Paparazzi

Yes, I even follow him into the bathtub. He never gets one ounce of privacy. I tried to not reveal anything potentially embarrassing to him in the future. I hadn't taken any bathtime pictures since he was four months old. I feel like since I have been cooped up inside most of the summer due to the heat, I haven't really gotten to take pictures of Carter doing anything that he hasn't already been photographed doing. Except bathtime. I wish I could access the 4 month old bathtime shots, but they are on a disk somewhere and I'm too lazy to find them.

Carter turned 18 months old this week. He had his Dr. appointment and everything is looking good. I learned that I have to trust him to feed himself. No more feeding food to him to get him to eat more than three bites. I need to believe that he can survive off air alone. So I have been pretty good. I haven't encouraged him to eat any more than he wants to even when I feel like he hasn't eaten enough. She doesn't mind that he was in the 75th percentile weightwise when he was born and now is in the 25th, so I guess I don't need to either.

He is rapidly turning into a 2 year old. He is talking a lot more, making a ton of different sound effect noises and sometimes learning three new words in one day. He is currently working on all words with the "oo" and "ee" sound, and this week his new words are shoe, choo choo, hoot hoot, woo woo, wee! bee, pea, me, momMY, see, turtle, and knee. He loves the alphabet song and identifying the letter decals on his wall. He says almost all of them and the cutest is when he says "W." He is also sounding like he is trying to say a wide variety of two word sentences but we can't make out what he means.

He has what seems like at least 20, lay down on the floor, kick and cry temper tantrums per day. The poor guy is constantly getting things confiscated due to his creative uses of riding toys as stepping stools.

When he is not rebelling though, he is the same old sweet, loving and amusing Carter.

Some examples of how he keeps us amused:

1. He will say "wow" about 200 times in one grocery store visit. He doesn't use an indoor voice.

2. He makes the fish sound by stroking his fingers down his lips to go "blub blub" even though when water drains from the bathtub, he makes the same exact sound without using his fingers.

3. He sniffs the flowers on my flower print maternity top.

4. He runs behind a table, ducks down and hides even when he is in plain view in order to avoid getting dressed, going to bed, etc.

5. He says "hmm" whenever he opens a closet to pick what to wear and when he is trying to figure out where a puzzle piece fits.

6. He knows exactly which buttons to push to lock the car and honk its horn, to turn on the tv, dvd player and the computer, and hang up the phone mid conversation.

7. He rides the cat like a horse

8. He points to things that are against the rules and says "ah ah" as in "no no." but then breaks the rules anyway.

9. Will often go to time out corner willingly as soon as you say, "If you keep that up, you're going to time out."

Here is a list of his current favorite things

1.trucks -all

2. brushes- all (bottle, hair, tooth, etc.) He likes to drag them along the floor and sweep with them.

3. Riding toys-all

4. books about trucks- all

5. animal books

6. making animal sounds-all

7. nursery rhymes/finger plays involving tickling

8. Hide and seek

9. puzzles, shape sorting, block building , nesting/stacking cups

10. scribbling on the magnadoodle, making requests for mommy to draw the moon, bananas, milk,water, turtles and kitty cats

11. butterflies

12. bananas, sweet potato, fruit, fruit bars

13. bubbles

14. the moon

15. cats and dogs

16. his stuffed animals

17. Sleeping with lovey dog, lovey bear, santa bear, blue satin blanket, frog, Yurtle the Turtle and Horton the elephant

18. Mommy and Me nursery rhyme DVD