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I can blame Brandon for this one.  Aidan is definitely built like his Daddy.  Tall with a very long torso.  Aidan is already over 38 inches tall.  If you chart that on growth charts, you will find he is above the 97th percentile.  And the long torso/short legs (relatively speaking) is the luckiest thing we could have asked for in regard to his little preemie lungs.  For the uninitiated, BPD (bronchopulmonary dysplasia) is a common preemie diagnosis, especially for babies who were ventilated for a more than a month.  Aidan was ventilated for almost 7 weeks.

 When he was discharged home, one of the first doctors we saw was a pulmonologist at Children’s Hospital.  She told us we could expect to see her to monitor Aidan’s respiratory status/progress for about 4-5 years.  In November of 2006, we saw her to get her OK for Aidan to have a minor surgery.  Since he would need to be sedated, the pulmonologist needed to sign off on his lung function and that sedation was OK.  She took the standard X-rays and listened to Aidan breathing in a variety of different ways for about 10 minutes.  I thought perhaps something was wrong.  When she began smiling, I didn’t even know how to process a doctor smiling listening to his lungs. 

She said, “You are about to get rid of your first specialist.  Aidan’s lungs look and sound wonderful.  Unless something completely unforeseen happens, this will be the last time I get to see your little boy.”  HOLY CRAP!  Are you kidding me?!?!?  Wow!  Aidan was only 1 year old adjusted and we were done with the pulmonologist?  She explained that his growth was so amazing for an ELBW (extremely low birth weight) baby and his torso in particular was long.  She figured that us keeping him on oxygen for those first 4 months home (the winter months) had helped him grow and his lungs were recovering nicely.  I almost would have asked for a second opinion except that this particular pulmonologist is very conservative.  Harvard trained.  She doesn’t like to take chances.  When we first brought Aidan home she advised we keep him on oxygen even though he was achieving minimum oxygen saturation goals.  She explained that it was still a lot of work for him to breathe.  She told me, “He can either use the calories he takes in to breathe or grow.  I prefer that he grow.”  It was a sacrifice to do home O2 for 4 months, but oh-so-worth it. 

 So this brings me to the $400 part of the story.  A 5 point harness child car seat is required in our state until he is at least 4 years old and 40 pounds.  At that point, if you wish, you can use a booster.  Aidan is not even 2 1/2.  I recently noticed his shoulders were at the top harness slot height on his Britax Decathlon.  Ahem….isn’t this car seat good up until 65 pounds?  Yes, but I guess not for freakishly tall toddlers.

Aidan is only about 32 pounds, but in height was rapidly outgrowing his car seat.  Ugh.  What options did this leave me with?  About 3.  Total.  THREE types of car seats that would work for him.  The choices were: 

• Radian 80–Tall enough in the torso, but very narrow.  Maybe better suited for a girl with it having such narrow shoulder room.  Scratch.
• Britax Regent–Wide enough and tall enough.  But is didn’t look like it offered much side impact protection.  Plus, once this is in the back seat, you will seriously never be able to have 3 occupants in the back seat ever again.  This thing is a beast.
• Safeguard Child Seat–Tall enough and wide enough but not too wide.  Lots of really amazing features.  But….*GULP*…$400.

No real choice in the matter….I ordered the Safeguard.  What an amazing seat.  He has at least 3 more inches of torso growth left in this thing.  For anyone that has ever had to use a childseat, you would appreciate all of the geez whiz features on this thing.  A self adjusting harness height system that adjusts when you adjust the headrest height.  No more removing the car seat and reweaving the harness straps through the  appropriate hole height as your child grows.  A retracting harness mechanism.  Cool!  And the self-ratcheting latch system makes this car seat almost impossible to install.  If you are a geek for this kind of thing at all, you must go check it out.

 Hubby was dumbstruck.  $400.  Ouch.  After I had assured him that the nearly $300 Britax we bought would be Aidan’s last carseat until a booster.  He kidded me and said I would need to find a way to “earn” the money for another carseat if I turn out to be wrong on this Safeguard.

 I said don’t blame me.  Go look in the mirror, Mr. Torso.  That is most certainly YOUR freakishly tall toddler.