Candle Practice

Okay, so this is an older video, but I thought it was worth sharing. This was the week or so before his birthday. We were practicing blowing out a candle for his birthday.

He's One! (ok, 13 months now, but read it and you'll see why it's a month late.)

So it’s been a crazy month. The week before Carter’s birthday we made a trip up to Washington DC. Ryan had a conference there, but we went up early and spent the weekend with our good friends NJ and Sebrena and their little girl Kaitlyn (Carter’s future wife). We had a great time and really wish we could see them more often.

There was a big mix up with our hotel and had to end up staying at a different hotel the first night because they overbooked (Carter therefore was up until 1am- we were VERY unhappy). The next day they continued to have problems and long story short, we got a luxury suite, free tickets to the breakfast buffet for the duration of our stay, and $100 for the inconvenience of being re-routed the first night. So it all turned out pretty good and Carter got his own room. :) We also made a trip to the national zoo, which was walking distance from the hotel. Lots of fun.We made it back just before Carter’s birthday and had a party at our house with 27 people in attendance (it would have been 31, but one family was sick). Still, a big party for a little guy. Carter loves rubber duckies, so that was the theme of the party. I found a 3-D cake pan of a ducky and made and decorated it and a smaller version (the one Carter got to dig into). I also made a ducky piñata and filled it with candy and small rubber duckies. It was a great party and I think the kids had a good time.A week later we were on the road again heading for yet another conference (tis the season I guess). This time it was in Memphis, where fortunately, we have more friends. We got to spend a couple evenings hanging out with Cort and Anca and had a great time (again, we really wish we could see more of our friends more often- they keep moving away :( ). For my part, I spent the days shopping (even though every other mall I tried to locate on TomTom was either an empty lot or a big empty building :P ). We took one night to go see an NBA game with the other counselors from Southern that had come along as well. Memphis lost to Atlanta (Such great teams that I knew neither city had a team until that night).Shortly after arriving back home illnesses set in.

There were a couple days I didn’t feel so great and then Carter developed a cold/flu complete with runny nose, cough, and fever of 102-103. The fever broke in the middle of this past week and then Thursday night, after spending the morning at mommies group with a bunch of other kids, I notice a bunch of spots on Carter’s belly and thighs. If you haven’t heard yet, it’s the chicken pox. He received his vaccinations 2 weeks ago, including one for chicken pox, and developed it as a result. The plus side is that it is a very mild case since it was the result of the shot. The down side is that it’s still contagious that way, and we were around a few unvaccinated kids at mommies group. I guess that’s life.

Now that you’re all caught up, the fun developmental things about Carter. At his Dr’s appt a couple weeks ago he weighed in at 23lbs 6oz and was 34in long (that’s 50% for weight and 95% for height). He’s also picking up a lot of new words and using small sentences more regularly.

Example:
This evening I took him to the bathroom and while sitting there he said “done”. He says this both when he is done and when’s he’s bored from sitting there too long. I asked him a couple times to make sure and finally he said “done mom.” I asked “no more?” His reply was “no more. Done” After getting him down I said we need to go put a diaper back on and he took off for his room (where the changing table is). I noticed he had yogurt in his hair (he insists on feeding himself everything now) so I said he needs a bath tonight. He said “yes” and took off running back to the bathroom. He’s a boy who knows what he wants. :)

New words that have entered his vocabulary since the last update are: cheese, nana (referring to Ryan’s mom, he’s used if for banana for quite a while), Carter (he can annunciate it perfectly when he wants to), yea, yum, vroom (when playing with his trucks or boats), teddy, kitty, tiger, tigger, doll, please, thank you, and (you’re) welcome. Once again, there may be more, but those are the ones I can think of at that moment.

He is also getting good at imitating movement. He likes to go up and down, back and forth (he has a book with these motions), stand up and sit down, blow kisses, cover his eyes with his hands for peek-a-boo, and he really likes to dance whenever he hears music. He also sings along to some songs (the ABCs is his favorite), though he of course doesn’t say any of the words.