OMG.

Ana had a writing assignment, "A Special Member of My Family". She was supposed to write about a member of her family, somebody she'd, say, like to spend a whole day with.

She was SUPPOSED to do this on Thursday, but that didn't happen. This wasn't solely the fault of the blackout, let's be honest here, but that was a big factor in this.

She could've done it Friday morning, but she was too busy not-doing her math homework. So she really ought to have done it over the weekend, but I'm guessing her mother didn't remember to tell her father, and Ana sure wasn't gonna bring it up!

So on Monday, in the library, when I see it's still. not. done I told her we HAD to do it that night. No more dawdling. No more delays. And she actually, with a lot of work and effort (and a small break while I was picking rosemary to pour nail polish all over the table, ye gods, she's seven!), did manage to put out about a page of work (she skips lines, though, so it's not as much as all that) before dinner. Except that she completely forgot the focus of her composition ("It's NOT a composition!" she tells me this morning. Ana, honey, you're being stubborn for the sake of being stubborn. You don't even know what a composition is, but if you think arguing the point will get you out of doing your work you are sadly mistaken) and went off on a wild tangent about being adopted by her teacher in Scotland and having Audrey (of the Outback, a book she's totally reading all by herself*) as her REAL sister.

So I forcibly dragged her back to her subject this morning, forbade her from erasing any of it except those last two crazy sentences, and gave her very strict instructions: Write WHY you picked your sister. Not why we're all mean. Not why you hate me. WHY. YOU. PICKED. YOUR. SISTER.

The drama! The angst! Three sentences telling us that her sister is funny and not mean like the rest of the family doesn't yell is the only nice one besides Mommy TELLS JOKES?

I might as well have asked her to write a dissertation on the meaning of friendship. In Greek.

She finally, finally, FINALLY managed to get out a few chunkily written sentences, pencil grasped firmly in the fist of doom so I could know how much she hates this. At this point we were late, so I grabbed everybody, threw them out the door, and ran to school, arriving JUST in time.

As writing assignments go, this is much improved over "Write about your day. Every day. FOREVER!!!!" and none of this would've happened if she hadn't refused to do it when it was assigned.

*Last year's teacher, of course, told me outright that she couldn't put Ana in a higher reading group because she wouldn't write about what she read and therefore maybe she didn't comprehend what she was reading. Yeah. Ana's reading full-on chapter books now and talking about them, so I don't think her comprehension was ever the problem. She just doesn't like to write.

So, Pat's Papers has an article up about car seats

Specifically, the AAA is considering changing their recommendation to encourage parents to rear-face their kids until the age of two.

They're about a decade behind the times here (although apparently they're still just ahead of the AAP on this), but you know, it's something.

However, you'll note that over at Pat's Papers he's going "I'm doubtful it'd work for two year olds, they'll complain about what they can't see".

OMG, did that ever set my internet argument senses tingling! Fortunately, armed with years of experience on LJ I was able, within minutes, to find a video showing the view from a rear-facing carseat. Wow, look - the baby can see things! I also can find videos showing older children in RF-carseats interacting with other family members, sitting comfortably or sleeping even though their legs are crossed or tucked up or kicked up on the seat back (including one where the poster specifically commented that now that her child is bigger he complains about his feet dangling, and he never complained before!), and generally being happy.

Which wipes out most of the common arguments. NOT the one about space in the car (there probably are ways to make your rear-facing carseat take up less space, or more compact ones, but I don't know) and NOT the one about what to do if your child really DOES scream all the time in the carseat, but not when forward-facing. (In real life, I understand that this can be a problem. However, I do not think it is responsible to mention it as a HUGE problem when you haven't tried it and you're talking to other people who haven't tried it. Don't discourage them first! Not unless you're selling condoms, in which case the cost of carseats can be a selling point.)

The thing is, when it comes to really fast really heavy vehicles? Safety actually comes first. This is not a "OMG, if I let my kid play outside she'll be kidnapped and killed!!!!" issue because that actually doesn't happen very often. And it's not a "OMG, there's no WAY I can let my 10 year old stay in the house alone, she'll burn the house down!!!" because if that's actually likely to happen then you and your kid probably need help. Car crashes, by contrast, are actually THE number one killer of children under the age of 15 (that is, non-drivers), killing about 2,000 kids yearly. And they seriously injure or permanently disable countless others.

Proper car seat safety doesn't unreasonably limit your child (I mean, they're in a CAR, it's not like they could move that much anyway) and it could save your kid's life. Maybe not in the worst, most epic disaster ever... but certainly in many more garden-variety crashes. (And yeah - sure, all us people posting online today survived bad carseats and no carseats. However (and I hate to use this argument, but I'm going to!), plenty of other children didn't. Unless you expect them to post from beyond the grave or something...?)