After Christmas post

We're home now, and I thought I'd try to post another update before we get busy again. First, here are some other pictures from the weekend in Colorado.

Here's one from the plane on the way out. I have no idea how many flights Carter has been on now. I stopped counting at 100, and that was more than a year ago.



When we got to Doug's parents' house, there were a ton of packages waiting for me to wrap -- most for Carter, of course! Heh, we overdid it this year.



This was a gift Carter received from his Grandpa on Christmas Eve. They're signs Grandpa made by hand with a router, and they're really nice. When Carter pulled the first one out of the box, I asked him what it said, and he said "It says Carter." I was pleased, because we've worked on getting him to be able to read his own name. Then he pulled out the next sign and said, "These letters say Daddy." And they did! Then he pulled out the third and said, "These letters say Mommy." We were stunned! Those are words he's seen a lot, obviously, but we haven't really pushed them much. And he can read them! I guess it's time to start working on reading in earnest, since he seems to be ready.



Something else he's been doing in the last few weeks is a lot of pretend play. He'll act out little scenes with his cars and have them talk to each other, and he'll line them up in front of a book or his video player, saying they want to watch too. Here he was playing with this "bunny family", as he called them, and having them talk to each other. It was really sweet -- he was having the baby bunny give kisses to the mommy and daddy bunnies and telling them "Merry Christmas Mommy!" Then the Mommy rabbit would kiss the baby and say, "Merry Christmas, sweet pea!" He had them hop around the yard and eat grass, and then take a nap all snuggled together. It was so adorable!



He's also been engaging me in play by assigning each of us a character to be. On that same afternoon, we spent about an hour playing "racecars" in the yard. He gave each of us a name from the Cars movie and we had to pretend to be that character and race around. It was fun! At bedtime that night I asked him if he was tired, and he said no. Then I asked if DJ was tired (the car he was playing), and he said, "Yes, DJ wants to go upstairs and snuggle with Boost" (whom I was playing). And that's how we did bedtime that night!

The day after Christmas we went to a park to play. It was cold, in the high 40s, but not too bad. Here are some pictures.



This was the tallest playground slide I think I've ever seen!









The next day we got to see Rob and Jon, Carter's cousins from Wyoming. They were stopping by on the way to the airpport; Rob is a marine and his brother was driving him to Denver to catch his flight back to work, so they stopped by on the way. I meant to get pictures of Carter with them, but Carter's cough acted up that day and he ended up sleeping through most of their visit.

Today it was finally time to go home. Here is a cute shot of Carter helping Doug with the luggage.



Then we hung out in the Admiral's Club at DIA. Happily, most clubs now have a kids' area, and many of them have toys. It's so nice to have a place to hang out like this while you're waiting for your flight!



The flight home was uneventful. Carter watched a video most of the way, and really impressed the woman sitting next to us, who swore she'd never seen a child so well-behaved on a flight. I didn't bother telling her that he has indeed had his moments on airplanes! Fortunately the bad flights are rare. ;-)

I found a blue dum-dum lollipop in the bag and gave it to him to eat while we were waiting for our luggage. To my surprise, it turned his lips completely blue! I had to take a picture:



And that's it for now. We're home, and Christmas is done for another year. Of course, there are a few presents we have yet to open up and put together, and when we get the boxes we shipped from Colorado and open them, it will probably feel like Christmas all over again! And the tree and lights are still up for now. So maybe Christmas isn't over just yet. ;-)

NaBloPoMo 19/20: Shoe shopping, the park, and more

Yesterday (Friday) I took Carter to a kids shoe store to buy some dress shoes. I often buy his shoes online, but I wanted to go and have his feet measured. He was actually really cooperative with the woman at the shoe store, and didn't mind having his feet measured. He's currently an 8.5, almost a 9!



I bought him a nice pair of shoes, and I'll post a picture later. I have a new clothes post all planned, but I need to take a few more pictures.

The shoe store was pretty fun, in general.





Today we went to our neighborhood park to meet up with a playgroup I recently learned about. It's for kids who are about 2.5-3.5, so exactly Carter's age. We actually don't know any kids his age in our neighborhood, and I realized that this would be a good opportunity for him to get to know kids he'll go to kindergarten with in a few years. I also got to talk to some other parents, and that was fun.

The park is a short walk through the woods from our house. It's actually directly accessible from our yard, but the area behind the gate is overgrown and needs to be cleared.



This is one of Carter's new shirts I bought at Janie and Jack. It's reversible, which is a fantastic feature.





