Nov 10: Mommy Guilt, part 2, with a side of letters and numbers

First, this is the tenth day of NaBloPoMo, and I've managed a post every day. One third of the way there, woo!

Yesterday was a crazy/busy day for me, and I ended up working until 2:00am trying to get caught up with everything. Doug is gone, so I had to let Carter play on his own pretty much the whole evening, and by the end of the night he was getting a little frustrated that I couldn't pay attention to him as much as I usually do. I hate having to work when he wants to play, but that's just part of the teaching gig, unfortunately. You bring work home, a lot.

This morning I left for work before he woke up, and then around noon Michelle sent me some pictures of what they did this morning. First they went to storytime at Book People (a really awesome local bookstore here), where Ms. Stacy led the storytime off with a singalong:



Then they went to Zilker park (Austin's big central park) and played and rode the train:



Here is a picture of Michelle and Carter on the train:



She said he kept looking for my car the whole time, and when he saw a silver car he'd say, "Mommy car!"

I don't know whether to call this Mommy-guilt or sheer jealousy. I'm so, so thrilled we have such a wonderful nanny who takes Carter to fun places and does everything I'd do with him if I were home, and I'm so glad he has so much fun when I'm at work. But wow, I wish I could be there with him. It makes me miss him so much, while I'm simultaneously happy and excited that he's getting to do cool things.

And I know I shouldn't complain -- I get two whole days a week to spend with Carter. and I get to take him to swimming lessons and parks and all sorts of things. And you know, I love my job, and I wouldn't give it up -- but at the same time, I would love to give it up and spend all of my time with Carter. It's such a weird feeling!

This evening we went to Barnes & Noble to hang out and play. They have a coffee shop and a fantastic kids' area, complete with an awesome train table, so it's a fun place to go. Carter likes flipping through books and playing with things, and he's not yet old enough to ask for stuff, LOL. I get Christmas gift ideas from watching him, too, which is good.

Here's a picture of him playing at the train table:



He impressed a random person with his chatter about tractors, bulldozers, and trains. She asked how old he was, and seemed surprised by the answer. But hey, he loves his vehicles!

He was also doing a lot of counting while we were there, all of it "one, two, five". He will point at each object in turn, and count, "one, two, five". Heh. At least he's counting! We'll work on the details like getting the numerals right later on. He can also identify a few alphabet letters, which always catches me off-guard. He picks out Os, Xs, and Ss quite a lot. Tonight we saw a sign with a sideways K on it, and he called it an X, which I thought was interesting. He was pointing to another sign and saying "triangle" over and over, and it took me a minute to figure out he was pointing at an A. I guess it does look like a triangle, huh? So we're on our way to learning letters and numbers! I'm not doing anything formal with him on any of this (and neither is Michelle); we just encourage his natural interest when it comes up, and it seems to be working.

I'm writing this while Carter is eating dinner (and typing as fast as I can, LOL). He hasn't willingly touched a vegetable in over a week, and tonight he devoured an enormous amount of peas, carrots, and green beans. Go figure! Along with 3 whole veggie nuggets (like chicken nuggets, but soy), and then asked for "more chicken". Some days he's a picky eater, and some days he's not...