Two heads better than one

I love that despite PB being almost half way across the world we still have very interesting and meaningful conversations.

On my web board, there was a discussion about extending the time infants and toddlers should be in a car seat rear facing. Right now, the law (at least in Ontario) is the child must be at least 20lbs. and 1 year old to be forward facing. Corwin has already reached the weight limit and by the end of the month he'll be a year old and we'll be turning the seat around, or at least this is what I thought before I read my board thread.

The danger about forward facing at a young age is that a child's head is still quite large and heavy compared to the body and with a frontal impact, the only restraint the child has is for his/her body by the straps. The head can snap forward and can sever the spinal cord and cause what is known as an internal decapitation. However, by keeping the child in a rear facing car seat, in a frontal collision, the head is supported by the back of the seat therefore cradling it and protecting it from snapping forward or back. Sounds like keeping them rear facing for much longer would be better right?

That's where PB steps in and says, but wouldn't the opposite hold true? Meaning, if the child was rear facing, but we were rear ended, his/her head would now snap forward as in the case of a forward facing frontal collision. Huh... I never would have thought of it that way.

I do however believe that frontal collisions probably occur at a much higher speed than rear ending.... at least this is what I think safety boards and Pediatric associations would like us to believe since they all think that rear facing for longer is safer. So, if that's the case then for safety purposes maybe we won't be changing the seat to forward facing at the end of the month, although Corwin's legs are getting more and more uncomfortable.

This conversation was interesting in other aspects though because it really illustrates the difference in how we (PB and I) think and analyze different situations. With his engineering background and a much more thorough knowledge of physics, his analysis about the rear facing vs. front facing was very automatic for him whereas for me, I was very much in the "wow... I never thought about it that way" frame of mind.

The thread also mentioned someone who had seen a documentary about building airplanes and how rear facing was actually safer. I mentioned this to PB who said, "Well obviously. Planes don't travel like cars and there is nothing significant to cause a rear end collision. It's virtually almost always a frontal impact of some sort." (Or at least something to that extent). Again, another "wow... I never thought...." from me.

So there I was now feeling kind of dumb, for not thinking of these seemingly simplistic analyses. PB then mentioned that I shouldn't feel dumb, it's just because we think about things very differently based on the knowledge we have. He went on to say that there are many things he doesn't look at from any other angle because it simply doesn't occur to him - like colour coordination of things or anything related to social interaction.

So, I'll never be Einstein and he'll never be Van Gogh but together we do complement each other quite well. PB is very SMRT.... :-)

Oh, and as an aside, coprolites were called bezoars but they were incorrectly identified. A bezoar is a mass found trapped in the gastrointestinal system, usually the stomach. So, Harry didn't shove a fossilized piece of dung down Ron's throat afterall.... but still, a mass that is trapped in a gastrointestinal system? That's still pretty nasty.