Considering it’s a messy job to clean out the child’s potty, the flushing reward is actually brilliant.
4 Likes
I draw targets on a piece of toilet paper and have them try to hit the target!! Works great!!
3 Likes
That’s a wrap on Cousin Camp 2025 at Gammy and Pop’s house! We have 3 who are local and 2 about 11 hours away. The kids had a ball spending the week together and kept us in stitches. One adult, quite literally.
We had outings to the children’s museum, minor league baseball game, playgrounds and since it was soooo hot, many visits to the pool. The zoo was scrapped due to the heat. Make your own taco night was a big hit. We even had a birthday celebration thrown in there. We had “Cousin Camp 2025” t-shirts and made a trip to the bookstore where everyone was allowed to choose a new book.
Gammy and Pop are a little tired, but already making plans for next year!
I will say, the day my last grandchild graduates from a car/booster seat, I am throwing a huge party! I am so over playing musical car seats and making sure every car seat and child are fastened properly!
15 Likes
OMG I hear you on the car seats. When we do our babysitting weeks at the shore, we have to use D’s car because that’s the one the seats are in and D doesn’t like moving them around if avoidable, and getting them in and out is work! They’re 6 and 4, and graduating out of car seats still seems like the distant future.
4 Likes
DS brought the travel car seat and the booster. Moved them several times (sometimes b/c of who they wanted to ride with, sometimes to separate them!) . A bit of a pain, but it worked.
The car seats are a pain. We pick up one of the grandkids from preschool one day a week. We had a seat in one car but found ourselves having to go home and switch cars if we weren’t out in the car with the seat. We ended up buying a 2nd so we have one in each of our cars. We now have two at preschool but haven’t yet started picking them up together. It means two seats in one car most likely mine. It’s so hard to move them that I’m likely to be driving around with two seats. The other day my husband was attempting to get my GS out of his seat and he said “grandpa let grandma do it, she knows how.”
10 Likes
We are thrilled t learn that the 3 grands will be picked up & dropped off by the private school’s bus service right in front of the house when school starts this fall. The school typically has cluster stops–but with 3 kids at same address, I guess we make up our own cluster.
Last year, the twins were at one school and GS at a different one (because he was too young for the preschool program at the twins’ school.) This upcoming school year, they’re all at the same school.
The bus service is a huge relief. This past school year with 2 different schools at 2 different locations with 2 different start and end times, it was taking one adult 3+ hours/day to do drop off & pick up.
11 Likes
The seats are a real PITA, agree. We have one permanently installed in our car for the youngest. Coworkers at first looked puzzled when I told them I could only give a ride to 3 people in my car to out to lunch. Oh, we can squeeze 3 in the back seat! No you can’t 
No way I’m removing the seat!
8 Likes
I’d call it a benefit not having to drive to lunch because of the car seats!
Booster seats are easier.
2 Likes
My kids were both so light that if we really followed guidelines about weight, they should have been in booster seats much longer than we opted to keep them in them. We decided after a certain age, we’d take our chances with seat belts — I think it was 4th grade or so.
3 Likes
I hear you all on car seats. We just borrowed DS/DDIL car yesterday to take GS to the museum. By current standards, if I understand correctly, they’re rear-facing until they get their license 
11 Likes
My kids were also tiny. D#1 was rear facing until she was almost 2 and I asked the pediatrician if she could turn around. Weight wise, she was not supposed to (I think she weighed about 18 pounds at 2 years old) but her legs were all scrunched up. Both were in their 5 point harness seats well into grade school, maybe 2nd grade? Then they moved to high back booster seats. One day I looked at D#1 and saw that her head was above the seat. Seat only went to 59" and she was right there. We had to go back to the no-back booster that we’d used for ‘guest’ in my car or when they were in someone else’s car.
Colorado requires a booster seat until 56" tall. We didn’t actually comply as my kids weren’t 60" until high school. Really. One daughter was getting treatments at Children’s hospital until right before she started hs and was JUST under 60" and was trying so hard to make it to 5’ tall before high school.
They did sit in the back seat until they started hs school.
2 Likes
They rear face much longer these days. Oldest grandkid is over 3 and still faces backwards.
3 Likes
My niece has a very cool car seat—it pivots so it’s MUCH easier to put child in & remove than the old seats we had back in the day. She also has a car seat that becomes a stroller, another thing we never had!
That said, car seats are VERY bulky and boosters less bulky. Those of us with petite youngsters have longer to wrestle with these gadgets.
1 Like
My younger daughter has a Chicco that pivots. It makes life so much easier. I didn’t want to spend that much for my car and it is a pain in the back to lift the kids in.
1 Like
Two grandkids, S1, and DIL are coming to visit this Wednesday. It’s a BFD 'cause they have to take a plane to get here. (That’s a thrill for them, in and of itself.) We really only have them for two and a half days, since Saturday they drive to visit some of DIL’s relatives and then they leave Sunday midday. Just long enough, IMO.
5 Likes
This Gammy drives….a Mini Cooper! Try getting a little one in a rear facing seat in that!!! Then add the adjacent forward facing seat of their sibling and it really makes for some fun times.
Don’t laugh, but I found that it was actually easier to climb in through the trunk and hoist the baby over the back seat. I’m truly amazed I never dislocated something or lost a digit!
Yes, lots of strange looks came my way.
When it was time for a new car, I moved to a Countryman specifically to have 4 doors and an easier time with the car seats.
6 Likes
Before my DD1 got a bigger vehicle, she found it easier a few times to buckle 3rd row seat kids (who needed help) through the trunk. 5 car seats in their ‘bigger vehicle’ - 3 slimmer car seats in 3rd row. Second vehicle has two car seats (and can move the baby’s carrier to buckle in w/o the base for carrying 3 children). My vehicle will be used by DD1 or SIL while I drive the kids back and forth during my visit. It seems with the most recent school placement for GD1/2nd grade, the school is near DD1’s work - she is on the wait list for school with GS1 (he is in 1st grade).
My dear friend and I are both short. We joke that according to the new car seat laws, we should both be sitting in one!
I drive my local GD around as she spends the night at time, and I will pick her up from school. I have a high back booster for her that I leave in my car. When my son visits, his daughter will sit in the booster, but I have to install the very bulky car sit for 2 year old GS. We all hate this car seat as it is hard to install, and to get latched properly, but not enough to buy a new car seat. I figure he will be in a booster before we know it, although I have been tempted as I really do hate this car seat!
When I purchased my new car last year, one of my requirements was the car needed to be able to squeeze an adult between the 2 kids in the back. While my DIL has poured herself between her kids, her build does not make it easy, so small me gets the honors! Typing this makes me dread putting that car seat in tomorrow before they arrive Thursday; maybe I will buy that slim fit car seat afterall.
7 Likes
I just finished 3 days with my son’s three kids (6,4 &2). I drive their minivan when I am there. At least all three can climb in their seats on their own and the 6 year old can buckle herself in.
Last week when I was home I got a call from my daughter asking if I could pick up her 3 year old at daycare (he had a tummy ache). I got there and realized I had taken my car seat out when my car was serviced, so back home I went. Luckily I live 10 minutes away. But it was a 20 minute mistake.
2 Likes