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Thursday’s life lesson took place in the unlikely location of a Babies R Us in a strip mall off the exit just past the Asheville Mall, second-rate real estate where the stores squat sadly as if aware they have been banished.

I entered already full of the anxiety large, glowing box stores induce in me, determined to make it to the booster seats and back to my car before I passed out from breathing the oft-recirculated air. The salespeople lacked not in the cheer and charm department, but came up woefully short in terms of knowledge of the store — sending me on more than one jittery revolution of its perimeter before I found the booster seats for eating at the table rather than the booster seats for riding in the car. You could just see them waiting for the call about their application to work at The Children’s Place or Gymboree or some other children’s store ensconced in the more desirable environs of the Mall.

Once I had zeroed in on my target, I found myself in a Mama quandary — which one to buy?

If I were Mike, I would have better spent my time at home on my computer reading Consumer Reports and hunting down the safest, most environmentally friendly, and of course the most cost-effective booster seat to be had. But I’m not Mike. I’m a frazzled mother with a to-do list far longer than the amount of time I have while Jake is at school who suddenly decided she could not tolerate a single day longer of serving as a human booster seat for her child who refuses to eat in his high chair.

Now I was confronted with the choices. The Cooshie Booster was mighty attractive, a simple foam seat that boasted the approval of an upscale parents’ magazine. But its intended age group started at three, over a year and a half past Jake’s age. At more than thirty-five dollars, or the prospect of having to return to a store I dislike on principle for a return, the risk that Jake would topple off of it to fall to the ground amongst the detritus of dried pasta bits and cracker crumbs overlooked by the dogs seemed too high.

And yet the booster seats recommended for his age group seemed so plastic and baby-ish. I probably shouldn’t admit to fretting about his aversion to the straps that adorned the molded plastic Fisher Price booster because it really isn’t up to Jake whether he wants to be strapped in or not. Except it sort of is because we elect to “watch him closely” rather than fight over using safety straps. At any rate, I realized, after careful examination of the picture on the box, the straps secured the child to the seat, but the photo cleverly obscured the disturbing fact that they did not seem to secure the seat to the dining room chair upon which it sits. One thought of Jake falling to the floor with a yellow plastic seat secured to his butt, and I tossed it back on the shelf.

In the end, I went with the ages 3+ Cooshie. And he loves it. He has not fallen out of it once, although he has an alarming habit of twisting around to see if the dogs are in the room so he can tell them “No!” and just this morning I caught him standing up on it.

Still, ignoring what the label said about when my child would be ready for the Cooshie seat has been a lesson well learned. Not just to trust my Mama instincts about my child, but to break away from the set expectations we — and others — create for our lives. Jake, in other words, is far wiser than I because he doesn’t care when the box says his Cooshie is for three-year-olds.

Continue reading ‘Booster Seats and Boosting Yourself’