Carter Update

I was going to try to make it to Carter's 4 year old update before doing another one, but there's just so much to say right now and he's doing so many cool and hilarious things. I'd say his biggest development lately has been the start of half-day preschool twice a week. He has been such a big boy going with no tears and the best part is that he recounts everything he can remember to me on our drive home. I love hearing all about the songs he learns, the games he plays, and the friends he makes. He gets excited in the morning before he goes saying, "I can't wait to see what toys are on the tables today," meaning the centers his teachers set up for the class. I love opening up his backpack when we get home to see what craft or activity he made at school to bring home. I knew when we decided to enroll Carter it was the right decision, but it sure is nice to have that reassurance every morning when I drop him off and every afternoon when I pick him up! I love his confidence in his abilities and his love for learning and for meeting new people. He really is such a wonderful, little guy!

Carter posing on his second day of school.

It has been so impressive to watch Carter grow toward an early emergent reader. His love for reading and for manipulating and understanding letters is the coolest thing to watch. He loves to take his foam letters and arrange them into "words" for me to read. He's always asking me what word he made. I gave him the hint that most words have a vowel in them because he's always making words with no vowel that are really tricky for me to try to pronounce. We've talked a little bit about which words are vowels and I've helped him add vowels to his words so he can see how they sound more like words with a vowel. Obviously it's not something I expect him to master right now, but it's fun to explore letter sounds and words with him. It also keeps me on my toes attempting to segment made up words into their sounds and blend them together with no vowel between them. I love hearing his little voice say, "What does this say?" or "What word did I make?" He is also beginning to show an interest in writing letters and loves to write the letters Aa, Cc, and Oo. I'd say mostly because they are the easiest for him to draw. He'll sit down and write notes for me to send to his friends. Most of the time it's just a combination of those three letters. He also loves retelling books and reading the pictures to tell me the story. One of his favorites we have checked out right now is Tuesday by David Wiesner because it is wordless and he reads the pictures to tell the story.

Carter and Elise reading at the same time.

One of the first things he asks me each morning is, "Where are we going today?" He just loves to always know what's going on and what our plans are. He even starts asking me the night before what we will be doing the next day. He loves getting out and going places. He also gets excited when we have no plans and can just go on adventures walking from our house, especially now that we can leave the stroller behind and allow Elise to walk. He absolutely loves how she follows along behind him and sits down to wait for him as he inspects something or gets down to look at it with him. They both absolutely love being out in nature, looking at bugs and plants. Right now we have some bag worms in our tree and they've started falling out. Carter knows they are caterpillars and will tell you that if you ask what they are, but tends to call them little fellows. It cracks me up. He'll go outside and say he's looking for the fellows. One day we were getting ready to drive and one was on our windshield. He started yelling, "Mom, look, it's a little fellow!" I would be a bit grossed out by them if it weren't for the fact that the kids love them so much. But when Elise tries to run into the house with a caterpillar in each hand, that's where I draw the line!

Carter and Elise looking at the "little fellows."

For a while now he's been really focused on winter, wanting to know when it will be winter and how many weeks there are until winter. It stresses me out a little bit because I pretty much hate winter so I don't like thinking about how soon it will be here. I can tolerate it once it gets cold, but I don't want to be faced with the fact that cold weather is coming until it's on my doorstep blowing cold air through the cracks, if you know what I mean. He has recently added in asking about Halloween and how soon until Halloween and then winter. He tells me what he wants to be for Halloween every once in a while and every time it's something different! Not sure what he'll end up being. He likes to run around the house with a blanket or tea towel covering him while pretending to be a ghost. He does it so much that Elise has picked up saying "boo," but she saying it more like, "beoo" like you would if you were pretending you are shooting a gun. It's hilarious. His favorite game right now is playing chase with Elise. They chase each other up and down the hall, both laughing hysterically, usually at night right after their bath.

