Baby Car Seats

So today I went and got the car seat installation checked out. Apparently, the majority of car seats are installed improperly, so Christine wanted to make sure that our car seat was installed properly. The CHP has free checking of car seat installation for parents on some Saturdays from 8am-2pm, but it is very popular. If you go, I recommend getting there early (7:40am) and putting your name on the list.
The officer at the CHP who did the checking was very knowledgeable, but he didn't do a great job explaining the why's of how to install the seat. The main points could be summarized quickly.

1. The car seat needs to be tight enough so that there is a maximum of one inch of sice to side movement.
2. You can't use latches for the middle seat unless the car is built with specific middle seat latches. I was trying to use one from each side, but the problem with this is that unless the latches are 11 inches apart, the baby seat will have too much side to side motion to be safe.
3. The little seat belt bracket basically converts a shoulder belt to a lap belt, which is what the baby seats are really designed for. But you have to make sure the the lap belt is really tight.

It turned out that some models of the Graco Snug Ride that we inherited from Phil and Sarah were recalled because they were missing pins and/or latches. We checked all the pins and latches on ours and everything was fine.