Carter at the Rodeo

This was actually nearly a month ago, but the pictures are too cute to not post. Carter loved the petting zoo and everything else at the rodeo.

World's best baby, world's worst mom

The photos above depict a happy Carter playing with his favorite new tool: the pen, Carter's pre tantrum faces, and of course a stick out your photo of which I didn't have any before now.

I've been a slacker with a capital S for a month. I have had a broken computer and have not posted anything. I am going to try and get back on track.

This past month has been wonderful. Carter has changed so much! He is completely bored with the inside of our house. Now the only things that interest him are the off limits things such as the pantry, the toilet, the diaper pail, and anything electronic.

He loves being outside walking while picking up every twig in sight, squishing ants and rolling doodlebugs along the pavement. He waves at every car that drives by, but not always at people walking by. He loves airplanes and helicopters. He chases after the neighborhood cats saying "Khee". He loves the next door neighbors and their bicycles and trying to walk into any open garage.

He cries more often now, because he is always getting into something dangerous/or his agenda doesn't mesh with ours.

He eats a wide variety of foods. Right now his favorites are applesauce pancakes, avocados, bananas, green beans, lima beans, orzo with veggies, butternut squash risotto, pizza, life cereal, oateal, peas, apples and spaghetti with meatballs.

He has begun to talk more and more each day. He says "Khee" for kitty, "Uh oh," "no," "uh" for up, " "ah" for on and off, "moo,"and I have heard him say "nana," although not consistently for banana. He likes to make the roar sound when he sees a bear, tiger or a lion. This week he started making the monkey sound.

The cute things he does... well, there are too many, but my favorites are, his acting out the lyrics to "If You're Happy and You Know It," when he ducks down when you say, "down" and stands up when you say "up," when you do something he likes and he claps for you to repeat it, when smacks his lips and says, "ah" whenever he is thirsty or finishes sipping a drink, when he points to every light in every room he enters and remarks about it's status of being off or on, his fondness for the kitty, his toddling, his peeking out from behind walls, the way he turns and smiles at us before he shuts off the cable button on the cable box and I could go on and on. Truthfully, aside from fighting the diaper changing fight, and his throwing perfectly good food on floors, everything he does is marvelous.

Carter is 1

Well, Carter turned one this week. He had a fabulous party with his friends last weekend and this weekend hopefully another fab party with his family. Unfortunately, he is sickly and right now will not nap, so here is a quick recap of the photos from the party. Enjoy.

Bedhead

Carter woke up after sleeping only 30 minutes, and convinced as I was that this was not a long enough nap, I drug him into my bed so I could try and finish my much needed nap. When he woke up, this is what his hair was doing. He never ever has had bedhead until now.

11 months old! Walking soon?

These photos don't depict anything new other than that Carter is a week older, but I make an effort each week to take a picture of him so here are this week's shots.

Events of this week include: Carter is saying "mamama" without growling it more regularly now.

I let go of him while walking outside and he took five steps on his own.

He is putting things away in addition to pulling them out.

He figured out how to put the rings on the peg and nest smaller cups into bigger ones.

He likes climbing up on our bed and then collapsing back onto the pillows.

He likes mozzarella cheese in addition to American

Had his first full blown tantrum while having his diaper changed

He has become hoarse from all the crying he has been doing when we put him to bed and leave the room. He has become much more clingy lately. He slept with the humidifier last night so hopefully today he will be better.

Carter watches...Figure skating!

We were all packed up to go, Carter was in his carseat, but Daddy wasn't ready so I turned on the tv and what do you know? A cheesy ice skating/gymnastics program was on and they actually had a little podium with a gymnastics mat set up on one end of the rink! They alternated between doing a skating routine and a gymnastics one. Sad, just sad.

Although Mommy ice skated for 13 years, and still considers it the only sport she enjoys, she is often embarrased by how her sport is portrayed on tv. At least the Jonas Brothers were not performing live at this show like the last one I saw. Anyway, Carter seemed to enjoy watching it. Don't get excited Grandmom! I will have him try every single inexpensive sport that exists before I encourage ice skating.

Loving the mild winter

Carter is 10 and three quarter months old now and Mom and Dad are quite proud of him. This week he entertained us with new abilities such as putting his finger in his mouth and making "wah wah wah wah, lah lah lah and bah bah bah" sounds. He is starting to make the lah lah lah sound without his finger in his mouth. It's nice to hear him experiment with sounds.

I get a kick out of what turns him on and what he'll imitate. For example, even though he can say "ma mah" he has yet to imitate a person who says, "ma ma" or "da da," to him- I guess our names just don't sound cool. However, he will usually always imitate the vroom sound of a car, the brrr sound made when cold, the roaring sound, the growling sound, and his favorites, the clearing the throat and coughing sound, and initiate those sounds in the appropriate contexts. He will imitate certain words too as long as the have the short a, the "ah," and the short u sound, but he will not use the initial consonant or the final consonant, just the vowel. He will make the appropriate vowel sound for the words "cat" and "uh oh" and "on" and "off" without any prompting and in the correct context. I don't know if you count those as words or not, but I can see that he understands that sounds have meaning.

One other thing he does now after clapping his hands is that he throws them in the air. His grandma Szenka taught him that.

This past weekend he visited with his Great Uncle Jerome, Aunt Faye, Second cousin David and his wife Katie. We had a nice dinner at my parent's house. Since Carter wouldn't cooperate with naps and was getting fussy, I took him outside to distract him from his sleepyness. He got to play in the grass until he tried to eat it. He is not trying to eat it as much anymore, but still ocassionally wants a nibble.