Christmas in NC, part 1

I meant to post several times during our trip to NC, but the time just got away from me. I'll try to catch up over the next few days.

We flew to Greensboro on Sunday the 18th, arriving in the afternoon. We spent that evening hanging out at my Mom's house, and my sister and her kids came over to play. Carter had a blast running around the house and playing with them, as usual. I think this was the first time Doug's really seen him playing with his cousins and he was surprised at how excited Carter was to play with them!

Unfortunately, Doug had to go on a business trip for a good chunk of the week, so he missed out on much of what we did. Even more unfortunately, he was sick with what we'd later learn was a sinus infection, so the time we did have he didn't even get to enjoy so much.

Carter and I spent Monday afternoon at the Greensboro Science Center, and we basically spent the entire time in the kids' play areas! In fact, we went back a few days later with the intention of going to the zoo there, and he was upset because he thought we were going to spend the entire time playing again. This is a picture from the five minutes he spent in the zoo before we headed back in to play.





On Tuesday we went to the awesome Greensboro Children's Museum, where Carter had a blast playing. We had lunch with Nana and then went back to play for the rest of the afternoon. I basically had to drag Carter out of there!

On Wednesday we went to Mount Airy to visit my grandparents. We had lunch with them and then went to the John Deere toy store in downtown Mount Airy. Carter and I had been talking about going there for six months. The last time we tried to go back in October, they were closed, and Carter was devastated. This time I called ahead to check the hours first, and he was so excited! We walked in the door and he did a single lap around the store, picked out a toy, and said, "Okay, this is what I want to buy." I tried to convince him to keep looking, to check out the vast array of John Deere tractors, to just hang out a bit, but that was it. He was done. A couple of minutes later we were headed out the door again, purchase in hand. I couldn't believe it! We spent that afternoon hanging out at my grandparents' house and then had dinner downtown with my Uncle Scott and Aunt Pam before heading back to Greensboro.

On Thursday we hung out at my sister's house and played, and then we all went to see the Chipmunks movie. This was mostly a success, though Carter is still not quite ready to sit through an entire movie. Afterwards we played at Donna's house a little more, then went to the airport to pick up Doug and then on to the Greensboro Colosseum, where Donna had tickets for us all to attend a UNCG basketball game while enjoying a special lounge. We had a buffet of hot dogs and hamburgers in an area where the adults could watch the game and the kids could run around and play, and it was a lot of fun!

Friday was the first day I remembered to take pictures, somehow. It was also a dry day after several days of rain and it was even unseasonably warm, perfect for playing outside. Carter spent a lot of time playing with his cousins at Nana's house. They rode vehicles down the driveway, ran around in the grass, rode the zip line, and even found some dirt to dig in.

















All of the kids loved watching funny YouTube videos on Nana's iPad!



That takes us up to Christmas Eve, which I'll post about tomorrow. :-)

Various holiday stuff, weekend without TV

Doug was gone this weekend (on the other side of the planet in Singapore and now India), and weekends without him are always strange. He's gone a lot during the week, but there's something different about the way it feels to not have him here on a weekend. It's a lot more intense for me, certainly. It's harder to get basic housework and errands done when you don't have a co-parent, for one thing. I don't envy single parents at all!

But we had a fun weekend anyway. It's our last whole weekend at home before we head to NC for Christmas, so I wanted to do some Christmas-y things. Carter, of course, mostly just wanted to play. He knows Christmas is coming sort of vaguely, but because we've carefully avoided placing any emphasis on it being about him getting lots of presents (he'll figure that out soon enough), he doesn't seem to be terribly excited about it. He loves the lights and the decorations, though, and so we've had a lot of fun with that.

One thing I decided to do this weekend was to keep the TV off the entire time. It wasn't nearly as hard as I expected, and neither of us actually missed it at all. We had some Christmas music playing off and on, but for the most part it was just quiet in the house. Except for when we were doing our own hard rock version of "Jingle Bells", with Carter on the drums. Definitely not quiet then!

We did a craft project I saw either in a magazine or online: a cardboard Christmas tree. I used an old box to cut out the pieces and we painted them.





We talked about different ways of decorating the tree (Carter still wants to add lights, but I wanted something more simple) and we ended up using glitter glue to make ornaments.



The finished product is really cute!



This is a picture of Carter talking to Doug (who was in India at the time) on the phone tonight. He always likes to put the phone on speaker, for some reason.