He mostly played by himself, as usual, though when one boy showed up with a dump truck, all the kids got excited. It was one of the only times they all actually played together!



This was only a few of the kids; apparently there are around 13 families who come. It should be fun getting to know them!

After we'd been at the park for a little over an hour, Carter said he wanted to go home. So we walked back home, and almost as soon as our house came in sight, he said he wanted to go back to the park. Of course, at that point I needed to go to the bathroom, and was already thinking ahead to lunch, so I told him we would go back to the park later. This set off a massive meltdown that ended with him running back through the woods, me chasing him, and then carrying him back home as he screamed. The neighbors even came out to make sure he was okay.

This has been a new thing lately: he makes a decision, we follow through on it, and then he changes his mind and melts down when we don't reverse what we're doing. It's a totally normal phase from everything I've read about this age, but it's still sort of strange, since it's relatively new. Until a few weeks ago, he would say he was done with something, or that he wanted to do or not do something, and that would be it. We got used to being able to take him at his word, and so it's an adjustment for us to see that just because he says he doesn't want something now doesn't mean he'll still feel that way in five minutes. It's like he doesn't think all the way through the decision until a few minutes later, and by then it's often too late. Until recently, he didn't think very far ahead at all, so it wasn't a problem. It's cool that he's starting to think that way, but of course, it's a little weird to navigate.

It's also interesting how much he remembers. He remembers lots of things about our trip to South America last summer, and will start talking about them out of the blue. I'm constantly surprised by what he remembers! I have very clear memories about being his age, so it will be interesting to see what sticks with him.

Finally, here is a picture of Carter in the shower. He loves taking showers these days, and will stay in as long as I let him. Notice the artful photoshopping here, heh.



Tomorrow morning a photographer is coming to shoot our annual family picture and Christmas card photo. Hopefully we'll get some good shots!

NaBloPoMo 17/30: A day with Mimi

I'm a day behind now, but I think I'll be able to catch up over the weekend. I had long days every day this week, and by Wednesday I was really feeling it. I'm just not used to being away from Carter that much, and I left the house that morning feeling depressed. I texted Michelle and asked her to send me lots of pictures of Carter that day, and she did just that. Here are the pictures she sent.

Carter was asleep when I left, but woke up soon after. He likes to play a little while before breakfast.



And here he is having a yummy breakfast.



They headed to his swimming lesson, which Michelle reported he really enjoyed. After that they went downtown and had lunch on the roof of Whole Foods, where there is a patio and a playground.



He apparently played with these other boys, who had some cars and trucks. Though he doesn't exactly look like he's being social here, heh.



After lunch Carter and Michelle went to the Austin Nature and Science Center, which I did not even know existed until she sent me these pictures. It looks like so much fun! Carter apparently had a blast, and we will definitely be going back there soon.







One of the highlights for Carter was the Dino Dig, a big sandbox with fossils to be dug up.









She said he fell asleep in the car on the way home, having worn himself out. He didn't wake up again until after Doug and I were both home. I was sitting on the couch when he came around the corner, and when he saw me he grinned and said, "Mommy!" and ran to jump in my lap. I hugged him and started crying -- I'd just missed him so much! He looked up at me and his eyes got teary, and I just hugged him tighter and told him I was sorry I had to be away from him this week.

We had lots of fun last night, and this morning I didn't have to head out until 9:00 am. That meant we got to wake up together, have breakfast, and hang out a little bit before I had to leave. Just having an extra 2 hours really recharged my batteries! Michelle said Carter really missed me today, though, and by the end of the day didn't have much enthusiasm for anything. It's interesting how much we're used to being together, and how hard it is when that typical schedule changes.

Tomorrow we have a whole day together, and I'm looking forward to it!

NaBloPoMo 7/30: Beautiful Sunday!

After yesterday's craziness, it was nice to have a day to just hang out with Carter and relax. Of course, Carter got up earlier than I was anticipating -- he didn't know the time changed and we were supposed to get another hour of sleep!

We had pumpkin pancakes for breakfast, and Carter played while I did a little work. It warmed up around noon, and we decided to go have lunch and then head to a favorite park. We rode the train, which Carter always loves, and then went for a walk on the trails. We brought Carter's bike so he could ride, and that was a lot of fun!





He's getting better at riding the balance bike, and can really clip along at a good speed now. He doesn't yet pick up his feet and balance, but I'm sure that will come.

