Too Much Ninja Warrior

I'm thinking we may have watched too much American Ninja Warrior at our house this summer...

Trust me when I say that this is the very least of it.
(just the only thing I have photographed)

Bedroom Improvements

We finally, finally got a king-sized bed. It's just as life changing as I thought it would be! I no longer mind having Carter pile in with us (except when he sleeps perpendicular to us; the bed is still too small for that). There's room for all three of us - and my expanding belly. It's a dream!

We constructed a new upholstered headboard for our new bed. The only hiccup was when we discovered that the headboard wouldn't fit up our stairs. It took Thomas, Park and Lance to heft it up through the top of our garage and into our master closet via a large access panel. I was really glad that worked so we didn't have to cut it in half after we built it!

It was the first time we tried tufting. It worked out great - and was much more cost effective than buying a headboard.

We have also transformed the nook in our bedroom. We didn't use it much before, so we put in a couch and installed a TV so we now have a secondary lounging area in the house.

King size bed, secondary lounging space... Trying to create space for our new family member. We'll eventually start working on his room, too!

The Carters' Weekend

While we were in Chicago, Carter had a big time with his Cart Cart. As I understand it, they worked at a soup kitchen, went to Carter's gymnastics and swimming classes, played with the cousins, enjoyed the aquarium, played at Cart Cart's house and ate a LOT of food (at least Carter did, not sure about Cart Cart).

Here's an anecdote that Cart Cart shared with us about the weekend:

"I was, as usual, trying to figure out your TV remote. Carter walked over, said, 'Let me show you Cart Cart -- first push this, then this, then this.' And the $%^# TV came on! It's no longer, 'Are you smarter than a 5th grader,' but 'Are you stupider than a 3 year old?' Looks like that would be a Yes."

(Thanks for sharing, Cart Cart! And, to be fair, our remote is very difficult to use. I'm sure he just got lucky. Maybe.)

A Lovely Saturday

My family started the drive back to Arkansas on Saturday morning, leaving us to our own devices for the rest of the weekend.

Yesterday, we joined and explored the Atlanta Botanic Garden.

(which Carter heartily enjoyed)

(due, in no small part, to the holiday train they have running around the great lawn...)

Then we had lunch that made us each very happy, though in different ways (Carter - corn dog and mac n' cheese, Me - smoked tofu, Thomas - world's tallest burger)

And then, after Carter went to bed, Thomas and I lounged in front of a fire (it's finally cold enough at night!) and caught up on TV.

An excellent Saturday.

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.

Highly Entertained

In this video, watch as Carter is highly entertained by the tv. He is also highly entertaining...

TV

Carter has been getting up earlier in the mornings. So we've discovered the magic of early morning Disney Channel. Carter seems to enjoy it, we get a few minutes to fix a cup of coffee. Everyone is happy.