Last night I had planned for us to go to the Wildflower Center to see their Christmas light display, which is only this weekend. Carter loves Christmas lights, and he was really excited. We had dinner first at one of our favorite restaurants and then headed down there, about a 35 miles drive from our house. The parking situation was insane, though, and I drove around for a good ten minutes trying to find a place to park. I finally looked back and saw that Carter had fallen asleep, so I decided to just drive home. It was actually nice to have a quiet evening to myself - something I hardly ever get these days!

Today we finally got our own Christmas lights up, and Carter asked if we were going to see any lights tonight. I thought it would be fun to put on our pajamas and drink hot chocolate and ride around in the car looking at lights, and he completely vetoed the pajamas idea. He was adamant that pajamas are only for sleeping in! But that was just as well, because our plans changed a little anyway.

Here he is in the car, all bundled up with hot chocolate, ready for lights-viewing.



We drove around our neighborhood for a while, and we saw some awesome light displays. It was still early, so I decided to drive down to 37th street in central Austin, where there is a street that always does an amazing light display. We found a place to park and walked around, and Carter really loved it. In fact, he spent most of the time with this expression on his face:



The displays were awesome and kitschy and so Austin. Many of the displays were interactive:



A fascinating array of objects were lit up:



This giant pterodactyl was amazing!



The owner of this house was out front flying a remote control shark balloon around in the air. Yes, a shark was swimming in the air over our heads!



I had to drag Carter away, literally, and promised we'd come back later in the week with Daddy. On the way home he said he wanted to go to the Galaxy cafe and eat dinner (though it was 8:30 pm by then and we'd already had dinner) and then go to Krispy Kreme, and then go back to look at the lights again. This kid is a total night owl! Wonder where he gets that from? ;-)

It was a fun weekend, even though we didn't do most of the stuff I'd planned. But that's how it seems to go these days, and it's all good. For example, I'd planned to go to a play this afternoon, a children's theater improv show that seemed like something Carter would like. But then the time came to leave and he was having so much fun just playing that I couldn't see the point in going somewhere else to do something completely optional that he might not enjoy as much as just playing.

Another example of fun in surprising places came when he accidentally knocked over a tub of popcorn we'd gotten as a gift from my aunt and uncle in Iowa (thanks so much, if you're reading this!). Half the popcorn, three flavors mixed together, was spread all over the hardwood floor by the Christmas tree. Carter and I just stared at it for a moment, and then I thought, well, what the hell? And I sat down and said, "I guess we'll just have to eat it off the floor, won't we?" And we sat there and ate popcorn for a while, and when we were both full of popcorn, he went and got some little diggers and dump trucks and hauled popcorn all around the room for a solid hour. He loved it! And after he went to sleep I swept it all up and threw it away, which was super easy. I would never have dumped it over on purpose, but it turned out to be something really fun, and it was so unexpected!

I guess that's one of the things I've really learned about parenthood that I didn't have a good handle on before -- how to live in the moment. There's something about having a baby that completely changes your perspective on time (or did mine, anyway), and I've been able to just stop and be in these last few years. Sometimes I just look at carter and what he's doing and think, Wow, how amazing is this? And I drop whatever I'm doing and sit down on the floor with him and play. Not as often as I wish I did, of course, and I could always be better about seeing the world from his perspective, but I try. And it gets easier all the time.

Especially now that we've hit the "why" stage full on. Tonight we came back from Christmas light viewing and he said he wanted to leave the garage door open, and I said no, we have to close it at night. So he asked why and I said that it was for safety, that we didn't want anyone to come in the middle of the night and steal things, and he said, "What would happen if they took our things?" and that started this whole conversation in which he seemed to be pushing me to talk about what would really be the worst thing that could happen if we lost some of our material possessions. He says so many things that make me stop and think, that surprise me, and I love that. I know that part is just beginning, too. :-)

Yo Gabba Gabba!

We tried about a year ago to go see "Curious George Live", and Carter didn't make it all the way through. So we decided to wait a while before trying again, and "Yo Gabba Gabba Live" today was out next attempt. It was cold and rainy here today, a good day to be doing something inside.

We decided to splurge and get good seats and the "Party Package", which meant we got to go to a special character meet & greet after the show. The seats were fantastic and the after-party was fun, though it was more fun when about half the people left. Here are some pictures from today.

Here we're waiting for the show to start.



