Thanks for all the replies, guys! I have heard different sides to the carry the car seat or carry the baby "controversy" if you want to call it that. I have a couple of friends that their babies would immediately wake up and scream when they would pull the car seat out of the base, and they would end up carrying the baby and pushing the grocery cart.

I can see the restaurant thing, but we won't eat out much anyway and if we wanted to, we may just enlist David's sister to watch her for us. But, again...I may end up with a baby who only behaves in the car seat and who hates the carrier I've chosen. We'll just have to see!

As for the car seat, I didn't know the first thing about it, but I did weeks of research on safety and consumer reviews and then went by the company's claim that it was fit for "5 to 65 pounds." It surprises me that they can make that claim even though there's no way it's fit for a newborn! Lesson learned! I don't regret putting the seat on our registry , as the it is one of the best, and we will certainly use it when she's older.