I give you Exhibit A: trashed backseat kick mats & organizers:

Backseat Kick mats
Backseat Kick Mats & Organizer after several years of use and abuse

I took this picture after our road trip to Washington D.C. because my SUV ends up being a huge mess after road trips.  It occurred to me then that these seat protectors / organizers have really seen better days.  The one on the right has held up slightly better, but the organizer pockets on the top are velcro-ed to the back.  The velcro doesn’t hold that well, so the top flap of pockets flops down and hits my daughter’s knees. Seeing the state of these kick mats, I thought two things:

  1. Wow, they are really trashed. I should probably buy some new ones.
  2. How old are they anyway?

I looked up my purchase history in Amazon (isn’t Amazon great?!) and saw that they were ordered in 2014 and 2013! These kick mats arrived when my kids were around 4 and 2. They have lived through a lot of tantrums and backseat shenanigans.

Here are the product links if you are curious:

Britax Back of Front Seat Kick Mats

Prince Lionheart Backseat Organizer

Now that my kids are 5 and 7, they don’t need much of the gear that they had when they were babies. My car, on the other hand, DOES still require some child-proofing to help minimize the amount of stains and wear and tear that happens in the back seat. I may have to reorder one of these.