In that picture you can see he's holding a spinning light toy. That thing cost $20! In comparison, we got him a Buzz Lightyear spinner at Epcot that is a lot bigger and we only paid $15 for it!



Carter really seemed to enjoy it, though I think he was a little overwhelmed with the lights and sounds for a while. He spent the entire show in my lap, and most of it alternately burying his face in my chest and then peeping shyly at the stage. At the intermission I asked him if he liked it, and he said he wasn't sure, that it was really loud and bright. But by the end he was standing in the aisle and dancing, and later said that he really loved it!

Having close-in seats was really cool, mostly because we were in the confetti zone. Confetti and streamers spewed forth at least four times during the show, and it's always cool to be in the middle of it rather than watching it from the sidelines. The show itself was great, and they did all of their "greatest hits" songs. It was staged more like a concert than like an episode of the show, which worked really well with the format. It was great for the attention spans of the kids in the audience as well! Everything was really upbeat, and there were lots of opportunities for the audience to get up and dance along.

After the show we headed over to the party. At first the crowds were daunting and we started to wonder if the extra cost was even worth it. Everyone was waiting in line for a photo op with the characters. The first line was loooong. Here Carter is entertaining himself with a balloon.



Then we finally made out way up to where the characters were. Carter enjoyed the hugs and high fives!











We were the LAST people to go through the line! We'd stopped to go to the bathroom before hitting the party, and so we arrived when the line was at its absolute worst. But then sometime while we were finishing up our pictures, half the people left, apparently thinking that nothing else was going to happen. They definitely missed out!

We had some snacks and settled on the floor for storytime. And guess who turned out to lead storytime? DJ Lance Rock and Leslie!



Carter got high-fives from both of them.





And then after that, Biz Markie came out! Carter got a bunch of high-fives and a hug from him.





In the end, the party turned out to be a lot of fun! Carter said he really enjoyed it, and when we asked him what part he liked best he said, "the show and taking pictures with everyone". So basically, he liked the whole thing! I think we'd now feel confident taking him to other shows like this.

On another topic entirely, Carter's favorite Christmas song is "Jingle Bells" and he sings it all the time. Here is a video I took yesterday of him singing it. The noise you hear in the background is his train set.



So he doesn't really know all the words yet, but close! ;-)

NaBloPoMo 30/30: Potty accidents, play, and some parenting lessons I've learned

Yay, 30 posts in 30 days! This is the 4th year in a row I've done this, and I'm always pleased at the end of the month that I managed to post something significant almost every day. It's a good reminder that there is a lot I could post about Carter and what he's currently doing, but so much of the time I never get around to it. This is one month a year when I really do keep a good record of Carter's life. I want him to be able to read this blog when he's all grown up and see pictures and read about these parts of his childhood that he won't remember. And hey, considering how old I'll be when he's all grown up, I may not remember either!

Today, like all Wednesdays, was a work-from-home day for me. We had a few hours in the morning to have breakfast and play, and we ended up spending a good chunk of that time sitting in the front room by the Christmas tree, playing and listening to holiday music. I'm loving having the tree in there instead of in the foyer. It encourages us to hang out in that space that otherwise so often goes unused.

I worked during the afternoon while Michelle and Carter played. For the last two days, he's basically wanted to play in his playroom all day. She tried to lure him outside this afternoon, but he wasn't interested! They put up some holiday decorations in the playroom. Here is the window, which has sort of turned into a bulletin board:



Yesterday I posted pictures of the ornaments they made. Here they are on the tree:



I'm really loving the way we're using the tree to display the seasons and holidays. It's something we'll be able to do year-round, and it's a lot of fun.

This evening Carter and I went to McDonald's for dinner and then to Target -- I was desperate to get to the grocery store, and this was the only time we had to do it. At McDonald's we played and fed a chicken mcnugget to a stray kitten who came to hang out on the playground. It wouldn't let us come near it at all, poor thing. Something I would love to do when Carter is older is foster cats for the Humane Society. I would love to take in a stray and help it learn to adjust to life with caring people before it finds a permanent home. I would especially love to foster a pregnant mama cat sometime. I have such good memories of seeing my cats raise kittens when I was little, and since it's fairly irresponsible to fail to spay and neuter cats these days, the only way for Carter to experience that would be in a foster situation. Maybe someday...

