When little Reginald (as I’m insisting on calling him, Carolina) arrives, we shall have three kids of car-seat-needing size. One will need an infant seat, one a regular seat, and the third a booster. The second could have a booster right now, if necessary. Reg will convert to a regular car seat before the eldest outgrows the need for a seat (at least 2 years unless we stretch her on a rack or something). We have one car, a Toyota Camry.

Can anyone suggest a way of accomodating the three needed seats in the back of a 2002 Camry? We’ve done a good deal of research and can’t figure it out, and are highly resistant for numerous reasons, to exchange the Camry for a van.

One solution, of course, would be to let the eldest out of the car seat prematurely. I’ve calculated that in the 2 years to go she will be driven an a total of 3000 city miles max (almost all of them in daylight and not during rushhour) and exactly 2000 highway miles (those in 2 trips, for each of which we could hire a van). How much is it worth paying to keep her the amount safer that a booster seat makes her (this sounds like a question for Levitt, or Daniel — and the “car seats and booster seats are no safer because no-one installs them properly” gambit won’t work in this case because one thing I have learned as a parent is how to install just about any car seat in just about any car properly [to forestall comment on this, I do know that this is not a fair representation of Levitt’s argument, which is about public policy, and at that level has a ring of plausibility, but I’m interested in individual choice here]).

Anyway, I want an answer to the first question, but the second would be interesting at least.

The World Cup is only a week away, which means there is actually a reason to be in Tucson in June, if like me you (i) want to watch the games but (ii) are too cheap to buy the cable package and (iii) only have a useless old TV in the garage somewhere. (We’re close enough to the border to pick up the Mexican stations.) “Here”:http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,1790025,00.html is a self-hating Englishman, deciding to support Germany because English footballers are oiks and English football fans are thugs. At least you’re in the competition, mate, unlike “some countries”:http://www.fai.ie/ I could mention. (“Here”:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2tjfbNRdz8 is some nostalgia. It’s all we have.) Given Ireland’s regrettable absence, I think I will be cheering for the “Socceroos”:http://www.footballaustralia.com.au/, seeing as my daughter was born in Canberra. The Aussies “have to play Brazil”:http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/world_cup_2006/4973552.stm in their group. Probably their best bet is to hope the Brazilians will be confused by the Australian kit, which looks a lot like Brazil’s. I’m also hoping that the “U.S. team”:http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/world_cup_2006/teams/usa/default.stm does well, just because it will piss off the footie snobs.

Meanwhile, here are two terrific bits of World Cup commentary, both much better than the now-hackneyed “Gol” guy: a clip in Arabic from “Kuwait vs Czechoslovakia”:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6IS48giKs1U in 1982, and one in Dutch from the last minute of “Holland vs Argentina”:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HqEWpHuib9A in 1998. Both commentaries are out there in the realm of religious/sexual ecstasy.