But it gave me a chance to use the word neophyte

So we moved Little Baby Henry into his new convertible carseat this week.  We probably could have done it sooner (although he's not over the weight limit for the seat and had a smidge left on the height) but the pull of the convenience of the bucket carrier for car-to-house naps was a little too strong.

I keep telling Paul that Henry looks so little in his big seat!

Yesterday afternoon, the hum of the open road (or ABQ city streets as we ran a couple of errands) and the comfy new seat were too much to resist and the backseat went quiet.  We were about 10 minutes from the house and as Henry is not easily transferable for naps, I wanted to give him just a little more sleepy time.  To the car wash we went since my car desperately needed it.

There was another car in the automatic wash bay and it was showing that she was on the final rinse cycle so I opted to wait.  The blowers came on and the driver eased forward just a bit but not enough that her back tires were off the little thing you drive up on to position the car in the bay.  The dryer did its thing and she still sat there.  Because she'd not moved during the dryer cycle, I'm assuming the mechanisms thought the next car had entered the bay.  As the driver started forward, the "Reverse" light started flashing.  So she did.  And sat there.  For what seemed like forever but was probably just a minute or two.  The "Go" light in the bay wasn't illuminated but it was for me outside the bay.  And so, she sat.  She tried going forward again and again, the "Reverse" light illuminated.  So she did.  And sat there.

At this point, I'm trying to figure out what to do to help this poor clueless car wash neophyte.  A car had pulled in behind me but left when the other driver reversed the first time.  I think she saw the writing on the wall.  I'd already paid for my wash so I wasn't leaving.  I had a sleeping Henry in the backseat so I didn't really want to leave to find the attendant to help the driver.  I debated getting out and running up to her car to explain what was going on.  I honestly had enough time for all these thoughts to go through my head several times because we were still sitting there for a good minute before I did the only thing I could decide to do.

I honked.

And still we sat.  I debated honking a little more forcefully because my first honk had been the polite beep you do to get someone's attention at a light or the car wash bay as the case may be.  After a little bit of hesitation on her part, she successfully cleared the car wash bay, finally ignoring the light and allowing me to enter and get my own car cleaned.  (I can just imagine her telling whomever about her crazy experience at the car wash and how it had her trapped.)

Unfortunately, the extra minutes we had to wait to start the car wash ended up being Henry's undoing.  He's not a good napper--he will catnap throughout the day, generally taking 3 or 4 thirty minute naps.  We think we're doing great if he sleeps 45 minutes and are over the moon at hour-long naps.  (Don't even get me started on the joy of a recent 2-hour nap.)  This was one of his catnaps and as it was already 20 minutes into the nap by the time we got to the car wash so during one of the final cycles, Henry woke up.  And the spraying and the bubbles and the noise scared the bejeebus out of him.  I was trapped in the car with sweet Henry securely strapped into his new car seat and having a screaming fit.  One of my finer parenting moments of the past 7 months.  Thankfully, I know to pull forward when the dryer starts and we got out of the scary car wash and headed home to finish out the afternoon with a 45 minute nap.  Apparently the trauma of the car wash was good for some extra nap time.