So, as promised, the seatbelt story.

Yesterday morning, as I was starting the automobile� I yelled my normal �Buckle up for safety, buddy-boy!� to my son as he climbed onto his booster in the back. [ Minor Digression: He actually is no longer legally required to use a car-seat or booster as he is over the height and weight requirements already before the age of six. Thin and tall, and muscular, he very nearly doesn�t need the seat-belt thingy that keeps it from being across his neck. But we use the booster both for him to see better and for my comfort in having the belt perfectly across his shoulder and middle. Digression ends.]

So, I climbed in DaCar, and let him get himself in� and suggested that he belt properly as noted above.

I was starting the car, fiddling with my coffee, my cell, the CD player for his morning Persuasions Fix (lately the album Chirpin� with the song Papa Ooo Mow Mow.)

And this voice in the back seat pipes up�

�Dad?� [I looked in the mirror and he went on clattering with the seatbelt on the buckle�] �Geez, dad.� Sighing� �I think I am destined to spend the rest of my life trying to put my thing in�.� [His father stifled an out of context laugh.] Clattering noises continued. �I mean, really. Am I destined to always be trying to put it in? Am I?!? Cause this is frustrating, if so.�

[Without blowing coffee through his nose and breaking up� his father nodded at him.]

Click.

�Got it in, dad. That feels better even though I am going to have to try again soon.�

His father started to laugh in a near-mad trying-to-control-the-giggles-laugh.

�You are laughing with joy again, right dad? You are proud of me for getting it in, right?� And through the snorting and guffaws, his father assured him that he was.

The little boy has no idea how deeply ingrained a boy�s quest to �put it in� can be. Or how lifelong. And for now, that is good.