Really BIG Songs

Every night before bedtime, Carter and I read books and sing a few songs. One song he particularly likes is the "big and hairy" version of the Itsy Bitsy Spider ("The big and hairy spider went up the water spout..."). It's sung with a big, deep voice and with clapping hands instead of the more complicated little spider finger play.

Lately, he's begun to insist that ALL of his songs be sung "big". So we've had to come up with some new song variations including "twinkle, twinkle, REALLY BIG star..." and "five GIANT ducks went swimming one day...".

Needless to say, you'll never see clips of these songs on this blog (at least not sung by me), but Carter loves them and the accompanying motions are pretty funny (the mother duck's quacking requires a very large range of motion).

Scabs and Savings

The picture below shows a couple of recent Carter-things.

1. He has lost most of the skin on his nose. Literally. It's lost. As in, we don't know what happened to it. Frustratingly, neither do his teachers at school -- which is where it happened.
2. Carter is very interested in both pockets and money. Accordingly, he likes to have money in his pockets. And he's always saying "I need more!" Here he is with a whole pocket full of "money".
   
   

   

Mama Helen & Daddy Phil's Visit

My parent's made a short trip to Atlanta this weekend to see us. The weather was perfect so we gardened, went to the zoo and dined outside. Mom, Dad and Thomas also got some history in at the Atlanta Cyclorama. Here are a few, not-so-good, photos of the weekend. We all loved having them here, but none more so than Carter, who was in HEAVEN all weekend!

Snowman Cake

In honor of our rapidly-melting snowman, and inspired by Aarti's masterpiece, Carter and I set out to make a snowman cake last night (since it's March, he's a bit of an irish snowman). Carter had to go to bed when the cake went in the oven, so he only got to see the finished product this morning. Here's a short video of the reveal (and also a chance to hear Carter's expanding vocabulary). Don't worry, he'll actually get to eat some cake tonight!

Photobooth Phun

Thomas and I went to a wedding last night that had "Photobooth Phun". We thought we'd share the phun with you:

Snow!

Atlanta welcomed March with a nice snowstorm today. It started about 11am and is still going strong as of 3:30pm. It's our first Atlanta snowfall! I think it snowed once when we were out of town, but it has not snowed like this, when we've been here, since we moved. Which means, we don't think Carter hasn't seen snow in real life since he was about 9 months old. I wasn't home when the snow started, so I'll let Thomas blog later about Carter's reaction to it.

This is good snow. Big flakes, pretty wet -- perfect for snowballs and snowmen. Afraid that the snow would stop and melt any minute, we took advantage of the snow as soon as there was enough. Here are some pictures.

Patches - Updated

I updated the previous patches post with a couple more pictures.

Sentences

Carter is making great progress with sentences in the last couple of weeks. Here are some of his accomplishments:

I want ____.
I'm ready now.
I take ____.
I break that.
I need ____.
Where ____ be?
I rip that.
I eat that.
Me come back.
I lay down.
I wake up.
I put pants on.

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.

Patches

I don't think we got Carter enough pairs of pants for this winter season. First, we're constantly having to do laundry because he's out of pants. Second, almost all his pants now have holes in the knees due to wear. Since we're pretty close to shorts season, I've just been patching them up. Here, Carter shows off a pair of pants (only two months old!) with star patches.

Here he is in another pair with a very cute caterpillar and a bumble bee. He also has a pair of jeans with a baseball patch , but I didn't get pictures of those yet.

Similar to his reaction to my homemade rainbow pasta and thematically colored milk for special days, he seems to like the fun patches, but maybe just not quite as much as I do...