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When I mentioned it to SC, I was almost joking.

"Baby J's legs are starting to stick out of his carseat," I said, as we were leaving Starbucks, "but I'm totally still going to use it as long as we possibly can... I think we can still get another month out of it."

She was quiet for a second.

"Do you want my opinion?" she asked, "Cause if you don't want my honest opinion, tell me, and I won't subject you to it."

Oh no.

"Sure!" I said enthusiastically -- not because I really wanted to hear it, but because since the dawn of recorded humanity, people have always wanted to hear the bad news -- usually first  -- and so you can probably already tell where this is headed.

Yep, when the baby's legs stick out of the seat, the seat no longer can be considered safe. And once you know that, it's really really hard to justify the seat's continued use every time you strap him in. Ah, the bliss of ignorance.

"I think we need a new carseat," I said to Freckles when he got home.

"I'll do some research," he said. One of Freckles' many strengths is that he does research constantly -- and in the case of our son, he is always on the lookout for the best possible option. This is inconvenient in terms of things like family finances and overdeveloped guilt complexes.

His research backed SC up in her considered opinion that we needed a new carseat, like, yesterday, and so Sunday found us en route to Modesto to take a look at Babies R Us.

One of the annoying things about knowledge is that you often learn stuff you really didn't want to know. For instance: Freckles' research convinced him not only that we needed a seat upgrade, but also that, in terms of carseats, you can never pay too much. Every single person and site we consulted told us this was a time when we should tighten our belts even more securely around our already pinched spinal cords and get the best one we could possibly feasibly leave the store with sans police escort.

The one we have is apparently all that and more.

Though it looks virtually identical to every other one (and all of them feature pretty ugly patterns and colors guaranteed not to match any car anywhere in the world, ever), it's also supposedly very very very safe.

And Baby J seems to like it, which is kind of a miracle.

But then Freckles did more research on Monday and told me that an even better one is coming out next year.

You heard it here first: we are NOT buying a new one next year.

Let me say it again: we are NOT buying a new one next year.

If someone comes up with research saying we should, I might have to strangle them with the fossilized remains of my last dollar.