Little mister is growing up so much. Along with doing so well going to school he has also started asking for his daddy more. He wants to be with him and play with him more than ever before. He's still a pretty big momma's boy, but it's getting better. He gets excited about Ty getting to stay home with us and will ask us how many days until daddy gets to stay home and will excitedly ask if Ty is going to stay home all day long. The other day he told me he's growing more hair because he's growing into a daddy and showed me the longer hair on his legs which, trust me, I had already noticed! Elise was ready to move on to a bigger car seat so we got Carter a seat that can turn into a high back booster and switched her into his seat. He loves that he can strap himself into his new car seat all by himself. All I have to do is loosen the straps so he can get the bottom buckle and then tighten everything up when he's done. He still doesn't want me to watch him so he can surprise me by being ready. After watching me a few times, he figured out how to tighten the straps. He likes to pull the strap to tighten it and tells me I don't need to check his seat. I've told him I still need to check it just to make sure he is as safe as possible and he didn't say anything again. I've showed him where the chest clip needs to be and explained to him that it's supposed to be even with his armpits so if we get in a wreck it puts pressure on his bones, not his organs. He is so cute telling me he has his clip up on his bones, not his organs. With as much of a free spirit as he is with everything else, I love that he's such a rule follower when it comes to something he knows is super important like his safety. I don't have to ask him to hold my hand to cross a street, he just does it. He never messes with his car seat or tries to undo his straps while driving even though he could. I'm glad that he's such a good example for Elise in situations that are life or death.

Carter constantly cracks me up with things he says, like, "Oops, I forgot my manners!" And he takes good manners seriously. He is always inviting people to stay for meals when they are at our house. Asking if they want to stay for lunch or for dinner. It really cracks me up because Ty was notorious for doing the same thing when he was a little kid. Carter asks lots of questions and remembers our answers so well. When he invites people over he will give them a run down of the exact menu I told him earlier in the day. He also likes to explain to people that he grew in my belly, his mommy grew in his Oma's belly, and his daddy grew in his Gma's belly. If you ask him whose belly people grew in, he will tell you. He even drew a picture of Me with him in my belly and my friend Kristina with her son, Isaac, in her belly. He is very fascinated by pregnancy and babies. He really loves babies. He keeps telling us we need to have another baby because he wants a little baby, a baby littler than sissy. At first he kept telling me he wanted a baby brother and I'd explain to him that if we had another baby we wouldn't get to decide whether it was a boy or a girl. Then he'd decide he didn't want a baby if it wasn't going to be a boy. In the last few months he's said he doesn't care if we have a boy or a girl, he just wants another baby. He has started saying he wants two baby brothers and two baby sisters. He even started telling me that I didn't need to take my pills anymore because we need to have a baby. One day he walked into Elise's room as I was rocking her a little bit before laying her down for her nap and said, "Awww, that's so cute. Want me to take a picture?" So I got an adorable, slightly blurry picture of us taken by Carter.

Carter's blurry picture he took of us.

We let Carter watch a little bit of tv after doing his chores in the evening. He still loves Curious George but has also started watching Bernard the Bear. Bernard basically just goes around messing things up and has the hardest time. At first Carter thought he was called Bozo the Bear. Carter laughs so hard every time something goes wrong for Bernard. After his show we read 2 books and it's time for bed. When I put him in bed he always asks me to sing him "No More Monkeys Jumping on the Bed". Not a song, but I turned it into one. One night he wanted to prolong things and told me I needed to sing zero monkeys jumping on the bed at the end so now there's an added verse in the song. I couldn't even be frustrated that he added to our bedtime routine because how smart was he knowing zero came after one? I was so proud of him! I can't tell you how frustrating the concept of zero was for so many of my first graders throughout the years! Carter keeps me on my toes and can be a challenge at times, but most of all he has the biggest heart and is the sweetest little boy. No matter what he is doing, he'll always stop to give me a kiss if I ask for one. He loves to snuggle and sit on my lap and it always warms my heart. I love him to pieces and am so glad we get to spend so much time together!