Girls

As I mentioned before I have been babysitting the "girls" down the street. They are almost a full year older than Carter. He LOVES them!! He can tell me who is who, and on days when I don't have them, he begs to play with them. We walk by their house and he gets really excited. "Girls Girls!!!" Then he talks about them individually. I don't know what he is saying yet, but hopefully soon it will make sense.

Things were a little too quiet on Wednesday. I found them down the hall. They had all carried a stool and put them in a circle. They were "eating" train tracks. It was soooooo cute. Carter got up off his stool and said "Out Mommy, Out". He got up and pushed me all the way down the hallway.

He's not even a teenager yet!!!!

I took these pictures on Thursday:

It was really cute - they were all looking out the window, so I went out to take a picture of the three of them. This is what I found!! Carter is smooshing his face up against the glass, then licking it.

Quirky Kid

Carter is so much smarter than I am!!

I wondered why things were so quiet. I walked out into the living room and saw him watching "Baby Carter"

I've been babysitting twins the last couple months, and it is really hard to feed all three of them at once. Carter is just too short to reach his plate at the big table. I set him up because he was begging to eat. He made his own booster seat. . . out of a basketball. He is so clever.

If you have ever worked or lived with me - or your name is Sister Bryan - you know how much I love to read the paper. There is just something about the newspaper in my hand that I really enjoy.

I have apparently passed that on to my son.

Except, he is reading the sports page looking for balls & high-5s.

He loves our truck. He came to me begging "Truck Please, Truck Please!!!"

Greatest Phobias

Today was an immense challenge for me. I have determined not to pass my phobias on to my child. I have gone right up to a bee with him and happily told him how wonderful they are. I have pointed at snakes and told him that they are great.

I don't want to have them in my house or touch them.

Today, I saw this GINORMOUS spider on the wall above Carter's changing table. It might-could not have been so bad if I wasn't changing Carter's diaper at the time. He was a good 3/4" tall and easily 4 inches from leg to leg. I measured him when I caught him. Yes, I CAUGHT him. It took every ounce of my being not to wet my pants. The real hard part was not screaming while changing Carter's diaper. I had to show him how "cool" spiders are.

Then, there was the snake. My temperature gauge says 83 degrees F outside. I am wearing shorts. I was walking with Carter to the mailbox when this guy slipped off the ledge next to me, falling down my bare leg. He then slithered over my foot in his escape. I screamed. Then awkwardly, I  composed myself and tried to reassure my toddler that snakes are our friends. Very quickly, it became apparent that my dogs did not consider this snake their friend. They saw him as their toy. I had to fight them off, while trying not to scare Carter. Grrrrrrr.

I still get chills thinking about it.

What to do on a hot day?

Carter can do a couple of new things this week!

First, he put two and sometimes three words together on his own. He has never been able to put two words together when prompted, but today he said "Banana Please" when I asked him to. It took multiple tries, but he did it.

He noticed two guys giving a high-5 on the cover of the newspaper. He was so excited that he wanted to give me a high-5 too.

He is starting to sing actual songs. I caught this on video today. Sorry it is so bright. I had the camera on the wrong setting, and it washed everything out.

We are having a rough day. You know those days where your child is into EVERYTHING!?! While you are busy cleaning up the last mess, he is making a fresh one? Things were going great, and he started to get a little antsy. He was getting into things that he knew he wasn't supposed to. I told him we were going to take a walk. I bring the dogs inside, and send them to their room while Carter goes outside to get his bike. He is distracted by the water. I pull him out of the water table splashing away, and while I am putting my shoes on - he decides to play in dog poop. I take him in to clean him off. He is reaching for EVERYTHING. I tell him to stop touching things. So what does he do? Not 5 seconds after I say that, he grabs my white door and smears poop on it. I get him into the bathroom and wash his hands. I cannot get the poop out of his fingernails, so I grab the clippers to trim them down to nothing. While I am clipping one hand, the other has reached behind his back and is scraping inside my toothpaste. I look up to see toothpaste smeared all over his face!!!!!

He has worn 3 onesies today because of bowel issues leaking onto the onesie.

I tried to lay him down for a nap so I could think. (And update my blog so I could tell you how cute and smart he is instead of thinking about how frustrated I am) He talked for most of the time. 15 minutes after he stopped talking, the neighbor comes home and the dogs freaked out. BARK BARK BARK BARK. Carter then wakes up and starts calling for me. NO NAP Wednesday. Grrrrrrrr.

So, here is my attempt at remembering all the fun things we did last week:

He can't go anywhere without his basketballs. He put them both on the seat of his car and got in:

I love his tongue in this one:

We went to the park and he played hula hoops with his friend Audrey:

But, all he wanted to do was watch the basketball hoops at the school across the street:

Until he found another kid's football. Then all he wanted to do was watch the basketball hoops with the football.

We set up the sprinkler in the front yard:

He is yelling "WATER!":

 He is very into Subaru's right now. He was crying that he wanted to color a Subaru. So, I printed one off for him. He was very excited about it, and only wanted to color in green. (I think that is because it is the only color he knows).

