In my last post I talked about what happened in the fast food drive through with Will.  If you don’t want to go back and read it I’ll just tell you that he ditched the contents of his stomach all over his PJ’s and car seat.

After that, Ben and I had a discussion about how the car seat was going to get clean.  I laundered the fabric portion of the seat (which was not a big deal). But the plastic parts and the straps were daunting.  The last time this happened I put the seat in the bath tub and disassembled it. I don’t know if you’ve ever taken one of these apart to release the straps but screwdrivers are involved and then you wonder if you got it put back together correctly.  You hope that it’s still road worthy after the dissection and reassembly! I was able to soak the straps in the sink and scrub off the bulk of the mess.  But the little nooks and crannies had to be cleaned out with tooth picks and Q-tips.  From start to finish I’d guess that the whole project took me at least two hours.

I included all of these details in Ben and my discussion.  His answer, at first, was, “Let’s just throw it away and buy a new one.”  I explained to him that they are around $200.  Then he came up with the most brilliant idea.  He said, “Maybe the power sprayer at the local car wash would work.”

After 20 minutes (10 minutes of spraying, and 10 minutes worth of drive time, to and from) the entire job was complete.  I left the seat outside in the 90° heat to dry.

Maybe this story does nothing for you.  Maybe you already know about the power sprayer at the car wash.  Maybe you have your own power sprayer at home.  But this got me really excited.  I just got home from taking my grill to the car wash!  It reminds me of the time I discovered I could use my shop vac to get the leaves out of my rock bed.  Who knew?  Actually, a lot of people knew about the shop vac trick.  Every time I tell people about it they are like, “Oh ya, I’ve done that before.”

I would be interested to know if anyone else has washed their children’s car seats at the car wash.