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!

Fashion Statement

Carter has taken to dressing and accessorizing himself lately. Here are two of his ensembles.

Christmas Program

Here are some photos of the Christmas program at Carter's school (he's the tall one in green in the middle) and the much more important post-Christmas-program snacks.

Phipps Santa

We took Carter to see Santa at Phipps Mall before Christmas. This is the Santa we had to make an appointment to see back in October. It was really nice to not have to wait in line. It would have been even worse that Carter HATED Santa if we'd invested a lot of time waiting to see him! He threw a fit when we tried to get him to sit with Santa.

We finally calmed Carter down enough to get a picture, but he would NOT sit on Santa's lap. Thankfully, there was room for me on the bench.


Once Carter got his candy cane, he perked up. And tried to show Anna the ropes.

Jingle Jog

In December, Thomas ran another 5K - the Jingle Jog. Apparently it was very cold and very hilly. But The Varsity provided chili dogs after the run, so it was worth it.

Sleepover

In December, Carter and Anna had their first sleepover at our house. Anna was an angel, but Carter gave us a rough night. Figures! They mostly had a very good time playing -- crawling all over the house. The only tense moment between them was when Anna was playing with her panda ("Standa") and Carter was playing with his panda ("Theodore"). Anna decided she'd rather have BOTH pandas, thus the frown in the first pic.