Where do they learn this stuff??

We went out for dinner tonight at our local beer-and-wings joint. We ordered a burger and fries for Carter. He isn't ready to handle a whole burger yet, so we generally put the bun aside, cut up the burger and let him eat it as finger food. Today's bun had been covered liberally in ketchup, and we realized that this was Carter's first ketchup experience. Neither Thomas or I use it on fries or anything else. Carter took a bite of the bun and seemed pretty excited about it, but then he moved on to his burger and fries. It was only a little later that Thomas and I noticed that Carter had begun dipping his french fries in the ketchup on his bun. Seriously. Where did he learn that??

We gave him more ketchup, and he was a happy kid. We don't do fried food very often, but Carter LOVES french fries. I didn't think that there would be a food to top french fries, until the discovery of french fries with ketchup.

And then, after he'd wolfed down his burger and fries (with ketchup), we pulled out the little packet of Oreos that had come with his meal. The kid has never eaten an Oreo before. As far as I know, he's never seen an Oreo before, and besides, the package didn't even have a picture of a cookie - just the logo. But still, he went crazy when I pulled out that packet of cookies (I suppose after the wonder of fries and ketchup, he just figured life had to keep getting better?). I twisted one cookie open (half the white stuff came off on one wafer, half on the other) and gave him one of the halves. By the time we gave him the other half, he had figured out - all on his own - to turn the cookie over and scrape the white stuff off with his teeth before eating the rest of the cookie.

Innate knowledge of how to eat junk food?? Scary.

Park Fun

It was gorgeous last weekend, and we took advantage of the nice weather in the park.

Aunt, Uncle & Cousin

We were thus dubbed when Anna Ellise Fowlkes made her debut on Friday night.

She is a beautiful girl, and her mom and dad are, as expected, in love with their little one.

Carter hasn't gotten to meet his cousin yet because they don't allow little ones in the maternity ward (I can't imagine why not:), and we've all been a little under the weather since she went home. We'll be sure to post pictures of the cousins' first meeting!

I had to post this picture of me and my niece (!) because it reminds me so much of the pictures we took of Joo and Kirstin with Carter the day he was born.

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.

Sorry...

...for the lack of posts lately. I'm in San Francisco and have been here most of the week for work. I get home tonight and hope to be back to more regular posting soon!

Laundry Day

Boy in a Bucket

He may be extra large, but he can make himself pretty small when he wants to...

The Hand-Off

Thomas has been busy almost every night for the last two weeks thanks to two techs and his role as Lord Montague, so I've been playing the role of primary caregiver. The last two days we've been blissfully able to share responsiblites, but now I'm handing the baton over to Thomas. I leave early in the morning to spend most of this week in nyc, and I'll be in San Francisco most of next week. We're really looking forward to more togetherness in March!

Highly Entertained

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

Valentine's Day

Continuing our annual tradition, Thomas and I cooked chicken fried steak, fried okra and artichokes for dinner tonight. It is a dinner we are happy to eat once a year -- and it is a dinner our bodies are happy we eat ONLY once a year!

Thomas digs in.

Thomas takes a break from fried to contemplate our love.

Thomas prepares to indulge in the one wildcard of our Valentines night - dessert. This year, it was chocolate-cinnamon mousse with cherry-port sauce (we had to come up with something yummy... we've counted on Billy's Bakery for dessert for years!)