Illinois Child Seat Laws

What are the laws for child seats in Illinois?

JD just turned 8 last month so I wondered, does he still need to be in a booster?

The answer is not cut-and-dry. It's a matter of size and fit.

Here's the verbage from Illinois's website:

Ages 8-12
Children should stay in a belt-positioning booster seat until they are tall enough to properly fit in an adult lap/shoulder belt.

• The vehicle lap belt must lie low across the upper thighs, not the stomach. The shoulder belt should rest snugly across the shoulder and chest, not across the neck or face.
• The child’s back and hips should be against the back of the vehicle seat, without slouching.
• Knees should bend easily over the front edge of the vehicle seat with the feet flat on the floor.

In JD's case, the belt does lay properly across his lap and chest. What I don't understand is the last line:

Knees should bend easily over the front edge of the vehicle seat with the feet flat on the floor.

I understand the first half: the kid shouldn't have to slouch to bend his knees nor should his legs be extended forward. JD's legs are long enough to get the 90 degree bend but his feet don't touch the floor in my Honda Pilot but they do in Wife's coupe.

The second half of that statement made me curious. Why would his feet have to be flat on the floor? His feet certainly wouldn't be flat on the floor with a booster. Why this requirement? 

In writing this, my logic led me to think that, if the thighs are long enough to have a 90 degree bend, then the shins should be proportionately long to extend down to the floor. That train of thought is purely speculation, though.

So I actually did some actual journalism. After calling a couple of numbers, I got the number to Kathleen Widmer who works for the Cook County division of the Illinois Secretary of State (312) 814-2905. She said, "the feet touching the ground is ideal. In some trucks and SUVs, that isn't possible. Just make sure that the lap belt goes over the thighs and the shoulder belt is over the chest, not the face or neck. The problem is when a child has to slouch to fit in the seat, that can cause the seat belt not to fit properly."

So, in the end, the correct answer is to check to see that the child fits properly in the seat and seat belt. While your 8-year-old may be begging to get out of his booster seat, this may be a time to say no to avoid strangulation or decapitation in the event of a collision.

If you have questions, first visit the Illinois Secretary of State website. If that doesn't provide all of the answers, call Kathleen.

My default way to say, "go to the bathroom," is, "go potty." Yes, that includes when I reference myself.

Do you have childish vocabulary that you use on a regular basis now that you've had kids?

Appearance vs Character

Appearance is fantasy of the present; character is everlasting truth.

Chicken stock - can I make it taste, well, more chickeney?

I'm doing a cooking experiment. Well, I suppose it's not exactly an experiment because I'm not using a control group. Unless the trials can be a week or two apart.

I digress!

To get cheap poultry, I have been buying and butchering whole chickens on a regular basis. After taking the chicken apart, I make chicken stock from the leftovers.

My typical recipe and process:

Ingredients:
1 whole chicken carcass, including trimmed fat
Kosher salt
8 cups water
1/2-1 onion (smaller onion, use the whole thing. Large onion, as little as half.)
1 celery stalk, with leaves, if possible, rough chop on the bias at a 45 degree angle*
1 carrot, washed, not peeled; same as celery
(1 parsnip) prepared same as carrot
6 peppercorns
*Cutting the vegetables in this manner exposes more of the flavorful inside of the vegetable.

Instructions:
Put bones and fat into large stockpot into 300 degree oven. Roast up to 3 hours.

Remove from oven and put on the stove over medium heat. The bones and skin will be brown and there should be a nice fond developed on the bottom.

When a few drops of water sizzle (not crackle - too hot!) pour in enough water to deglaze: pour in just enough water to cover the bottom with little depth. Scrape bottom of the pot with your wooden spoon until all of the bones and skin have come free and all of the bits have combined with the shallow water. The bottom, including the corners, should look clean and the liquid should be a deep gold.

Add the rest of the water, add the vegetables, bring to simmer and cook down until liquid is reduced in half, stirring and turning the bones over occasionally.

Pour into a non-reactive (ceramic or stainless steel) bowl through a sieve and cool then store. (Winter is great - just put a lid on it and put into the cold for a little while, or overnight.)

So that is how I usually do it. Once in a while, though, I'll accidentally cook it down too much. For instance, tonight I was watching a show and checking out Facebook when I realized that the liquid had been cooking for a while.

Sure enough, it probably had cooked down to two cups. Yikes! All that work for two cups! So, the experiment was born.

When making french onion soup, you caramelize onions, but deglaze them over and over, adding in liquid each time.

Well, what if I keep adding in liquid and cooking it down? Will I get a richer stock?

Answer: I think so, but I didn't do it scientifically.

It came out nice and jellied with terrific flavor. Where I went wrong:
1) I didn't measure the ingredients. Weight of the carcass and vegetables. If I really wanted to get anal, I could measure the fat vs bones. No, not going to do that.
2) I have no idea how long, exactly, that I roasted the bones.
3) I did not time how long I cooked each stage.
4) I did not measure how much liquid remained at each stage
5) I did not taste the stock at each stage to see whether or not the taste was improving.

Overall, I think it was successful. Next time, I'll taste the stock more often and keep track of the cooking time. Give it a try, let me know what happens.