Carter Update

What amazes me the most as each month goes by is how much more communicative Carter becomes. His vocabulary grows, he picks up more cute sayings, and he is so much more talkative. I love that at dinner in the evenings he has started to excitedly tell Ty all about our day. Before he would say, "No mommy, you tell it!" He still does sometimes but even then will tell some of the stories from our day. Something I know he's picked up from me is saying "sure". He says it a lot. Are you ready to go? Sure. Are you hungry? Sure. It's time for a bath. Sure. He cracks me up! He also says "no problem," frequently which also cracks me up! He also says "Oh, well..." to stall for time when he's thinking something over or when he wants to come up with a reason for why he doesn't want to do something. He also has a good grasp of emotions and understands what emotions he provokes with certain behavior. When he has an accident he'll immediately ask me if I'm angry and tell me that he wants me to be happy.

On the topic of potty training we're still in about the same spot. He does really well most of the time, but still has accidents. He'll have a day with no accidents at all and then a day with multiple accidents. Having accidents out in public was stressful for both of us. Even with going potty before leaving, when we arrived, multiple times while there, and then before leaving he'd still have accidents on occasion. So to save us the stress and because he is no more likely to potty in his pants when wearing pull ups and no less likely to potty his pants in undies, I've started putting him in pull ups when we go out on playdates. I still take him to the bathroom just as frequently as before, we just don't have to deal with me getting frustrated and him getting upset if he does have an accident. I praise him when we make it all the way home with a dry pull up which happens more often than not. I know one of these days it's just going to click and he won't need the pull up anymore, but for now it makes me less frustrated and keeps him happy. So it's a win-win.

He has taken a huge interest in writing this month. He'll sit down at his table and tell me he's writing a story. He'll also sit and draw scribbles, telling me what he's writing. Sometimes he even writes letters that look very similar to the letter he says he's writing. He's done C for Carter, Q for Quinn, M for Mommy, O for Oma and Opa, and G for Gma and Gpa (most the time his G looks like a C) all really well. One day he wrote a long page and told me everyone's names he was writing. It was so cute because he said he made an S for Grandma Shupe and Grandpa Shupe. I was impressed he knew the "s" for Shupe. He has also said he made an "s" for sissy which I've never told him before. I usually say "e" for Elise. It impresses me that he can already isolate the beginning sound of words to determine what letter they start with. Sometimes he gets tricked up, but he does so well with it for something we haven't practiced. He also likes to hang his work on the fridge which is the cutest thing! He'll pretend to read cards he receives in the mail and it's so cute. He'll say, "Dear for Carter and Elise," at the beginning and almost always ends with, "Here are some stickers." One day he said I had a letter and read it to me saying, "Dear for mommy. I love you so. Love daddy." It melted me!

Big Al is still his absolute favorite stuffed animal. He tries to sneak him places with us and took him into a friend's house during a playdate. I didn't even know he took him in and then we left without him so we had to go back to get him. Just this past week he took him with us on a walk and he fell out of the stroller. We searched the entire house and couldn't find him at bedtime. The next day we retraced our steps from our walk and found Big Al unharmed on the side of the road. Somehow Ty seems to always find Big Al when he's missing. It's amazing but he just has a sharp eye, I guess. So when Ty couldn't find Big Al, that's when I knew he must have fallen out on our walk. Even with as much as Carter loves Big Al, he still shares him with his sister. One day she spit up and Carter came running over with Big Al to wipe up the mess. Then another day she spit up directly on Big Al and Carter said "he's ruined!" It was so funny!

His relationship with Elise has really blossomed this month. Anytime he walks by her and she looks at him he stops to give her a kiss. He invites her to play with him and loves that she can sit on her own and hold toys. He gets a kick out of handing her toys. The only problem we've run into is that when he's done playing with her he will sometimes push her over or slap her. Each time we discuss what he could have done to solve his problem in a nice way and he is slowly starting to do better. Elise loves to grab his hair and he doesn't mind at all. He does get upset when she grabs a toy he is playing with, but he can easily pull it out of her grasp. He is great about sharing as long as he gets to decide what he wants to share with her. He loves that she loves him so much and just giggles when she smiles at him. He will ask for her and has come up with a game where he lays on the floor next to her and rolls her onto his tummy, then rolls her back to the floor and does it over and over as they both laugh. He has been advised to only play the game with an adult in the room because I worry he will roll her onto the floor too roughly and hurt her. It's so cute because he'll lay next to her and say, "Let's play our game, sissy!" If you ask him what her name is he responds with, "Sissy Elise Cox". We are working on him understanding her name is actually Elise and I'm mindful to call her Elise more often as I typically call her sissy or sissapea. We were at the zoo and a woman called her daughter sissy. Carter turned to me and excitedly said, "Her name is sissy too!" That's when I decided I needed to use Elise's name more often.

Once he got his "noman blankie" it was the blanket he asked for every night as I tucked him in. I'm realizing how that it was partially due to the heat of the summer. Now that it has cooled off he asks for his zebra blanket on the coldest nights and his doggy blanket for the in between nights. Each time he asks me to tell him who gave him the blanket. He knows, but he loves to hear that his snowman blankie was from Oma and Opa, his zebra blankie was from Gigi and Papa and Papa picked it out, and his doggy blanket was from Gigi and Papa and Gigi made it for him. He smiles so big each time I tell him.

