Whoever said variety is the spice of life, wasn’t around a toddler very often. While Thing 2’s bedtime routine is endearing, many of the other routines are quite maddening. Case in point: the daily battle over the brown car seat.
We have two identical car seats for Thing 1 and Thing 2. More accurately, they are what you and I would call identical. Not a toddler. The seats in question are both Britax Roundabouts, identical in every way except one is gray and one is brown.
Part of our morning and afternoon routines is the fight over who gets to sit in the brown car seat. Usually, we make it part of an incentive program to get them out the door faster. Some examples
“Whoever is dressed first gets to sit in the brown seat”
“The one who whines the most sits in the gray seat”
“Whoever sits in the gray seat gets out first”. (Getting out of the car first is another daily fight routine)
We have one gray and one brown seat in both cars. That way, both Suburban Mommy and Suburban Daddy get to experience this daily ritual.
The minute you try to make rational sense out of why the brown seat is worth fighting over, don’t bother. If there is only one kid in the car, they could care less which seat they sit in. In fact, they’ll usually sit in the gray seat by choice. It’s only when their brother is there that they actually care about the color.
I know what you are thinking. Just switch the seats so one car has two grays and other has two browns. Oh, if it were only that simple. When the battle isn’t over color, it is over who sits in the back row of the minivan, or who gets to sit behind the driver, or gets in the car first. I stopped trying to apply logic a long time ago.
The lesson here is to have no variety. In anything. If I were doing it again, I would get two identical cars, with identical car seats. And as we’ve learned, identical also means the exact same color.
Too funny. I can’t wait until they are older and start saying “shot gun” (which in my house growing up was the seat saved phrase for the front seat of the car so that you had control of the radio).
LOL That’s great. I so know how you feel. With 6 kids, you can bet I’ve heard some interesting arguments. How about the one about whose sippy cup has more water? Whose sandwich has more PB&J? LOL I could go on for days.
We have the exact same issue with our booster seats, except one is black and one beige. After weeks of fighting, our Thing 2 explained he does not like the black booster seat. So, now that we finally switched the two, we will see if there is another reason to fight over the seats! Yes, the key to less fighting is buying each one the same exact thing in the same color!