Rats! Another random memory

Let me start with a major disclaimer.  I have never ever claimed to be a good mom.  In fact I'm not sure I've ever been a good mom for more than a few hours at a time.  This is another one of those confession blogs where my daughters-in-law will be amazed their sweet husbands ever survived their childhoods.

Today I read on an online forum about a missionary in another country who found baby rats in the bin where they kept their children's stuffed animals.  She was asking the advice of other moms whether to try to wash the toys and keep them or just throw them out. 

That triggered a vivid memory from the early days in Guatemala.  Another squeamish mom was taking things out of her bodega (storage room), and discovered that rats had gotten into her belongings, too.  She refused to let her daughters use anything that had been infected.  Who could blame her, right?

Well, being more practical than squeamish myself, and being in need of a larger car seat, I begged a perfectly good but partially rat-chewed car seat off my friend and proceeded to use it for four consecutive children after washing and bleaching the vinyl cover.  (See the photo above)

What you younger moms may be wondering is how I could do such a thing, not that I exposed the babies to who knows what germs and infectious diseases, but that I recycled the same car seat so many times.  Back then, infant carriers didn't have expiration dates, and in Mexico there was no local fire department to check the safety of each car seat. 

What's even worse is that sometimes we would have a full van load of people going someplace with us, and we would unbuckle the car seat and wedge it in between the driver's and the front passenger's seats, facing the rear of the van.  It gives you shivers to imagine such negligence, but honestly I could not imagine turning people away or telling them they'd have to walk to church or home in the dark just so each of my children could be safely buckled into car seats. 

Instead we would put older kids on laps, put the car seat on the floor like I said, and double up, cramming a ridiculous number of people in our vehicle.  To have done less would have proven us unloving and selfish.  Safety is not a value down here, but hospitality and generosity are. 

Mercy, though, if my children accuse me of being careless with them, what about my own parents?  When I was little, cars didn't even have seat belts!  Now that I have a granddaughter (I had to throw that in here someplace), I am very thankful for the safety of infant car seats available today.

Oh, and I just happen to have a photo of a modern infant car seat/ carrier.  Maybe you can guess who the baby is.  Her daddy is the one in the booster seat in the photo above.

(In case you needed a close-up of the little model baby)