He went through a sleep regression when he was sick and got into the habit of waking during the night and climbing into our bed with us. I was so tired I wouldn't even check the time, I'd just grab him and haul him into our bed. It wasn't the same time each night, sometimes it was around 3 or 4 and others 5 or 6. A lot of times it was right as I was going back to bed from nursing Elise. Once he was all better I gave him a while hoping he would naturally stop doing it on his own, but he didn't. So I told him one night that he couldn't come sleep in bed with is because he wasn't sleeping as well and if he came into our room I would carry him back to his bed so he could sleep better. He didn't come into our room at all that night and was so proud telling daddy over and over that morning what a big boy he had been. The next night I gave him the same reminder and when he came into our room I reminded him again as I carried him back to bed. He went back to sleep in his bed without a fuss and hasn't come into our bed again since. I was worried I'd have to carry him back to bed multiple times and he would have to cry for a while, but he made the transition so easy. I was so pleased!

I've been trying to plan his birthday party for a couple of months now but just couldn't nail down a theme. Now that he understands parties and has ideas about what he likes, I wanted to let him choose. At first he said he wanted a whale party and I thought it would be so cute and was planning things out in my head. "It's been a whale of a year" or "Whale of a party". Then we went to a friend's Elmo party at Incredible Pizza and he said he wanted an Elmo party. When I explained he could have an Elmo party but it would have to be at our house, not Incredible Pizza he decided he wanted a lion party. Then he quickly switched to giraffe. Then it was hippo and back to lion. I told him he could have a zoo themed party and he said no, just lion. We were back to a lion party. But then he said tigers so I suggested a jungle theme but no dice. He went back to a lion party so I decided that's what it would be since he kept coming back to that. Later he tried to add in tigers and meerkats but I told him we were locked into lions. Hopefully we'll get the invites designed and sent out soon, we're planning on emailing them this year to get them out faster since we are a little behind.

I feel like each month I mention a new way he has become more independent and more brave. He now likes to go in the bathroom stall by himself when we are out and about. I love watching his little feet and seeing him struggle to pull his pants down on his own. One day I heard him messing with the trash can and saw him stuffing toilet paper into the little trash can on the floor of the bathroom stall. I was grossed out and asked him if I could come in to help him. He said, "No mommy, I'm cleaning up my mess." It turned out he had accidentally pottied on the floor and was wiping it up with toilet paper and throwing the toilet paper away. I've started letting him go outside in our fenced in backyard to play while I get lunch ready. I had tried it a couple times before but he didn't like being outside alone and would constantly come in and out. Now he will go out and play independently at his sand box or kitchen on the back concrete area as I make lunch. I watch him the whole time through the window and/or the windows on the door. He knows I'm right there but I'm still so proud of him. I like giving him little bits of extra independence at a time. It makes him feel grown up and it's easier for me to do little bits at once otherwise I get all emotional. He has also gotten braver in that he isn't afraid of Skippy anymore. He used to be afraid to go into a room if Skippy was there, but no longer is. He also will go into his room and climb up to turn on the light. Before he wouldn't go in unless I turned on the light first.

We've had to change up our routine a little bit. Before Ty would give Elise a bath and I would put her down and then give Carter a bath. Elise kept waking up while I would give Carter a bath so I'd have to go back in there. Ty realized Carter playing in the bathtub was waking Elise up. So we started either bathing them together or Ty gives Carter a bath while I nurse and put Elise to bed. That solved the problem. So now Ty gets Carter ready for bed and has him do his evening clean up which he calls chores. They pick up all the toys Carter got out during the day. When Carter is finished with his chores Ty lets him watch an episode of a show  while he waits for me to come read him his bedtime stories. Carter has now seen Super Why, Daniel Tiger, and Caillou. I've watched parts of episodes with him as they finished up when I came out of Elise's room. I have been super impressed with Daniel Tiger and Caillou. I love the interactions between Cailloi and his parents and friends. He is a great role model and such a thoughtful character. It is probably my favorite children's show I've seen. It is Carter's current favorite. I wasn't impressed with the episode of Super Why I saw, but maybe it was just a bad episode. I'm typically not a fan of the shows that attempt to be interactive by asking questions of the audience and waiting for a response like Dora the Explorer. It seems so phony to me and makes the show really slow. Plus I've never watched with a child who actually responds. They all know the show is going to tell you the answer after the pause. That being said Carter likes to play Daniel Tiger and Super Why, mostly with Harper. For Super Why he wears a cape his Oma got him at a garage sale and runs around screaming Super Why and singing the alphabet. Harper chases him from room to room. Sometimes he includes me and for whatever reason I get to be the piggy. For Daniel Tiger he sings songs about love and tells Harper what character she is. Then he'll tell her what they are doing. I love picturing him playing games like that with Elise.

Carter's relationship with his daddy has really grown this month and it's so sweet to see. He thinks his daddy can fix all things and figure out any situation and why shouldn't he, daddy always finds Big Al when he's missing! When I can't do something daddy steps in and Carter has picked up on that. It's never that daddy couldn't do something, it's that daddy can't do it right now because he's at work. Carter will sometimes ask for daddy to read him books instead of me. He also loves to play with his daddy. It's sweet to see the little things Ty does for him that go unnoticed. I've watched him at night go out into the yard to drag Carter's tractor up under the roofing so it won't get wet if it rains. It's those sweet little things he does just because he loves Carter and that Carter will never know or fully appreciate that make me love him even more. It has been a great month!