Worn Out

Thomas and Carter went to Houston last weekend to celebrate little T's birthday. When they got home, Carter was, hands down, as tired as I have EVER seen him. Perhaps Thomas will post on their trip one day soon.

I don't have any pictures of Carter from the night they got home, but here are a couple of very funny ones from a couple of weeks ago. He had asked if he could go upstairs and lay down in our bed for a while. This is how we found him. It appears as though he had been watching John on the video monitor and then passed out. Note that this is pretty much what he looks like every night -- totally sprawled out, on top of the covers. It's funnier (and more sad) when he sleeps in his little twin bed because as much of him is off the bed as is on it. He's going to need a bigger bed very soon!

Haircut

Just some quick photos from Carter's haircut today.

In the race car (actually fire chief car) watching "Cars" getting hair cut. What could be better? Self-taken "after" photo

Shorn!

Apparently, Thomas wasn't down with the whole long-haired child thing (which seems pretty hypocritical, really :). But I told him he could get Carter's hair cut whenever he wanted. So today, (the first time he was alone with Carter since I said that) they got a haircut.

And, wow. What a difference a haircut makes. Look at my baby-faced toddler on the top and my practically-ready-for-jr-high boy on the bottom! Only taken a week apart. Wow.

Silly Hair Day

The first Friday of each month, Carter's school has "spirit day", on which we are asked to do something funny to them (dress them in silly socks, their (our) favorite color, etc.). This month was silly hair day. Thankfully, Carter is in serious need of a haircut, so we were able to participate fully in the silliness.

Haircut

If you think cutting a toddler's hair would be difficult, take how hard you think would be and multiply by about 100. And that's about how hard it actually is. Last time we got Carter's haircut professionally, we ended up in the ER (not because of the haircut, though). This time, I decided to cut it myself.

It's not the worst haircut I've ever given (as my Barbies would attest), but it's also not the best. In fairness to myself, this picture wasn't meant to be a haircut shot, so the hair is a bit mussed up, but you can still see the slightly severe haircut that I gave Carter. I guess next time we'll be going back to the professionals.

Operation Big Boy Bed

Inspired by the Kimbro's O.B-B.N-N. posts, we're going to give you ongoing updates on how Carter's transition to a Big Boy bed goes. Park and Ashley came by this afternoon and helped us get the bed set up. Carter immediately began doing flips over the newly-installed railing (video to follow), so we were somewhat worried that he might want to play and not sleep in the bed.

After reading stories, I put him in the bed, and he, surprisingly, didn't reach for his bears or his water (his usual bedtime comforts). He just flipped right over on his stomach and sighed (as if to say... "Ah, a bed in which my feet don't hit bars... it's about time"). We, very smartly, planned this first night in a big boy bed to coincide with my mom's visit, so we left her with him while we went out to dinner. We just returned home to find out that HE HASN'T WOKEN UP AT ALL! (What a waste of a grandparent visit:) I'm not sure how the rest of the night will go, or tomorrow night, or subsequent naps (when he's much less inclined to sleep)... We'll keep you posted! Mom took this pic of him in his bed a couple of hours ago...

Update, 7am: Carter slept until 6am. That's earlier than usual, but pretty good, all things considered. At 6 he fussed a little bit, and then got himself out of bed and opened the door, where he met the baby gate. Mom met him at the gate, and he pointed back to the bed and said "Uh-oh". Not sure if he was claiming that his getting out of bed was an accident or if he forgot that we changed beds and thought that it transformed overnight. Mom convinced him to choose a book and take it back to the bed, which worked for a few minutes. We'll see how nap time goes today...

Update, 4pm: An hour and a half of climbing out of bed, rattling the baby gate, playing with his toys (WHY don't musical toys have off buttons?) and fussing, until, finally, we had success...sort of:

Update, 9:30pm: It took him a little longer to go down in the bed tonight than it did last night - but nothing compared to the difficulty of nap time today. Since he went down, we haven't heard a peep. He may be napping in the crib tomorrow. We'll see how brave his nanny is feeling...

Haircut

Carter was starting to get a little shaggy, so we took him for his first haircut on Sunday. We went to one of those cute places that have cars for the kids to sit in and show movies to distract them. Carter was a bit squirmy (to be expected), but overall, he did great.

Before


After

Sleep, Sweet... Sleep??

Apparently, we spoke too soon.

I blame the weather. If it is going to fluctuate wildly between 40 and 70 degrees, how is a parent supposed to keep the household temperature regulated so that it is conducive to baby's sleeping? And how is a baby supposed to avoid getting a stuffy nose??

Damn weather.

Sleep, Sweet Sleep

It's been four nights in a row, so I'm taking a gamble and telling you that...

Carter is sleeping through the night!

7:30pm-7:30am. We'll probably undo all this good when we move and upset his routine, but even if it doesn't last, the 8 hours of sleep we parents get is so very nice (and deserved, I think, after 7.5 months of getting up 2-5 times a night).

All this wonderful sleep required only one (very) painful night of letting Carter cry himself back to sleep. The boy catches on fast.

Our Day

We had a very productive day. Here's what we've accomplished today:

1. I got a haircut - and I got bangs! Unfortunately, the guy cut them to go the wrong way (not the way my hair naturally parts), so my bangs will probably have grown out by the time I get my hair trained to go this way.

2. We shipped several boxes of borrowed newborn and maternity clothes back to their owners (thanks to those of you who loaned, and be on the lookout for a box coming your way!).

3. We sold a bunch of books that we purged from our bookshelves. In preparation for the move (and since we got quotes from movers), we are trying to purge as much as we can. We took a HUGE push cart full of books over to a store that buys them. While it was a difficult process deciding which books to give up, we were pleasantly surprised to get almost a hundred dollars for them!

4. That book money will offset the cost of the new couch we bought today (our Christmas present to each other)! It will be delivered to our new apartment in February. And it has a sofa bed for your visiting pleasure...

(This is a picture of our new sofa, but I'm not sure why those black lines are showing up... They aren't there in either the real picture or on the couch itself.)

5. We took yet another huge push cart full of clothes and books to the Salvation Army.

6. Thomas got two new sport coats thanks to birthday and Christmas gifts, Macy's excellent holiday sale and our friend Mike Kass' surprising sense of style and stamina in department stores.

Now, we are enjoying a bottle of sparkling Shiraz to relax and celebrate today's productivity. Who knew that they made red sparkling wine??