Big Fat Meneye

That's me. The big fat meneye (meanie). 

He said it. He wrote it. He posted it above my bed. 

I'm going to give him points for his use of multiple communication methods. 

Dot COOOOOM

Carter has discovered the wonders of the internet! You can access anything you want simply by typing the name of that thing and adding ".com" at the end!

It started with Peter Brown, illustrator of the book Creepy Carrots. He visited Carter's school this fall and Carter really, really liked him. Carter also heard that he had a website. That night at our house, it sounded something like this:

Mom, we have to go to peter brown.com!
peterbrown.com
peterbrown.com!
Just GO to peterbrown.com!
Dad - can we go to peterbrown.com?
peterbrown.com!
peterbrown.com
peterbrown.cooooooooooom!
just go to peterbrown.COOOOOOOOM!

For the record, his website is peterbrownstudio.com.

When we were driving home from thanksgiving, Carter really wanted to stop at McDonalds. We told him that we didn't know where there was a McDonalds on the way home. So he said (with a "duh" attitude) "just go to mcdonalds-near-coventry-road-dot-com"!

Since then, Carter has started trying to navigate the web on his own, as, clearly, his parents are too slow. Recently, we came upon the computer to find this...

Can you guess what he was searching for? (Hint: it wasn't cookie cakes, and he confuses "ch" with "ck")

Writing

Carter has really started writing lately. In the past, it has been VERY difficult to get him to sound out words and write things down, but he's really started to enjoy writing. He seems to understand that writing is a method for communicating his thoughts...

"Keep out" (posted on his bedroom door)

"Lucas and Carter friends forever" (on the back of one of his books)

This last one needs a little setup. Carter was enduring a punishment. He was not allowed to watch TV or play video games. It was just Carter and me at home. Thomas was coming home to swap with me shortly, so that I could go in to work. I was on a conference call and so wasn't available to talk to Carter. He knew this, so he started slipping me notes.

Translations:

1. Dad is gonna be here in an hour.
2. When is this gonna be over so I can watch TV and play video games?
3. I love John.
4. I definitely love you, Dad.
5. (directed at me) I love you sort of. 

4 kids, 1 parent

I am traveling most weeks in October and November, so Thomas is solo-parenting a lot. This past week, he kept C and J and Anna and Sammy one night while Park and Ashley had evening committments! 

They all seemed to fare well (though the house was a bit of a wreck the next day when I got home). 

So glad we didn't learn this lesson the really hard way

Here's a photo of Carter with the candle that he made last weekend at a fun event with his Cart Cart. Carter and I had a nice, candlelight mother-son dinner last night after John was in bed and while Thomas was out. Thanks, Cart Cart!

I didn't take a photo of tonight's attempted reprise, in which Carter sneaks the candle and a match into his room, uses the (somewhat rough) chalkboard paint on one of his doors to strike the match and then throws the match into his trashcan after he fails to light the candle.

Pro: Our boy is smart and resourceful

Con: He could have seriously burned himself

Pro: He comes to his parents when he gets scared/in over his head (he reported said incident to us right away - his room still smelled strongly of struck match)

Con: He could have seriously burned the house down

Pro: The matches are now stored where he can't reach them -- as easily (and in the future we'll only buy strike on box matches)

Thanks, Cart Cart.

Church Wear

A study in comparison...

Dad gets Carter ready for church

Mom gets Carter ready for church

Thomas and Carter Time

Hoping to soften the blow of transitioning from only child to big brother, Thomas has been doing a great job coming up with one-on-one big kid activities to do with Carter. From water play, to attending the local high school football game to camping in the backyard (they made it the whole night in the tent!), this has been a special time for the two of them.

But, Carter doesn't just like weekends because of all of these fun activities. As he said this morning, he also really likes "home days" because, "I get to see my baby a lot."

Note from Thomas: In case anyone was wondering: a two person tent is fine for two adults, but not nearly big enough for one adult and a five year old. Also, for S'mores in the microwave (the grill is broken), 10 seconds is just a few too many. Marshmallows go a little crazy of you're not careful.

Note from Thomas: We left at the half, with Decatur up 57-0. I have not seen a final score yet (they might still be playing....)

Just a little rant...