Quirky

The last 2 Sundays Carter has pulled his diaper changing pad out of his diaper bag and said - very loudly - "Poo Poos! I have Poo Poos!!". Then, he proceeds to lay on the pad on the floor and say it over and over again. He does not need his diaper changed. At least he is not asking to go out to be changed.

Usually on Sunday Carter will have something he wants to do that he wants to share with everyone. Some Sundays it is prayers, and some it is high-5. He will go to everyone that he can reach - or that can reach him - and try to give them a high-5 or pray with him. Yesterday it was kisses. He wanted everyone within reach to kiss him. That was fine for mommy & daddy - but the 13 & 15 year old boys behind us did NOT want to kiss him.

In nursery, Carter shared quite a few kisses with a girl named Caroline who is about a year older than him. She has always loved to rub his head and be with him. Lately, they have been kissing. A few weeks ago we did not get to church early enough to sit in our normal pew. We sat behind Caroline and her family. She leaned over the bench in front of us and kissed Carter multiple times. So cute.

He is starting to sing the ABC song. Mostly he can only remember the end "Now I've sung my ABCs, Next time won't you sing with me?". It is so cute to hear him try to say all the words together, let alone how he pronounces them!

Now for the pictures:

Carter playing on his counting phone.

Carter discovered bubble wrap.

Carter found the Toys-R-Us catalog that came in the mail and had to peruse it before I could get him dressed.

Subaru vs Saturn

I am a Saturn girl. My first car was a Saturn, and I have never owned anything else. It will be a sad day when my wagon dies and I can no longer replace her.

David is Subaru all the way. Because of that, Carter can identify the Subaru badge (the one on the front of the car with the stars).

Today I tried to introduce him to Saturn. We happen to have three of them in our driveway (because we love them so much). We walked around to identify all of their badges.

As we walked up the stairs to go back in the house he says to me "I want Subaru".

Great.

Splash Park

Today for playgroup we went to the splash park. For those of you who don't know, a splash park is a an area in a park with sprinklers that come out of the ground. Some parks are really elaborate with wet toys to climb on, and some just have water that shoots out of the ground randomly. 

This is the first time Carter has actually gotten into the water and played. We have been to 2 other splash parks, and he has been afraid of the water. Today, he really got into it.

This picture is really cute because he is sticking out his tongue:

We went to the playground, and saw a squirrel. Carter walked right up to him. This squirrel is about 5 feet away and staring right at Carter. I called him back at this point because the squirrel was just a little too brave:

I took this picture today. I COULD NOT GET HIM TO LOOK AT ME!! So, I settled for this shot. I don't edit many of my photos. When I do, it is really obvious - like making them Black & White or Sepia. This is the first time I have experimented with Photo Shop.

 Which one do you like best?

Full Sepia:

Eyes in color:

Eyes with other blue accents in color:

Or just the original?

On a side note, Carter pointed out that he has helicopters on his shirt, not airplanes today. They are not very well outlined , more like silhouettes of helicopters.

Recess Monkey

Today, Carter and I went to the library for story time. We heard "Clifford, The Big Red Dog" from a librarian with a thick southern accent. It was fun. Carter didn't care. Until the big scary dog came out. He was petrified. Almost all of the kids lined up to get their picture taken with Clifford. I love this stage where he will tell me what he wants and doesn't want. I asked him if he wanted to sit with Clifford. "No" (and adamant head shaking). So we watched all the kids sit on Clifford's lap, we grabbed the Clifford mask craft, and we headed off to the concert.

(Insert story about the disaster in the bathroom where my child crawled from my stall into the stall next to us and then twice out into the general bathroom area, yelling at the woman changing her baby that he had poo poos and she needed to change him, playing in the toilet, and the giant spider on the wall)

Recess Monkey is a group of three male teachers who tour the library system during the summer singing fun songs about having a vacuum on your back that flies you around like a rocket, and riding on a roller coaster. When we first got there, Carter remembered that we saw Caspar Babypants at that same spot and asked if we were going to hear "Googly Eyes". The kid has a memory like an elephant!

He was not so sure at first. Too much noise and too much going on around him. 

Then, he saw something in the air.

Hard to tell (Even though my camera is zoomed in as far as it would go!), but he correctly identified it as a helicopter!!

Then, he started getting into it. He was putting his hands in the air and down in his lap at appropriate times.

 Then he asked to get out of the stroller. He promptly took this chair over as his own. If you notice, his hand is in the cup holder - he thinks it is a basketball hoop. How cool, a chair with its own basketball hoop!!

Then he got up and danced: 

From 420 feet away, across the street and through the parking lot, we could faintly hear the music from the stands on our way out. They played songs from other artists while people packed up and left. He could hear the Caspar Babypants song "Nine Ninety Nine", and he correctly identified it:

If you listen very carefully in the beginning, you can hear the music.