We then went to Target, where we got some (caffeine-free) yummy drinks at Starbucks and then did the necessary shopping. We always end our trips to Target by spending some time in the toy section, where Carter loves to play with whatever he can get his hands on. After playing with some trains for a while he said, "Mommy, come here. I did something." I wandered down the aisle to where he was to see a puddle on the floor next to him. For the first time in a long time, he'd wet his pants. I opened up the package of wipes that was in the cart and cleaned up the mess, then we swung by the kids' clothing area and I picked out a cheap pair of sweatpants. I don't usually carry spare clothes anymore, so I wasn't prepared for this! I bought the pants and then changed him in the bathroom, and we headed back over to the toys. So yeah, Target was a convenient place for it to happen!

The whole potty learning thing has been really interesting. We're coming up on a year out of pullups, and though it's generally gone well, there have definitely been particular periods where he's regressed for a few weeks at a time. During the last regression, we learned by trial and error that we had to just back off and let him sort it out. Reminding him to go to the bathroom would just frustrate him, and he'd end up holding it even when he was clearly uncomfortable, and would inevitably have an accident. Reminding him to go had worked in the past, but suddenly it only made things worse! So we learned to just wait him out, doing no more than gently observing that he looked like he might need to pee, and accepting his "no" without argument. And when there are accidents, it's no big deal -- we just clean it up without comment and move on. As soon as we all started doing this, the regression ended within a matter of days. So we were clearly making it worse when all he needed was a little space!

He's still pooping in pullups, but we've been saying for months now that when he turns 4 he will have to start pooping on the potty. He seems to accept this, but I'm not sure he's aware of how soon his birthday is coming up! I've told him we'll have a special party when he starts pooping on the potty -- which he's never really done. We'll see!

Speaking of pee, this evening when we got home he stripped off his new pants and ran around half-naked for a while. I'd just gotten off the phone with Doug when I looked over and realized he was peeing into his hand, and then drinking the pee! I wasn't exactly sure how to respond to that, so I decided to not make a big deal out of it and hope for the best. I asked him if he thought pee tasted yummy or gross, and he made a face and said, "Gross!" and then spit into his hand as if trying to get the taste out. And that was it -- he didn't do it again. I even asked him about it after his bath, and he said it was gross. :-P

Here he is sitting in a basket at Target while we were checking out. He said it was a boat.



He started to get really loopy after the pee incident, and I realized that it was 9:00 and he was overtired. I'd lost track of time. One thing that I've learned in the last few months is that under these circumstances, rushing bedtime is NOT a good idea. Despite the fact that he's tired and really needs to get to sleep, these are the times when the bedtime routine is super important to get him wound down. It's also really important to connect with him during bedtime, and that really helps him stop whining and acting crazy.

One of the big parenting lessons I've learned in the last year is that the times when kids are most annoying, when you really don't want to deal with them, are actually when they need your full attention the most. Their brains are still developing and changing all the time, and they just can't regulate their emotions like adults can. They desperately need help to get themselves back to normal. Conventional parenting "wisdom" would say that you should ignore or even punish them at a time like this, and to actually give them love and attention would only reinforce the wrong things. But you know, kids are not puppies, and that sort of behaviorist thinking is not a good basis for a parenting philosophy. Kids need parenting then far more than they need it when they're happy and not being annoying. This has been a great lesson for me, and you know what? It totally works.

So the bedtime routine took its usual 45-ish minutes, and it was completely pleasant and fun. Carter only made it through one story before he decided it was time to go to sleep, and he was out in a minute. If I'd tried to rush things at any point, it would have been a disaster (as I've learned from prior experience).

Another thing that's changed in the last month is that Carter has suddenly become more interested in understanding the rationale behind rules and actions. We've always provided the rationale and he's seemed to just ignore it, but in the last few weeks he's started pressing for more information. And it's really making me be more careful and thoughtful about my own actions.

For example, a constant battle we have at bathtime is over the "keep the water in the tub" rule. Carter takes baths in the big garden tub in our master bathroom. For some insane reason, the people who built this house decided that the master bathroom should have carpet on the floor, which means that we have to be careful about stepping on bathmats when we get out of the tub. Carter likes to pour water onto the carpet, unfortunately -- not the bath mat, or a plastic tub placed there for just this purpose, or even a pile of towels, but the carpet itself. There has been much discussion of this rule and nightly taking away of water-containing vessels at bathtime, but it's a rule that he just doesn't seem to be able to follow. There is something about pouring water on the carpet that he finds incredibly appealing.

