Seeking all experienced (and creative) parents!

I had to post a picture this afternoon in the hopes that Tracy might take a peek at this and see Joshua sporting his fireman outfit that she got for him. Adorable! He looks like he's telling me off in this picture, and he was blabbing away about something. I'm not a very good translator of whatever language he's speaking. Our latest guess is that it's Russian because he's using very odd combinations of sounds that are definitely not English. All of the sounds are deep in the back of his throat and sound like they have no business going together.

So here's the dilemma that has us calling out for the advice and suggestions from all of you creative and experienced parents out there. What started as a hunch has turned into a pretty solid theory. Joshua is petrified of riding in the car when it's dark. We've had a few isolated incidents over the past month or so that we usually just credited to him being tired or hungry or wet or whatever, but last night as we came out of music class and it was dark due to the time change, he started to whimper immediately. And then when I put him in the car, the whimpers turned to all out hysterics. I left the lights on for him in the backseat in the hopes that it might help, but it didn't. I sang to him. I gave him a toy to play with. He had his bink and his bear blanket. Nothing helped. It would be one thing if he was just crying--- we've certainly dealt with enough of that over his 12 months of life (flash back to the colicky baby we "enjoyed" during months two and three...yikes). But this is absolute hysterical screaming which leads to choking and subsequently not being able to breathe. Makes for a stressful ride for all involved. And even when I've ridden in the backseat with him, it hasn't made a difference. So we're looking for theories and suggestions here. We'll be trying a gloworm for him on my next trip to Walmart. We've considered turning his car seat forward facing since it would be legal (although not the best idea from a safety standpoint), but that's really a last ditch possibilitiy if all else fails. So put your thinking caps on folks. We're really finding it difficult to go anywhere without worrying about him choking himself to death after dark. Not that we have a really dense social calendar, but still. We'll be grounded to only going places in daylight if we don't get this figured out.

So now that I've dumped all of our problems on to you, I'll end with a funny story from last night. Yesterday it seemed like Joshua was still making up from his sleep deprivation over the weekend. So by the time tubby time rolled around, he was fading fast. But we played and giggled in the tub like usual. As I was finishing getting his pajamas on, he stood up on his changing table and put this arms around my neck. (This is a new thing, but I LOVE it!) The hug lasted longer than usual which I thoroughly enjoyed. And then it hit me. He wasn't hugging me...he was asleep. Couldn't have been more precious. Obviously, no time for stories or teeth brushing last night. It was time for a bottle and then off to dreamland for our little buddy.