Straps and strep

Timing can be everything. I'm a big seatbelt proponent and a lecturer to anyone who gets in and doesn't buckle up. I have been since I was a teen and got banged up in an accident, long before seat belts were required. I started buckling up before the state told us we had to. My kids follow the rules as they've been added - car seats, then booster seats, then seat belts after they're 8 or 80 pounds.

Coming back after seeing Disney on Ice in Trenton early Saturday afternoon, my 9-year-old in the middle of our van had been complaining of a very sore throat - we found out after we got home that it was strep. Before we left in the morning, I threw a box of juice pouches in the back, and when my older daughter sounded miserable, I asked my 7-year-old to grab them. She reached around; they were a bit too far so she promptly unbuckled and climbed out of her booster seat so she could extend her hand the extra few inches across.

Like I said, timing is everything. I caught sight of her in my rearview mirror, and no sooner had I blurted out "Get back in your seat and buckle back up!" that I saw the flashing lights zooming my way. An expensive juice box, it turned out to be. "Do you know why I pulled you over?" asked the trooper. "Yup, because my daughter unbuckled and got out of her seat." "That's it," he said. He was pretty decent about the whole thing, particularly as flustered moi took a while figuring out which among my collection of registration cards in my glove box was the current one.

Looks like it's going to be about a $45 juice box, but it also gave me a chance to talk about safety with the kids, and how I could have pulled over, that if we were in an accident she could have been badly hurt. If that kind of opportunity isn't "priceless," it at least makes the ticket not sting so much.