Three in Car Seats

I've been having a lot of what I'm going to call practice contractions this week--definitely not false labor because that's just a really depressing way of thinking about things isn't it?  With the boys I just had contractions and then a baby, none of this warming up nonsense, and I have to say I'm not loving it.  These practice contractions did send me into a bit of a panic last weekend with the realization that this baby might not be as obliging as his brothers and arrive precisely the day after he is due and perhaps I should get a few things ready.....you know, like the car seat...... hospitals get finicky about having things like that and I have a feeling they won't let us just walk the baby home even though we can see our house from the hospital.

I told Chris that he should probably go out to the garage and dust off old faithful for one more go round before he expires and has to be replaced.  Chris looked at me with squinshed up eyes and said in a worried voice, "why?"  I calmly told him that it was probably nothing.....which turned out to be true......

He did get the car seat ready and cleaned out our very-much-in-need-of-a-cleaning minivan.  Then the big question arose, how to rearrange the children?

Since our van isn't one of the new whamadine models that fits three car seats in the middle row, we decided to put both the boys in the back so that no one was lonely and things were fair--heaven forbid one of them got to sit next to the baby but not the other.  This way we have a "seat for guests" next to the baby as David puts it  :)

I think this is going to work out pretty well for us.  David likes that he has a secret compartment next to his seat now and Henry likes that he gets to sit next to David and can hide in the back seat where it is physically impossible for me to access him if he chooses not to want to exit the vehicle--which only happens every.time.we.get.out.of.the.car.  Soon enough his fun will be over and I too will once again be able to fit into tight spaces without becoming permanently lodged.

In more exciting news, baby gifts have started arriving on our doorstep, including this car seat cover from aunt Elizabeth which makes old faithful look pretty fancy indeed......do you love the chevron?

Yeah, we're pretty hip round these parts.........you know, minus the whole, I'm 30 and drive a minivan thing......

Does anyone else have any tips for fitting three littles in car seats all at once?  We'll probably have five in car seats eventually since kids today should apparently stay harnessed into their rear facing seats until they turn thirteen or so.......