So once again tonight, he poured water on the carpet, and I reminded him about the rule. And this time, he asked, "Why?" He's never asked why about this rule before, but this is a new trend, so I wasn't surprised. But still, I mentally went through a list of all the reasons why I don't want water on the carpet to really push myself to understand why this rule was so important. Clearly Carter doesn't yet believe it's important, and this was a chance to convince him. I finally picked one: I'm worried about the carpet getting moldy and becoming a health hazard. We talked about this for a while, and he really seemed to listen and think about it. I told him that mold is especially bad for people who have asthma (like him), and that we could all get very sick if our house got moldy, and that it would be difficult and expensive to fix the problem. Only time will tell if that explanation helps him understand the rule, but I really think that was a turning point.

I'm liking this new phase, though. It's pushing me to be honest about why we do things the way we do, rather than just arbitrarily choose to stop him from doing something because it's inconvenient. I think he's almost ready for us to start talking about formulating a set of house rules that we all agree upon and follow. That should be really interesting!

And I'd better stop writing now so that I can get this posted before midnight. :-)

NaBloPoMo 29/30: Reading, crafts

I've been meaning to post about our "Word of the Day" project for a while now. We started doing this back in October, and it's been a lot of fun. I bought some word strips at a teacher store and we've been using them to write down a new word about every day. Carter helps choose the word, and it's usually something relevant to what we did that day. Michelle does them many days she's here, and it's fun to come home and see what the new word is.

Carter doesn't write the word, but he can usually tell us how to spell it. We sound it out and write all the letters, and sometimes add a picture. We then tape them on the pantry door (which is getting full). Carter likes talking about them, and almost always recognizes them in other contexts when he sees them, so I think it's really helping his reading along.

Here is a video I took tonight of him talking about his words. You can tell that he knows a lot of them by sight, but he's also pausing to sound out some of them.



I was on campus all day, and when I came home Carter and Michelle had a craft project spread out on the kitchen island. They'd made ornaments for his playroom tree! I thought they were really cute. I'll post a picture of the tree when they get it decorated.



You can see that today's word of the day was "glitter".



That's it for today. One more day and I'll have done NaBloPoMo once again! :-D

NaBloPoMo 28/30: Orlando Day 4

We're home in Austin now after a relatively uneventful travel day. I'm sad the trip is over because we had so much fun, and I'm not exactly sure when we'll be back in Orlando. I don't think we'll go on Thanksgiving weekend again; we're definitely ready to see the parks in a less crazy state!

Here are some pictures from Sunday. We decided to take it easy in the morning, and then went to brunch at the Animal Kingdom Lodge. We stayed there the first year and really enjoyed it, though it was insanely expensive. Our brunch was good and Carter ate an insane amount of food. I'm still not sure where he put it all! Afterwards, we walked around the hotel and let Carter play some.





As usual, he was far more interested in climbing on the rocks than looking at the animals.





One thing I love about the Disney properties is that all the bathrooms have kid-sized sinks. What a great idea!



I also love that this hotel has a playground. I wish ours did!



Carter also got some good Daddy time.



We went back to our hotel for the afternoon. Here is a picture of one of the pools at the hotel. The water was a little chilly even though it was 80 degrees, so we never actually got in.



The hotel had an awesome little beach though, and Carter had a great time playing there.





We also saw some skywriting! We've actually seen skywriting every trip, and the messages are always religious. I'm guessing it's the same guy?



That night we went to Epcot for the evening. We ate Japanese food and walked around the world showcase area. Every time I go to Epcot I enjoy it more. There's still so much I haven't seen there. I think it's my favorite of the Disney parks!

Here is the big Epcot Christmas tree. Carter and Doug are in front of it, but you'll have to take my word for it.



Here we are waiting for the fireworks.



I took some pictures of the fireworks, just for fun.







It was a nice end to the trip! I'm already looking forward to going again. I've always loved amusement parks and there's definitely something special about the attention to detail in Disney parks. Amusement parks can often be grimy places, but not Disney. I have no idea how they keep everything so sparkling and perfect! And I'm not sure I want to know how they keep the bugs away. Seriously, people screen in their entire back yards in central Florida, but there is nary a flying insect to be found around the Disney parks. It can't be pretty.

It's time to get Carter ready for bed and for me to start thinking about getting back to work tomorrow. I hope those of you following this blog enjoyed our pictures from Orlando!