Professional Help

Mom, Dad and Jonas are in California this week catching up with some old friends, family and a little bit of work thrown in for Dad. We had a relatively uneventful trip yesterday but were faced with a travel quandary that has plagued parents for years: Take our own car seat with us or rent one along with a car? At the time, it seemed like rent-one-along-with-the-car seemed the logical choice. Why bring along a bulky car seat when we could just get one there? But we're not sure what Dad was thinking because he didn't quite realize he'd actually have to install that unfamiliar rental car seat once we got there. And so it was that Dad had himself a mini-meltdown trying to match a variety of car seat options made available to us (each more confounding than the one before it) with the car option we chose—and not getting anything to line up as it should. The result was a worried Dad who sent Mom off in her rental car with the following plea: Go find a fire station and have someone check this thing. Mom indeed came through, and as a bonus, Jonas got quite a side trip on his triumphant return to his native state. Here's a look at how Jonas benefited from Dad's inability to install things he's not familiar with...