Big Boy

There are so many things that Carter is doing now that make him seem like such a big boy (as compared to, you know, a baby). I really can't believe how quickly he has become a little person. Here's the first installment of big boy stories:

Bye-Bye Boobies
Shortly after his first birthday (and around the time he started biting), I weaned Carter off of breastfeeding. At the same time, we weaned him completely off of bottles, so he is a sippy cup man (specifically, he is a straw-style sippy cup man – he won’t take any other kind of cup).

Personality!
Lately, Carter has gotten very sweet – and a little feisty. He has started to really love on his stuffed animals and to give people spontaneous hugs, too. He is definitely starting to assert his independence and realize that he has a mind of his own.

At bath time tonight, I was demonstrating how much fun his new alien bath toy is. I was filling it up with water and showing him how it squirts water out if its mouth. Apparently I was having too much fun because he took it out of my hand - and put it away.

At bed time, I wanted him to settle down, but he wanted to grab, play with and drop everything in sight (including the aforementioned sippy cup). Eventually, he decided that he was done playing. He handed his cup to me, turned around, threw his arms around my neck and cuddled. After a minute, he looked up at me and pointed to the crib, as if to say, “Okay, mom. I know Dad usually does this. You are supposed to put me in the crib now.”


Picky Eater
Carter has always been the wonder-baby who would eat pretty much anything and particularly loved vegetables. We are now starting to get a taste of the picky-eating phase that probably lies ahead.

First of all, Carter prefers his food to be cooked. None of this 'pull it out of the fridge, cut it up and hand it over' stuff. I can usually get away with just warming things up in the microwave, but he definitely prefers a home-cooked meal. What he prefers most of all, however, is bananas. He doesn’t care much for other fruits (except blueberries), but he loves bananas. He’d have one at every meal if he could. And he’d have it in a single bite if he could work out how to do that.

At dinner tonight, I was trying to get Carter to eat his cumin black beans. I picked a couple up and put them in my mouth, “mmm, yummy, black beans…”. He watched me closely and then reached for the beans. I thought, “hooray, he’s going to eat one!”. He then picked up a bean and held it out to me, as if to say, “you like them so much, you eat them!” I ended up giving him a banana.

More from last weekend

Here are a couple of pictures that I forgot to post last week. Shannon and Carter.

I love how sometimes birthday fun can go on for weeks and weeks. Check out the very cute Crocs that Shannon (and Stubbie, ostensibly) got Carter for his birthday!

Overnight Guest

Carter is such a big boy these days. He had his first overnight away last weekend. Here are some pics of his night at Uncle Patrick and Aunt Kir's house.

Souvenirs!

Carter enjoys the memorabilia that Thomas brought home from his bachelor weekend-o-fun!

Three Aunts

Shannon and Ashley were in town this weekend while our men were living it up at Stubbie's bachelor party in Chicago. In order that we might be able to live it up ourselves, Carter spent Saturday night with Patrick and Kirstin (my first non-business night away from him). When Patrick and Kirstin brought Carter back this morning, three of Carter's aunts/"aunts" were in one place!

Bachelor What?

I'm not sure why a man would choose to go on a man-only bachelor weekend when he could be happy at home with this hotness...

Boy in a box

Sure, birthday presents are cool, but do you know what's really awesome? The boxes they come in.
Cats, kids, it's all the same. Boxes are just a lot of fun.

Sick Boy

Carter had a few feverish days early this week (he seems fully recovered now). The one nice thing about having a sick baby is that he is so much more willing to snuggle on the couch!

Play Date

We had a play date with a family from Carter's old daycare this past weekend. They live in the neighborhood so we met up in Prospect Park. It was very cute to see the boys playing "together". They did actually interact some, mostly in the form of Carter head-butting and attempting to crawl on top of his new friend. After a while, Carter realized that there was a patch of dirt with a rock and a stick and a hole just a few feet away. After that, he wanted nothing more to do with any of us or his toys!

Shoes

We've had some requests for a picture of Carter in his new shoes, so here you go!

(He's still only made the occasional solo step, we'll keep you posted on the walking front!)

Missing Mandi

With Aarti in town and Joo over for the night, it was almost like our annual Girl Weekend. Except that we were sorely missing Mandi. Thomas did his part to fill it, but it wasn't quite the same...

Thomas at Work

For your reading pleasure, below is an article recently published in Lighting & Sound America magazine about a project I worked on (Signature Theatre in Arlington, VA) and am quoted in several times. The article is in PDF format, so you will need Adobe Acrobat Reader to view it, but it is a free program for anyone out there that may not have it. Hooray for me...

http://www.elizabethandthomas.com/Signature-LSAsmall.pdf


This project was also published in Home & Design magazine (no article, just a photo), but here is that link as well as a link to more photos of the theater for those that are interested.

http://www.bfcollection.net/publ/h&d/homedesign2007_01.htm

See, I do work on occasion....

Puff

Mandi made Carter a dragon for his birthday. Carter is enjoying it very much. In fact, it went to his new daycare to be used as his comfort object for nap time. (And yes, she actually made that dragon - it is unbelievably good!)

Computer Fun

Thomas found a very cute free computer program that allows Carter to bang happily on the computer keyboard, causing fish to swim or flowers to bloom on the screen. Carter loves it!

Dump Truck

Carter is thoroughly enjoying all his birthday presents, I just haven't gotten a chance to capture pics of him with them all yet. Here he is with the dump truck that Joo got him. The boy likes his truck, and he particularly likes putting stuff in it.

Aarti is here!

Aarti is here visiting for the week! Carter is starting a new daycare tomorrow, and he has to be "phased-in" over the next three days (meaning that he goes for just a couple of hours for the first three days, and we stay with him for progressively shorter times). Aarti is going to be helping out by keeping Carter during the day when he is not at the new daycare. We'll keep you posted on how the phase-in is going.

Aarti, Joo, Carter and I had a fun day in the park yesterday.

Real Shoes

Carter took a few well-timed steps last week. I say well-timed because Thomas and I were both sitting on the couch watching him at that very moment. He hasn't repeated the maneuver this week, but we expect he will be walking very soon. In any case, he is spending a lot of time on his feet, cruising around inside and outside, so we decided to get him his first pair of real shoes.

I went to a cute shop by our house, where they have baby sized benches for the kids to sit on while they try on shoes. I'll try to get a shot of the wee one in his new sandals (size 5 1/2) later this week.

Surgery Update

Thomas' sinus surgery went well. He is home recovering now. We expect that he'll pretty much spend the weekend on medication in bed or on the couch. If it weren't for the bleeding and medication, that would pretty much sound like his ideal weekend!