Another Milestone Down

On Sunday Carter pointed to a picture in the quiet book his grandmother in Arizona made him and identified it. He then started pointing out other things and naming them. I am super excited.

He is now remembering names of people. He especially loves the little girl's names. He has been able to say "Lydia" quite well for a while now. He has added Lillie, Anna, Amy, Audrey, Andrew, and Emma. We went to play at Andrew and Emma's house last night and he sang a song on the way home (another super cute thing he does - make up songs): "Emma, Emma, Emma, An-new, Emma, Emma, Emma"

Carter has become interested in the "Potty". When ever anyone says they have to use the restroom, Carter will run ahead of them to the bathroom and try to lift the lid. Good thing we have made a habit of closing it when we are finished. This interest is not helped by the toilet that we have sitting in our driveway. We did some remodeling of our rental house, and have yet to dispose of the toilet. Grrrrrrr. It will be gone soon I HOPE. Carter loves to get out of the car and run to it, shouting "Potty Potty!!"

This picture came NOT because we are potty training, but because I was changing his diaper and he just let loose. I started yelling for him to stop. The flow shut off. I decided he had the control. I rushed him to the potty to see if he would let it all out. Nope. He sat on the toilet for a couple minutes with nothing to show for it except the knowledge that he can fit on our built-in child sized potty seat.

At my baby shower we received a doggy backpack with a really long tail. We tried it out on Sunday. Carter was no where near ready for bed at bed time. David decided to let him walk on our walk. He walked more than 1/2 a mile by himself!! It took us an hour. He loved it.

So yesterday Carter had a Daddy & Me date to the park. Daddy let him walk his self.

They watched the airplanes take off and land.

They had a snack. Carter got some apple stuck on his lip and he is trying to lick it off:

And they watched the water go by:

All in all it was a super fun day for him.

The Old Cannery again

We went to the Old Cannery again today. They always do a big event on holidays. I love the bridge lighting ceremony and the horse drawn carriage rides. They also have a train for the kids that will run later this year too. They pull out the BBQ pit and have hot dogs for everyone. They do pictures for Christmas, Easter, and Memorial Day.

 We got a good picture despite a wiggly baby:

This was last year's picture:

These two were really hard to get sitting still on camera:

Zoomed in:

This is from last year:

Funny thing. This year Carter is wearing the same vest Lydia wore last year (Even though you can't see his vest because it is behind his hat). 

Foot Ball

When I was pregnant, my good friend Erik took me to Target and told me to pick out something for the baby. I found some cute jammies. He got frustrated with me and took me to the sporting goods isle. He said "This kid needs some real toys". We ended up in the toy section for something he could use before he was 12. He bought Carter a football and a basketball set. He loves them both - but the football more than anything. David and I are not sports people, so I would not have bought him a football otherwise. I wish I could capture on camera how Carter says "football", it sounds like he is saying "Foofoo". We took him out in the yard with his foofoo and let him play.

(He's not posing to be cute, he just fell and touched the grass - YUCK!! - apparently)

He just took the ball from Daddy, and is running away with it.

This is Carter actually throwing the ball.

Carter snuck into the pantry and began to play with things. He made a tower with his food. I was quite impressed. He didn't even knock it over:

One more Carter story:

It amazes me how much he understands. I tell him that it is time to roll up his sleeves, and he grabs them and tries to pull up. He knows what I want, he just doesn't have the capabilities yet. Carter was being super defiant last week. He loves to play in the dog's water dish & turn the water on in the bathtub. I am hoping the water table cures him of both of those. On Saturday - the 14th - I caught him in the dog's water 3 times. Each time I said to myself - he is not old enough to punish, I just have to remove him from the situation until he can comprehend punishment.

We have tried flicking his hand when he is touching something he shouldn't, or even a time out on my lap. He just doesn't get it. He will continue to do what he is doing regardless of how many times I flick his hand in a row. Eventually he will cry while still doing what he is doing. I think he knows, but just doesn't care.

So, on the fourth time I was pretty angry. I walked in there and thought I'd try raising my voice. He just looked at me and continued to splash. He was also babbling at me, like he was saying "Hi mom, what beautiful weather we're having". I told him to get out of the bathroom. Nothing. I leaned over and smacked his hand against the bowl. NOTHING. I smacked his hand again. It didn't even break his conversation. He was completely ignoring me, with one hand in his lap and the other splashing in the water. I looked him right in the eye and said "MOVE YOUR HAND!". He picked up the hand that was in his lap, raised it up and wiggled his fingers.

What do you do?? It was one of those moments that I just wanted to laugh. You can't laugh however. I picked him up and took him out. Then we got a water table.

You ask me, 'Why don't you remove the temptation?' 'Why is the water accessible?' I can't lock the dogs out of their water, and I can't lock them in. It is a double edged sword. Somebody looses, and I cannot punish the dogs. It is so frustrating.

Outside Finally

Carter LOVES to be outside. When he says it it sounds more like "South Side". Here are some pictures with his new slide:

We got Carter a water table for outside. If you remember our visit to the Science Center, you'll know how much this little guy loves water. He had a blast with his new table. He really enjoys splashing, and getting completely soaked!

I don't know if you can tell how wet he is in this picture. I literally wrung water out of his pants after this:

I am pretty sure Carter only asks for bubbles because he loves watching the dogs enjoy them. Blu & Vortex LOVE popping bubbles. Blu especially.