Thomas has several recent-happenings posts that will be upcoming, but in the meantime, just a little rant...

If one more of Carter's teammates' parents uses the team connection to attempt to sell me something, I may have to boycott sports teams altogether. At least until he's old enough to be dropped off so I'm not a sitting duck for other parents/salesmen who know full well that I don't have anywhere else to be.

Does this really usually work? Oh, you coached my kids team, of course I'll be happy to recommend your totally unrelated business on Linked In. You're a very fair t-ball coach, I'd love to entrust my finances to you! You  know, I've just been sitting around soccer practice hoping that someone would offer to solve all my legal woes -- please do go to your car and get me a DVD about your services! (at least that one gets me a few minutes of peace...)

I've have successfully cultivated a "leave-me-alone" persona that works great on airplanes, but I've been trying to be somewhat more approachable in my parenting life. But I'm seriously considering earphones and perhaps a lengthy, urgent, phony call  for our next soccer practice...

Breakfast for Three

When I was in Philadelphia this weekend visiting Patrick, Kirstin and sweet baby Eavan, I recounted the following story, and they promptly chastised me for not having blogged it. So, without further ado:

One morning several weeks ago, I woke to the sounds of Carter moving around in the kitchen. I went downstairs to discover him sitting on the counter, wearing an oven mitt and preparing to remove three waffles from the toaster oven. Three waffles that he had taken from the freezer, climbed on the counter and cooked.

When I came in (and just before I gave him the speech about how wonderful and smart he is, but that he still isn't allowed to use the toaster oven alone), he told me that he was making breakfast for the three of us. He then showed me the three plates he had pulled from the cabinet and lined up on the counter, ready for plating up the waffles. The counter also held a (pretty heavy) carton of milk that he had pulled from the fridge.

But here's the best part. I went to make coffee, and as I started to pour water in the coffee maker, it overflowed -- because it had already been filled with water. Carter said, "I tried to make coffee, but I couldn't get the top off [the part that holds the grounds]." I finished up the coffee, and we sat down to eat our waffles.

The following weekend, he filled the coffee maker again (this time I checked before adding water). Again, I ground the beans and finished up the coffee. As I was sipping the coffee, I looked over at the coffee maker and wondered how he filled the it with water. Both times he had completely filled it with water. The pot itself would be too heavy if it were full, so he was probably filling it in several steps, but it might be a bit unwieldy for him, with the lid and all. I asked Carter how he filled up the coffee maker. "Do you use the coffee pot?" "No." He points to a dirty glass sitting next to the sink. "I filled it up and poured it in until it was full."

I remember that glass from last night. I remember how, when we went to bed, it was sitting next to the sink, containing melting ice and the remnants of a bourbon and coke.

Coffee prepared by my precocious and very thoughtful three-year-old... even when it's made with pretty gross water, it tastes great.

Crash

File this one under parenting strategies.

I got tired of Carter constantly running and crashing into me this evening (his normal physicality exacerbated by the snow day stir-crazies). So, I pulled up some Dave Matthews Band and put on Crash Into Me. I told Carter that he was only allowed to crash into us when he heard the word "crash".

It succeeded in significantly decreasing the number of times Thomas and I got bowled over. Even more so when the rest of the random song selection played. He may still be listening to lyrics for "crash"...

Our Little Negotiator

We've always loved to give Carter choices. It was particularly helpful through the toddler years for him to feel that he had some control. We'd provide him with several options that were all agreeable to us but he got to make the decision.

Recently, he's started to try to work the system. Last weekend, we were at a restaurant, and Carter had gotten out of his seat. He wandered over to my chair and I told him to go sit down. He started to head back to his chair, but then turned around and came back to me to say, "I need two options." And in the subsequent days, he keeps trying to up the number of choices we give him, thinking that whatever he wants to do will surely be presented, if he just has more choices! "I need three options; I need five options..." etc...

I have to admit that I've been knowingly training him up for this since he was a baby, and there is a part of me that loves his growing evil genius!

But I don't know how!!

Carter's latest strategy for getting out of things he doesn't want to do is to claim he doesn't know how to do whatever it is we need him to do. Two cases in point:

At bedtime one night, Thomas tells Carter to lay in his bed. Carter responds by saying "I don't know how to lay in my bed!" and demonstrates by attempting to do a headstand in the bed.

