Carter Update

My sweet Carter boy is another month older and a little bit more independent. Each month he is able to do a little bit more on his own and is more successful with things he had previously been doing. It's amazing to see what a difference a month makes, but I guess that makes sense at this age. There is so much I'm loving about this age and a few things that are a bit frustrating. Overall life is much easier now than it was a few months ago. Him being independent is great because he can do more for himself but it is also frustrating because he can be so darn stubborn! I had to institute the rule that when I tell him to do something, he does it right away or goes to time out. I was having so much trouble with him immediately telling me no when I told him to do something and then fighting with me about it. I'd tell him to clean up a mess, pick up toys, wash his hands, sit on the potty, whatever it was, he'd tell me no. Then it would be a long drawn out ordeal of him fighting with me over doing it so I decided if he didn't do what I asked right away, it was straight to time out. That doesn't keep him from telling me no, but it does eliminate the long drawn out fight that was driving me crazy.

Naps right now are iffy for me. If he doesn't take a nap he turns into a total monster in the afternoon. If he takes a nap he struggles to fall asleep at night. I tried waking him up after an hour and he'd scream and cry for the longest time and it was so sad. Yesterday he woke up on his own after an hour and a half and did much better going to bed. I'm thinking I may need to wake him up after an hour and a half, but I'm hoping he'll adjust on his own. Usually if I let him nap until he wakes up, he naps for 2 hours. I think that's just too long for him right now. I lay with him to help him fall asleep and he usually falls asleep really fast, so I know he needs the rest. There have been a few times he's wanted to sleep long ways in the bed rather than his usual across the headboard position. Then he lays with his head in my back and when I get up my back is all wet from sweat and slobber. When he wakes up in the morning he needs some quiet rest time. He likes to come in bed with me and snuggle for a bit before going in for breakfast. If Elise woke up before him he'll come into her room and sit in her chair by her crib and quietly watch her nurse or read books. Other times he'll climb into her crib and ask me to put her back in bed so they can lay together for a while.

I'd say my favorite thing he's picked up this month is drawing people. He used to draw a circle for a head and add a face inside. Now he'll add legs to the body. It's so cute to see his people drawn with eyes, mouths, and legs. I love it! He'll also draw pictures and then make up a story to go with them, telling me what's going on. He has started wanting to play card games and board games more. He'll make it through about a quarter of Candyland or Chutes and Ladders. He enjoys Go Fish with a Nemo deck I got in the Target Dollar Spot. He also plays memory and enjoys that. It has been amazing to see how much better he's gotten at it in the past few months. The little dude loves to learn. It has been so much fun letting him direct me on his last few learning themes, telling me what he would like to learn about. He has been really interested in countries and loves maps. I'm thinking a map learning theme may be coming up soon. Right now we are learning about worms. I love that he feels so comfortable at the library and knows where everything is. He will pull a stool over to the DVDs while we are there so he can reach and pick out one to check out. He has also started gravitating towards nonfiction books and picked out some nonfiction books on bears during our last trip.

He can now pour his own drinks and I've been impressed that he can pour milk even when our gallon jug is still over halfway full. He gets upset when I try to help, but I usually hold the cup steady for him if the milk jug is over halfway full. He sometimes gets himself breakfast or snacks. He can take the lid off his yogurt and it's so cute because he'll get himself a bowl and a spoon to go with his yogurt. One morning he came into bed with me for snuggles and then got up and said he was going to bring me breakfast in bed. He came back with a yogurt container sitting inside one of his bowls with one of his spoons. It was the cutest! He loves to clip the top part of his seat belt and doesn't want me to look because he wants to surprise me by being clipped in when I look back. He's been potty trained for a while now, but he still has accidents. I'm a bit curious if he's outside of the norm in this or if other parents I talk to just say their kids never have accidents. He'll have days where he stays dry all day, but then he'll have other days where he has more than one accident. I definitely remind him to go A LOT still. If I didn't he'd have a lot more accidents. He does run in and go on his own sometimes. I can't remember the last time he pooped somewhere other than his potty chair or the toilet. He definitely has pooping down. He'll run from various areas in the house announcing he has to poop.

He's so proud that his Opa taught him to wink, haha!

Carter has started picking up left and right. Sometimes he says it correctly, other times he gets mixed up. He for sure knows what it means and uses it appropriately. If he says we are turning left and I say we are going right, he'll say, "Oh, so that way's left," and point the opposite direction. I haven't sat down with him and asked him to identify letter names, but I've noticed when we are playing he knows most of the letters. The only letter I've noticed he was unsure about was K. He can also tell me different words that start with certain letters and randomly started saying things like, "M says /m/ /m/ /m/," telling Elise what sound different letters make. Today we were on a hike and he just randomly said, "Do you know what else starts with sissy's letter? Elephant!"

Carter sure loves Elise and really enjoys teaching her and telling her things. One of his favorite things to do is talk to her and have me answer, pretending that I'm her. He will be playing with her and randomly stop to tell her how cute she is and so many times throughout the day will say, "Ohhh, sissy's so cute!" He likes to help her and can be so darn sweet. He'll see she's out of food while I'm getting lunch ready and will give her food off his plate. He likes to get grapes out and cut them up for her. He knows what foods she can have and what foods we need to make smaller for her to eat. He is also quick to tell on her and will run to me or yell for me when he knows she's doing something she shouldn't. He'll tell me when she's climbed onto something, when she has something in her mouth, or when she's trying to reach into the kitty litter. One day he yelled, "Mom I need some help in here." I took off running and when I got in the room he said, "Sissy's trying to climb onto mommy, daddy's bed." Sure enough, she was using Ty's shoe holder as a step stool and just going for it.

Some of Carter's favorite things are Curious George, My Little Ponies, playing on my phone, playing on his tablet from Oma and Opa (it's a toy tablet), helping me cook, playing outside, and observing animals. If we don't have plans and I ask him what he wants to do it's usually go on a hike or go to the zoo. He throws the aquarium into the mix sometimes and has just started requesting the Children's Museum. He has called the Children's Museum the aquarium with tape slides which was pretty funny. He calls the art museum the baby museum because we used to go to a program called Museum Babies there. Just recently he started calling it the big boy museum because he graduated to a different program which I told him was for big kids. One of our favorite playgrounds right now he either calls sissy's favorite playground, the green playground (because it has turf on the ground), or the playground that is really good for sissy to play at. It cracks me up because if I had to guess which playground is Elise's favorite I'd definitely say that one. Carter loves to be outside and could spend all day outside. When we went to the art museum he wanted to spend pretty much the whole time we were there outside in the gardens walking around.

He still says some really cute stuff. He says Donald's for McDonald's. We went there once in the winter to play on an indoor play place and he still talks about it! He calls super heroes fire fighters. One day he was asking for his fire fighter blanket and I had no idea what he was talking about. I finally figured out he meant his Avengers sleeping bag. I guess he knows who the real heroes are!

Carter is also very socially aware and knows what is going on around him. The other day he was playing a game where Harper was in the hospital because she went for a walk and fell and hurt her head. He needed to go visit her in the hospital and spend the night with her. He went over and laid down by her dog bed. It was so cute! He also understands how I am feeling by watching my face and paying attention to my mood. He amazes me with his perception of things and ability to react in necessary ways. He continues to be the sweetest, snuggliest, little guy I know and I love him so much!