Where is the "Toddler Explosion" setting on my washing machine????

Warning: Graphic Picture ahead. Not for the weak stomach.

I thought blowouts were for infants. WRONG. Carter still has blowouts! This week has been especially hard because he has big boy poops now with corn, oranges, and other miscellaneous chunks in them. The other day as we pulled into the parking lot for playgroup, I smelled it. I took him to the back of my station wagon - thank you David for convincing me that it was the better way to go. I pulled his pants down and smeared it all the way down his leg. Pull out too small outfit from the diaper bag (It had been a while since we had an incident outside of the house apparently - that either means we don't get out much, or I have been EXTREMELY lucky.), give him a quick diaper wipe bath, and off to playgroup we go. Little did I know that the pants now safely wrapped in a plastic bag were filled with poop down the leg. I washed them in the machine and that only hurled poop onto all my clothes. I washed that load 3 times on Third-Degree-Burn water temperature setting just to melt the poop away.

Today, we had another blowout. I thought of my friend Chandra on her first week watching Carter at 3 months old. She texted me to let me know Carter had "pooped all the way up into his head fuzz". This time, it went the opposite way. He pooped all the way down to the bottom of his shoes. I don't know how you poop BOTH your shoes. If that could be classified as a talent - my child is a prodigy!!

David was home and between jobs at the time this happened. He usually only gets 15-30 minutes at home on Monday & Wednesday evenings. However, today he came home early. He had an hour with us. He spent it washing our child. Carter got me all poopie. I changed just to find he had flung poo on my flip flops which, in turn, smeared on my new pants and rubbed on my shirt as I tried to wipe it off. I changed twice. While I was changing, David informed me that pudding contains milk. Seems totally non sequitur right? Then, I remembered that I began feeding Carter pudding, in addition to his meat/vegetable & fruit lunch. He was always still hungry after lunch, and I got the sugar free stuff. I thought I was being a good mommy - introducing a healthy sweet and all. Nope. Carter can't handle milk. Remember our Pumpkin Patch attempt? Which led to Soy Milk? I don't think I ever updated you guys, but the soy milk did the trick. Well, I have poisoned my baby again. This time, I should have known better. He has been so grumpy this week. He says "NO!" to everything, even things he wants. I thought it was a tantrum phase. No, he just feels awful.

I have fun playing in the sun pictures for you guys, but it'll have to wait until Carter feels better before I can get to the computer post them. He hasn't let me do ANYTHING this week!!

New Slide

Carter got a new slide & car from a family in our ward. He is very excited about it. HE LOVES HIS CAR! He likes the slide too, but he doesn't like touching grass. I think he looks like a little turtle that has gotten stuck on his back.

Wiggly & Defiant

Carter is so hard to get pictures of!!

Carter and David had matching ties on Sunday, so I tried to get a picture. Carter wouldn't hold still. The only way I could get him to hold still was to give him the lens cap for the camera. I know it is kind of goofy with him and this lens cap in the picture. I take great pride in my pictures, and choosing the very best ones to email out and display on my blog. So I guess I should not be too hurt if somebody complains about my prop, especially since it is the first time I have posted less than perfect pictures (in my opinion).

But most of them turned out like this without it:

I did get two good ones:

My brother John came to visit and met Carter for the first time. Carter LOVED his hat. I loved this picture of him in it:

Carter also loved his glasses:
However, did not appear to loved being held by my brother:

They were buddies on the ground.

Eyeballs Who Needs Them??

So, Carter almost lost an eye on Monday. Like, really really almost lost an eye. He has begun the stage where he grabs things he knows he shouldn't have, and runs with them. I am at the crossroads where he waits to see my reaction before running. I saw him pick up the marshmallow skewer off the ground. I felt my adrenaline surge. He saw my eyes widen. He turned around and "ran". He made it two steps before falling on it. Missing his eye by only inches. Talk about your heart stopping. And did he cry? NO. I scooped him up off the ground and tried to asses the damage. I saw that he still had the skewer in his hands. I attempted to take it from him. NOOOOOOOOO. Screaming kicking fit! "You can't take that, I found it, it is MINE!!" I heard him think. He held on for dear life. I am still a little shaken by the event. Thank you Bethany for being calm, but assuring me that it was not unreasonable to be that wound up.

Then!! There's more!

Tuesday, we went to our Covington house to clean up and touch up. I painted and cleaned while Carter went around and tested the paint and undid whatever I did. I ended up locking him in my bedroom with toys. Thinking it was safe. When I let him out I noticed that he had a screw in his mouth. He had been sucking on a drywall screw! You know when it is too quiet? He was that quiet. THE ENTIRE TIME. I thought maybe he had taken a nap. NOPE. I wrestled the screw out of his mouth when he picked up a trowel, also called a knife. If you don't know what it is, it is a metal scraper with a sharp, flat edge that we use to flatten out the mud we put on the walls to fill in the holes. This one was rusty and gross because of years of use. He started licking it like an ice cream cone! It was disgusting. I took one step towards him to grab it. He turned around and "ran" taking two steps and tripping. Falling right on it. He got it in the face, but it didn't break the skin. Hallelujah!

But then, he was running through the kitchen and tripped last night. He fell and smacked his face so hard, he gave himself a bloody nose. You can barely see the dried blood in his nose after David cleaned him up, but still. I am pretty sure I am more traumatized by these moments than he is.

This is only 2 days!!! What is in store for the next few years???