“I Booster Seat Girl!”

As we left Starbucks this morning, I heard Annabelle instruct Sophie on how to put her “iced mocha” (a kid-sized chocolate milk with ice) into her cup holder.

It was a rite of passage. As you might know, car seats don’t come equipped with cup holders. At least, ours didn’t when we bought them a million years ago.

Yes, Sophie has graduated to a booster seat. Look how grown up she is, slumped down for a nap on the way home from ballet class (I need to figure out how to deal with that, safety-wise, I realize — it’s off to Target for some options) in her Big Girl Booster Seat! 

Both my girls were the last in their sets to hit the all-important 40 pound mark, the signal that it’s time to ditch the car seat. Sophie’s claimed she’s “fahty pounds” for years now, but it wasn’t til last week, when Ray plopped her on the bathroom scale, that her dream came true.

Unfortunately, the booster comes with the freedom to unbuckle oneself at will — something I discovered the hard way yesterday. We’ve already had a couple of terse discussions on the subject.

And then there’s trying to explain that no, as far as I know, they do not make a Yo Gabba Gabba booster seat. She’ll have to settle for something plain.

But mostly, this has been a happy occasion.

As she climbed into the car all by herself this morning, Sophie announced in a super hero voice, “I booster seat girl!”

It’s slow, but she’s growing up.