was scary that he did that so fast, and that he could have easily suffocated himself if he'd been stuck like that for long. He was weepy and upset when I got him out (for good reason) and I was, too.

It was not fun.

So the next time you think those multi-buckle contraptions are being overly cautious, just remember that without all those things holding your kid in, they will find a way to get out.

Now if they would just ADD some more buckles to the high chairs at restaurants, maybe O would stop climbing out of them...