Monday, November 10, 2008

November 10: Lunch with old friends, sleep

Today Carter and I had lunch with Alexandra Holland, her husband Steve, and their two children Adam and Heather. They used to live here in Austin and now live in Asheville, NC, and were here visiting for a wedding. But Alexandra and I go waaay back: we were in Girl Scouts together in the 4th grade, and went to school together for 8 years before college sent us our separate ways. She is the only person from high school that I've kept in touch with all this time!

It was good to see them, and for them to meet Carter. He was particularly fond of their six-year-old daughter, who made faces at him and made him laugh. He had a tortilla for lunch and was basically a perfect little angel the entire time. I think I really need to enjoy this phase where he is happy to sit quietly in the high chair and play with food for a half hour at a time. I'm sure it won't last too long...

Anyway, we had great fun catching up. Steve took lots of pictures, and I'll post some when they can send them to me. :-)

We've now been putting Carter to bed around 7:00 for about two weeks now, and it's working really well. Bedtime is hardly ever a battle any more, which is such a relief. Naptime, however, is still a mystery. Sunday, Carter took a single 3.5 hour nap. Today, he had two half-hour naps, and then was so exhausted at 3:00 that I was determined to get him to sleep. He fought, and fought, and I walked around, and rocked him and patted him and nursed him, and he finally fell asleep at 4:00. :-P I decided to wake him up at 5:30 so that his bedtime wouldn't be affected too much.

It's funny that if I read his signals and time it just right, he'll fall asleep easily and nap for two hours. But if I miss the window, man... unhappiness!

Changing the subject yet again, here is a picture from dinner tonight. Now, prior to having a child of my own, I could never figure out why people would take pictures of their children after eating, with food smeared all over their faces. I thought they were gross. But now that I have my own child? OMG, so cute! Funny how your perspective changes.



That one is a bit blurry, but it was the best of the bunch. It's hard to capture him in action sometimes! We had Pasta alla Norma (an Italian specialty of mine), salad, and bread, and Carter had a little bit of each. In that picture, he has some pasta sticking out of his mouth and salad in both hands. Watching him feed himself is so much fun, I swear. I think he's actually consuming a little bit too, because (TMI here) the consistency of his poop is distinctly different after certain meals. At this point, I pretty much give him a little bit of something a couple of meals a day. The only things I'm avoiding are dairy, nuts, citrus, sugary things, and shellfish. And honey, obviously. He seems to like just about everything so far. :-)

2 comments:

Mattison Grace said...

I feel the same way about the pictures of kids with gross food all over their face. Now, things have changed there. It is the cutest thing ever. Carter is such a big boy. He does not even look like a baby anymore. A little man! Oh Jen, he looks so much like you. We will have to have three High Chairs at Thanksgiving this year so all these kids can sit together and eat. I am so excited.

Jenn said...

Julie, Thanksgiving will be awesome with all the babies -- and so messy!