Another day, Carter wants to put on his "running pants", which are actually shorts, and it is too cold to wear them. Thomas tells Carter he can wear the sweatpants that he already has on, "they're great for running!" Carter responds, "I don't know how to run in sweatpants!" and demonstrates by orchestrating an overly dramatic fall, "See!?", he says.

Lyrics

On the way home from school this afternoon, Carter requested his favorite song, which is about a guy falling down and hitting his head. While the song was playing, Carter started saying "He got boo-boo! He got boo-boo again!" I turned down the volume and started quizzing him about the song and came to realize that he understands far more of the lyrics than I would have thought possible (I personally have a terrible time understanding lyrics, and I have a lot more English language experience than he does).

So now I'm just imagining what kind of influence our grown-up music is going to have on wee Carter. I can see it now. If he learns too much from this particular song, the next time he gets hurt, it might go something like this:
"Carter! How did you get hurt?"
"I busted ass off the jungle gym, mom."

The Exception Proves the Rule

In our seemingly never-ending quest to teach Carter some table manners, we spend a lot of time telling him that you do NOT put things in your milk. Not forks, not spoons, not toys, not your fingers, not food.

Tonight, I was reading him a story that showed a picture of a kid eating milk and cookies. Carter got very upset that the child was dipping his cookie in his milk. He kept going back to that page, pointing and repeating, "No do that! No do that!"

I tried to hide my chuckle as I explained that the "don't put anything in your milk" rule doesn't apply to cookies. At which point, I had to promise that we'd have cookies and milk -- very soon.

I expect we'll be baking this weekend.

Word Puzzles

When Carter wasn't talking, it was a challenge. Now that he's talking, it's also a challange, just a different kind.

Tonight in the car he kept saying something over and over. All I could decipher was: "I h*** n***!"

I thought it was probably either "I have nap" or "I hurt neck". But when I said those two things to him, he just kept repeating "I h*** n***!" "I h*** n***!" over and over, making me think that neither was a correct interpretation. But then he said it again, "I h*** n***!", and pretended to sleep. Okay, I figured, he WAS saying "I have nap". But then immediately afterwards, he said "Ouch! I h*** n***! Need band-aid!" So... what was he really saying? We'll never know.

Another fun thing is that Carter has decided that he doesn't want to go to bed anymore. We're constantly doing up-and-down at bedtime, adding at least an hour onto each night. It's always something different that finally works to get him to stay in bed. And the up-and-down is made so much more complicated by the fact that we can talk.

A few nights ago, Thomas was working late and Carter had been getting up for well over an hour. After doing stay-in-the-room-with-him, giving him books, giving him a doll, telling him what kind of sweet dreams to have, being stern, being really really stern, and giving the silent treatment (most of which work at one time or another), I finally broke down and the following transpired:
Me: Why?? Why?? Why won't you stay in bed??
Carter: very cute and smiley "Because I happy. I happy about my Dada.
Me: You are staying up because you want to see your dad?
Carter: Yeah!
Me: Carter you won't see your dad until the morning. The sooner you go to sleep, the sooner you will see him.
Carter: I need hurry! I need hurry go sleep!
And he did, and I didn't hear from him again that night.

Tonight Carter came out and wanted to know why I was eating in the living room. "What you eating? Why eat in living room? No eat in living room! Eat in kitchen! You watching TV? I watch Sponge Bob, I like Sponge Bob." And so on and so forth about Sponge Bob. Until I finally asked him what, exactly would make him stay in bed. And he was decisive. "Two yellow sticks". I did get him some "sticks" which shortly sent him into hysterics "I need put these away!"

Thanks, verbal development. Two yellow sticks. That really helps.

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.

42 inches

If you are 42 inches tall, you don't have to take a parent with you on the rides at the zoo. And if your parent wants to ride with you, they have to pay.

