There's so much to say about what Carter's done in the last week, and I'm not sure where to start. I try to make mental "blog notes" throughout the day, but things invariably get forgotten. I'll start with some pictures.
Ah, Christmas clementines! We eat lots of them this time of year, and Carter loves them. I've been trying to teach him to peel them, but he doesn't have the patience for it. I'll peel one halfway and give it to him to finish peeling, an this it what he does instead:
Messy, but effective.
We had a brief respite from wintery weather and had a few lovely days. The following two pictures were taken by Michelle when they were out exploring while I was grading.
Like all little kids, he loves being outside. He just wants to walk around and touch things and explore, and he'll do it for hours at a time. He'll play on the playground equipment a bit, but what he really wants to do is dig in the dirt and splash in puddles and climb up on big rocks.
I took a break from grading on Sunday morning and went to the park with him, and he had a blast. I don't have a camera right now and so can only take pictures with my phone -- and it's really hard to get him to stand still long enough for a decent picture! This was the only one that wasn't blurry:
It's funny that all of these pictures are of the back of his head, because when we're out and about, that's all I see!
On Saturday morning we went to a Sara Hickman concert. She's a local musician who is well-known for her children's music, and she was doing a Christmas concert for children last weekend. It was a lot of fun, and Carter seemed to enjoy it. He loves music, and REALLY got into some of the songs. When they played "Winter Wonderland", he was waving his arms up and down in time with the music, and then started banging his head! The bass player in the band was cracking up at him. Then some songs you'd expect him to dance to, like "Jingle Bell Rock", he completely ignored. It was Carter's first ever concert! :-)
I just snapped this picture of him sleeping:
What is it with toddlers and sleeping with their butts in the air? Speaking of sleep, a month or so ago my sister mentioned that ever since she started putting fleece PJs on Emma, she's been sleeping really well at night. I forgot about that until about a week ago when I bought some fleece PJs on sale and put them on Carter one night. And he slept from 9:30 to 4:00, without waking up! I didn't know he was that cold, poor baby. Actually, I think the issue was that he was alternately too hot and too cold, being in and out of the covers all night. With the fleece PJs, he doesn't need covers (which he kicks off anyway), and he stays warm. It's a no-brainer, really, isn't it? Of course, I'm used to him waking up to nurse every couple of hours, so I still wake up to peek over at him every hour or so. Do you ever go back to being able to sleep all night after you have kids? I doubt it!
He's just started speaking in short sentences in the last week, and every now and then will come out with something completely clear. For example, Doug was trying to get him to eat some sweet potatoes the other night (which Carter is really suspicious of, for some reason). Doug offered a piece of sweet potato several times, and each time Carter said "no". Finally Doug offered him a bite from his own fork, and Carter looked right at him and said, "I said no." LOL! He also has little phrases he likes to say, like "What are we doing now?" That one is often, inexplicably, followed by "hot dogs!" Just now he fell down and said, "I fell down. I'm okay!"
He likes to sing, and his efforts are now not only recognizable as singing, but it's usually possible to tell what song he's singing. His current favorite song is the ABC song, and if one of us tries to sing along with him he'll get upset and say, "No, no sing!" If I'm signing the alphabet, he doesn't seem to mind as much. He also sings "Twinkle" and some songs he learned in Gymboree, and several silly songs from "Yo Gabba Gabba", like "Keep Trying", "Happy", and "I like Fish."
Speaking of signing, he's really into "Signing Time" these days, and requests to watch that as often as he requests to watch Gabba. He still signs a lot, and it remains very helpful in communicating with him. He gets frustrated if I don't immediately understand what he just said, but when he signs at the same time I almost always understand him. So it cuts down on that frustration quite a bit.
He's very interested in his stuffed animals lately, and loves to put them to bed at night and to kiss each one good night. Any toy that looks like an animal gets picked up and kissed, which is SO adorable! He has a huge stuffed elephant and stuffed hippo that my mom bought him before he was born, and he loves to carry those around. His favorite stuffed animal, though, is a rat we call "Rat", appropriately enough. He likes to bring Rat to me so I can give him hugs and kisses too. :-)
He's VERY Mommy-centric right now, which is totally normal for boys his age, but I think is hard for Doug. I am the person he goes to for everything, his "home base" that he comes to check in with every now and then. He needs to sit in my lap and nurse and recharge his batteries every now and then, and then he's off again.
I don't mind being the center of his universe, I must say. I am enjoying every moment of it! ;-)
1 comment:
Is he kissing the tree?!?! How cute! And his hair is getting so long again. Cute curls!
Doug will get his season of glory, no worries. Probably sometimes in the next year.
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