Sentences

Carter is making great progress with sentences in the last couple of weeks. Here are some of his accomplishments:

I want ____.
I'm ready now.
I take ____.
I break that.
I need ____.
Where ____ be?
I rip that.
I eat that.
Me come back.
I lay down.
I wake up.
I put pants on.

Offspring

A couple of things have happened recently to remind me that Carter is most certainly our child.

• At Carter's school, the teachers always have an activity out for the kids to work on as soon as they arrive. Sometimes it is an art project, sometimes it is puzzles or other manipulatives. This morning, Carter was particularly excited to get to school. He burst into his classroom, but abruptly came to a stop and looked disappointed. His teacher said, "Oh, he must have thought it was an art morning. He always gets excited like that for art!" Apparently, not so much for the large-ish-lego things they were working on this morning. I do art projects with Carter at home, but I didn't really know that he had a particular interest in art. It makes sense, though, given his crafty mom and artsy dad.

• At our parent-teacher conference last week, the teacher made a point to tell us how much Carter likes to read. Apparently, they all just think its adorable that when they have free time, he'll grab a book, recline on the mini sofa and prop his feet up. The book-loving comes from both of us. The couch-reclining from Thomas and the feet propping from me.

• Occasionally, we'll accidentally leave the salt cellar where Carter can reach it. He unfailingly takes a pinch and happily eats it. This morning was no exception. He definitely gets the love of salt from me. Pepper, on the other hand, is Thomas' seasoning of choice.

Patches

I don't think we got Carter enough pairs of pants for this winter season. First, we're constantly having to do laundry because he's out of pants. Second, almost all his pants now have holes in the knees due to wear. Since we're pretty close to shorts season, I've just been patching them up. Here, Carter shows off a pair of pants (only two months old!) with star patches.

Here he is in another pair with a very cute caterpillar and a bumble bee. He also has a pair of jeans with a baseball patch , but I didn't get pictures of those yet.

Similar to his reaction to my homemade rainbow pasta and thematically colored milk for special days, he seems to like the fun patches, but maybe just not quite as much as I do...

Valentine's Day

On Saturday night, we enjoyed our traditional chicken fried steak, fried okra and steamed artichoke Valentine's day feast. Carter didn't get any of that, but he did get some of our chocolate cinnamon mousse, which he enjoyed mightily.

Recent Video

For your Valentine's Day viewing pleasure, we present this short video in which Carter dances, trust-falls, bangs on things and generally demonstrates his personality for you. He talks a little, too. I considered putting on subtitles, but I think you can make most of his words (and I couldn't be bothered to do the subtitles). It's just a string of pretty random video, but I thought we were overdue for a video post, so here you go.

Homecoming

I arrived home last night, only a couple hours late. Thomas and I are trying to avoid sharing our unique brands of sick with each other.

This morning, Carter started off by giving me the silent treatment -- angry with me for being gone this week, I presume. He was also insistent that he have a hot dog for breakfast. He'd pulled out all the necessary ingredients and brought them to us. I broke the ice by acquiescing to the hot dog breakfast, but he was still a bit stand-off-ish. But when he saw me blowing my nose and heard me say that I don't feel well, he came running to give me a huge hug!

One thing I love about going away for a few days is that it makes it easier to notice his progress/growth. This morning, he was very talkative! He said (prompted), "I want that hot dog, please." He also said (unprompted) "Where Dada be?" and "Mama hot dog, too" (I was required to join him for a breakfast hot dog). He also responded appropriately with words when I asked him who he saw last night ("Cart Cart!"), what he had for dinner last night ("Meatballs!"), and who picked him up from school the day before that ("Deborah!", "Lyah!").

It's good to be home!

Who do you love?

This evening, I asked Carter, "Who do you love?" This was preceded by me giving him a marshmallow (a reward for an excellent job eating dinner), so I might have been fishing for a little Mama-love. But I didn't really expect a response, as this type of question usually goes unanswered. This time, though, he thought about it and exclaimed "Cart Cart!" (which actually sounds like "Dark Dark"). Thrilled that he was responding to a "who" question, I asked him again and again, "Who else do you love?" until we had this nice little list:

Tonight, Carter loves:
Cart Cart
La-La (his speech therapist, whom he hasn't seen since last Wednesday)
Dada
Mama (whew!)
Feet
Cart Cart

Nursemaid's Elbow

We missed the first half of the Superbowl tonight, as an inadvertent afternoon tug-of-war between Carter and I resulted in an evening trip to urgent care. Nursemaid's Elbow was the diagnosis. It caused him a good deal of pain and largely immobilized his left arm for most of the day. We went to a nice children's urgent care facility about a half an hour away. At some point between being weighted and walking into the exam room, Carter recovered completely. Apparently, it is not uncommon for kids to do something to snap everything back in its proper place all on their own.

The frequency with which Carter recovers moments before we see the physician is becoming comedic. Another thing we're starting to notice is a pattern of twofers. Today, just before the arm injury, he face-planted against the edge of a counter and was bleeding from the mouth. The doctor took a look at that (since there was nothing to do for the arm) and also said that was fine. He actually noted that Carter didn't hit his face hard enough to tear his frenulum. I told him that we'd already been there and done that with one of Carter's first twofers back in March 2007. I no longer panic at bleeding from the mouth.

Right now, Thomas is watching the Superbowl in fast forward, trying to catch up. It wasn't going to be a raucous evening anyway (especially for me, as I have a conference call late tonight), but we missed out on our pigs-in-blankets and Matthew's amazing mac-n-cheese. We'll just have to make up for it another night, sans football, which is just fine with me!

We're so glad Carter is okay, as he was exceptionally pitiful (and guilt inducing) this afternoon. He was fully back to himself by the time the doctor came in!