I had an incident today. I kicked an SUV and looked around for a blunt object with which to smash the windshield while carrying my baby in his bucket seat. Not my finest moment.
Instead of finding a bat handy, when I looked around, I saw a man with his very-pregnant wife pushing a grocery cart to their car (did I forget to mention that I was in a very crowded parking lot at the time?) and nearly burst into tears of gratitude.
“Can you please help me? This person has parked too close to my car so I can’t fit the carseat in and I don’t know what to do!”
The man replied, “is the baby in there? Can you go in the other side?”
This told me a few things right off the bat:
- they were true rookies-to-be. Why would I have an empty carseat in my hand at the grocery store? Aww, how sweet.
- he was helpful and a problem solver.
- they must not have seen me kick the SUV
- and within a minute, my problem was solved!!
Thank you kind strangers!
I couldn’t have put the carseat in by myself going from the other door because of the toddler seat already on that side, but the thoughtful, ingenious father-to-be helped me.
What are you supposed to do when the people are parked too close to you to fit the baby seat back in the car? This happened to me once with Holden too but I had a friend with me…
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This happened to me once and I ended up inserting the seat through the driver’s door and cramming it between the seats to the back seat and into its receptacle. I kept hoping the git who parked next me to would come out so we could converse on the matter, but they were fortunate and didn’t turn up mid-car seat wrestling match.
Now, I would probably put the carrier on the front passenger’s seat and either realign my own car in the parking space or (if there’s not a lot of traffic in the lot) back into the lane behind said SUV and park there for a minute while moving the car seat from front to back.
The SUV driver was very fortunate not to encounter you.
SUV drivers- if you choose to drive giant vehicles- look for car seats and car seat bases when you park and leave ample room. It will seriously improve your car’s chances of avoiding angry mama bear vengeance.
A similar thing happened to me when I was pregnant. I parked somewhere with plenty of room on either side of my car, but when I came out of the restaurant, someone had parked too close (on both sides) so I couldn’t get the door open enough to squeeze in. I was 8 months pregnant at the time and huge. All I could do was cry. My husband was with me and he got in the passenger side and climbed over the console to get in the driver’s seat, then backed out so I could get in. I really don’t know what I would have done if I had been alone.
I just experienced this, too, on a preschool field trip where I had three two-year olds in my back seat. And, I’m 31 weeks pregnant. All three kids had to be inserted through the passenger side back door. Thank god a teacher was there to do the heavy lifting for me. Then, I hoisted my ungainly body from the passenger side front seat, over the center cup holder console thingy, into the driver seat. My pants were pretty much off my butt when all was said and done. My son, upon seeing me maneuver myself through this predicament, said, when I settled into my seat, “There you go, Mommy” as if to remind me that it wasn’t all that bad. I was definitely sweating.
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