Turnabout is fair play

Friends and family whose children are older than ours often remark on how things have continually changed with regards to child safety recommendations - how kids used to be put to sleep on their stomachs, or bassinets were perfectly fine sitting in car passenger seats, or how plastic/glass bottles flip-flop between being mortally dangerous and critical requirements for survival. One minor such change has even occurred between Zachary and Owen - the official guidance for rear-facing car seats for children has expanded to be "as long as possible" for 1 to 3 year olds. Z made the flip at one year, but O has remained backwards long after his first birthday. In the past few weeks, he's been leaning as far out of his seat as he can to peek around and check us out in the front, generally with a happy "heh-low dah-dee!" and laughs. With all of that uncomfortable-looking neck craning (and occasional crankiness just getting into the rear-facing seat), we finally made the switch today at just short of 1.5 years, also using the opportunity to swap in an identical seat to Zachary's; if we want to really blow their minds, we can (gasp) even consider switching sides of the car they occupy on occasion. But for now, the seat orientation was change enough; O was thrilled to be facing forward, smiling and laughing along with his brother on our many errands today.