I discovered this yesterday, when I took Carter to the zoo (in the cute new overalls he's sporting below). I noticed this because Carter happened to stand next to the sign, and his slightly messy hair hit the 42" mark. I've since measured and discovered that he's only 41.5" (in shoes) when his hair isn't so poofy. But still. I don't think they really WANT kids that are under 3 going on the train alone. I checked growth charts, and a six year old girl in the 5th percentile could still take her parents on the train for free, but on a bad hair day, my two-and-a-half year old couldn't?!

What's the deal with using height as the determinate? Where money is involved, I get that they probably don't want to use age because it would entice folks to lie. So, I don't really have a better solution to propose. I only know that my little boy is going to be very sad someday when all his friends are playing in the balls at Chuck E Cheese, and he isn't allowed in. The upside would be that he's allowed in earlier than his peers, but in many cases that would be dangerous and scary for him now.

For the record, no one hassled us about his height at the zoo, and even if they did, I wouldn't MIND paying the $1.50. But I'm starting to see our future, and I think it might involve a good bit of slouching...

Uncle Patrick (and parents), we're going to need some of your advice in this area over the next 16 years or so!

Wake Up Call

When Carter wakes up in the middle of the night - or unreasonably early (like anything before, say, 9am) - he typically comes up to our bedroom, where we pull him into bed and tell him something to the effect of "Go back to sleep. It's still nighttime." If he won't get in bed, we'll send him on a scavenger hunt in our bedroom, asking him to bring us various objects, just so we can stay horizontal for a few more minutes.

Recently, Carter has wised up. These days, he simply comes to the bottom the stairs to our bedroom, flips on our light and calls out "Daytime!"

Thankfully, he only does this when it is actually light outside.

Kanuga

We spent the weekend in North Carolina at a church retreat. It was cold and beautiful. Unfortunately, the first 24 hours were pretty rough.

Carter's illness, being in a strange place, staying up too late and sneaking a few handfuls of m&m's in the lodge were probably all contributing factors. Regardless, it took us until midnight to get Carter to "sleep" Friday night.

I say "sleep" because it was a fitful, cough-up-a-lung, nearly-fall-off-the-bed, keep-mom-and-dad-awake sort of "sleep" until 2:30am, when he did actually fall off the bed, which began the first crying portion of the night, followed by the I-just-want-to-be-awake-playing-loudly portion, followed shortly by the second crying (why-did-they-take-my-toys-away?) portion of the night.

By 3:30am, we were at the ends of our ropes, so Thomas and I threw on our clothes and spent an hour driving Carter through the mountains to get him to sleep. After a shockingly successful car-to-bed transfer at 4:30am, Thomas and I got a restless 4 hours of sleep until Carter woke up at 8:30am.

Nap time on Saturday didn't go any better (with only 4-6 hours of sleep the night before, he was in desperate need of a nap), so Saturday late afternoon found us driving through the mountains once again.

In any case, we are glad that we went. Unfortunately, we forgot the camera, so here are two not-so-good camera phone shots.

Playing on the climbing wall

At the sock-hop Saturday night. Carter had perked up by then and was the life of the party, dancing with everyone and hitting on the girls!

Santa Scramble

I stayed up until midnight last night in order to make Carter an appointment to see Santa at Phipps Mall - supposedly the best place to see Santa in Atlanta. Now, I'm not overly concerned about going to the best place, but I was highly excited by the prospect of making an appointment and thus avoiding the torturous wait in line. Carter has never actually been to see Santa because we felt that if he wasn't old enough to understand it, we weren't waiting in line, at a mall, in December. This year, we figure he's old enough, plus, we heard about these appointments.

I was skeptical that staying up and waiting until the online appointment system opened at 12:01am was really necessary. Come on, I could probably do it this morning and be fine. But I really wanted the first appointment on a Saturday, and I was mildly interested in all the fuss (chalk it up to another social experiment in being a mom), so I stuck it out until midnight. I had no trouble getting an appointment, and the system even let me on a few minutes early. So... was staying up necessary?

My late night is justified. I checked first thing this morning and almost every single weekend appointment is already booked - even the ones in early November! The email confirmation for our appointment included this note: "Any appointments found to be sold or placed on ebay will be cancelled immediately."

We'll be reporting back in 2 months to let you know if its worth all the fuss!

Update: An article in the Atlanta Journal Constitution on Thursday said that 1,400 appointments were made in the first 45 minutes.