Forward facing

After 15 months, we finally turned Nick's car seat forward facing.  I know the recommendation is now to wait until 2 years old to turn the car seat around, but Nick was starting to get super cranky every time we got in the car.  Not to mention every other toddler we knew in Nick's age range were already forward-facing and loving it.  And who are we to not keep up with the Jones'?  Throw in the fact that we've got a couple of really long vacation road trips coming up this summer, and this mama was not keen on the idea of having to keep unbuckling her seat belt and hoisting herself over the middle console into the back seat, every time Nick dropped his cup, needed a snack, wanted his pacifier, threw his book on the floor, needed some reassurance that mom and dad were in fact still in the car...etc. etc. All of which led us to the ultimate decision to turn him around.

And let me just say, little man is much happier.  Granted he still does his fair share of fussing in the car.  But I'm chalking that up to the fact that it's currently 90+ degrees in VA and every time we get in the car it's hot...combined with the fact that he's a curious and extremely mobile toddler who wants absolutely nothing to do with being confined and strapped into a seat when he could be off exploring.

But our biggest concern of all was that turning his car seat around would give him so much to look at that it would completely void out all possibilities of the great "car nap".  You know the one -- when your toddler has been running around like a chicken with its head cut off all day, fussed his way through lunch because he was so overtired that eating chicken nuggets was just TOO tasking, and powered through his nap time so hard that all he wants to do is smack you in the face if you even try to give him any "it's ok, you're just tired, lay your head on mommy's shoulder" type of encouragement.  And then you get in the car to go somewhere and 5.3 seconds later, kid is passed out cold.  THAT kind of nap.

But no sooner had we turned his seat around, and strapped him in for his maiden forward-facing voyage, than homeboy passed out. 

And ever since, he's been making sure to get in plenty of car naps every time he's in there for more than 10 minutes at a time.

His neck can't possibly be comfortable like that...can it?

Here's hoping he spends the majority of our long summer road trips passed out like this.  It would certainly make a long car ride easier than a toddler screaming for more goldfish and having mommy read "Ding Dong, Elmo's Here" for the 9 millionth time.  Because come on, reading in the car makes me carsick.  And that's not fun for anyone.