Carter had a blast at the park, and then fell asleep in the car on the way home, something he does only rarely in my car! After his nap we decided to go to Waterloo Icehouse for dinner, which is a restaurant near us with a great playground. It gets dark at 6:00 now, so it was chilly and dark, and Carter had a blast. It's funny how he already knows that it's special when he gets to play outside in the dark. When I was a kid, it was always so exciting to get to do things outside of my normal schedule like that!

New York weekend

We spent last weekend in New York City, and I'm just now getting around to posting about it! This week was pretty busy. Maybe by the end of this week I'll be able to post what we did this weekend.

Since a week has passed, this post will be mostly pictures. I'll try to remember what we did! This one shows Carter at the airport in Austin, waiting for our flight. He loves airports!



The flight out went well. There is a nonstop from Austin to JFK now, which makes it easy to fly. We decided to travel with carryons only for this trip, so when we got to JFK all we had to do was go catch a taxi into the city.

That night Doug and I had to run off to tape our radio show and then we went to a reading of a new musical we'd been invited to. Carter and Michelle ended up hanging out in the hotel room that evening, so not much more happened that day.

Here are some pictures of Carter playing in the hotel room. The light was lovely.





On Saturday morning Doug, Carter, and I headed down towards Times Square with the goal of going to the big Toys R Us there. We rode the Ferris Wheel, and then followed Carter around the toy store for a while.



We always wind up in one of the super girly cars on this Ferris Wheel!



We met Michelle for lunch at Toloache, one of our favorite restaurants in the theatre district, and after lunch she took him to play in Central Park while we went to see "Promises, Promises". She took the camera and took a lot of pictures of him checking out the sights and playing in the Park. He likes watching these guys do some swordfighting.







He also got to hear some music.







I love this picture!



It was warm that afternoon, and the splash park was still open. We didn't bring a swimsuit for Carter, but that didn't stop him from having fun. He's the one in only a diaper.









After playing in the water, he didn't have any other clothes to wear, so he played in a soaking wet diaper! I really need to remember to pack a swimsuit no matter where we go...





He definitely had a fun day! We went back to the hotel between shows with the idea that we'd hang out with Carter for a little while and maybe even take him to dinner, but he had fallen asleep shortly before we got back, and didn't wake up until right before we had to leave again. That night we went to see a play called "Lombardi", and Carter and Michelle went to dinner and then to FAO Schwartz, where she bought him a skid steer, a toy he'd been talking about for a week!

On Sunday morning we took Carter to the Broadway Flea Market, and annual charity event in which Broadway shows have tables and sell things ranging from bakes goods to props and costumes. We have always wanted to go to this, and we were finally here on the right weekend! Unfortunately it was crazy busy, and it was really difficult to push a stroller through the crowds, so we didn't stay too long.



We bought Carter a set of drumsticks from "American Idiot", which he immediately loved!



We ended up hanging out in Times Square for a while, and then met up with Michelle for lunch at Lupa in the village. After lunch (which was amazing) she took Carter to play in nearby Washington Square Park while we started our last theatre day. Here is a cute video of Carter playing with his drumsticks in the park.



They ended up hanging out in the hotel that evening and watched a movie while Doug and I went to our last musical of the trip, "Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson". Michelle texted to say that Carter had refused dinner, so on the way back to the hotel we got him a couple of hot dogs from a cart, and he devoured them!

The next morning it was raining, and so we hung out in the hotel as long as we could before going to the airport. Unfortunately, our flight was delayed three hours because of the weather, so we ended up hanging out at the airport for a long time. Even though the flight was a nonstop, we had a long travel day! We didn't get home until 10:00 pm. After more than 100 flights with Carter, I finally had a bad experience with another passenger who was very rude to me because she thought Carter was kicking the back of her seat. He wasn't -- he'd been asleep for most of the flight, and I think what she felt was my knee in the back of her seat while I tried to get comfortable with him asleep in my lap. I apologized several times, but she didn't want to hear it. She just wanted to yell at me and blame Carter for waking her up. It was weird -- I can handle people being rude to me, but there was something about her blaming Carter for something I *know* he didn't do that really made me mad. At the end of the flight, the woman sitting behind us talked about how great Carter had done on the flight in a loud voice, and then in a quiet voice told me to just ignore the woman who'd been so mean to me. I really appreciated that!

Traveling with carryons was great in some ways, but it really required extra hands just to manage it all. That part was hard enough that I'm thinking I won't try to do it when it's just me and Carter flying. I'd rather wait for checked luggage than deal with that by myself!