A Letter to Carter at 5 Months

 I swear I enjoy you more every day.  This month has been such a fun one!  You laughed for the first time and unlike smiling have done it quite a few times since.  The first time you smiled at me, you didn’t do it again for weeks!  The reason why you laughed the first time was because I was kissing all over your thighs.  You have also laughed because I was bouncing you.  You are quite the smiley boy now, you smile all the time and at almost anything.  

 

With Gerald the Giraffe.

Your favorite toys are Gerald the Giraffe, Sophie, books, and your multi-colored stick/ball toy (I don’t know how else to describe it, I will have to share a picture).  Harper also loves Gerald and if I forget to put him back in your room in the morning, I will find him strewn about on the floor somewhere with puppy slobber on him when we get home in the evening.

Playing with the stick/ball toy.

You also LOVE your hands.  You have become an expert at self-soothing.  If you are upset, pop, that thumb goes in your mouth!  If I’m getting ready to feed you and you’re really hungry, you get that thumb, and suck it like there’s no tomorrow.  You also suck your whole fist or other fingers at your leisure.  When you are upset, it’s always the thumb!  I’ve even seen you suck both thumbs at the same time!

Always getting that hand!

It’s just a matter of time before you discover your feet.  When you are on the changing table you like to pull your legs up to your tummy and then you reach out and grab your knees.  I can just see you grabbing ahold of those feet and I know the first place they will go, straight to your mouth!

You are starting to get more hair.  It’s getting longer on the top of your head and filling in everywhere else.  Before we joked you had old man hair because the top of your head was bald and you just had a ring of hair around the side and back of your head.  When I see other babies your age I laugh that your daddy and I are so excited about “how much hair you have now” because they all have WAY more hair than you!

After your 4 month appointment we started trying solid foods with you.  We haven’t been super consistent with it.  We just do it a few times a week.  You get a solid in the evening after your 5:00 nursing and then you nurse again afterward.  So far you have tried: sweet potatoes, squash, carrots, and peas.  I have tried each one too.  I want to know what I’m feeding you and I just have to say the peas were NASTY!  You did just fine eating them though.  I would say what food I think is your favorite, but I’m not sure if I just think that because it’s what I liked best.  You seem to really like sweet potatoes, but who knows since that was my favorite.

You are sitting up really well in your Bumbo.  You are able to hold your head up and look around now.  When you are lying down, I’ll grab your hands and help you sit up.  You can do that really well!  I’ll prop you up and let go for a couple seconds and always catch you as you begin to topple over.  I can’t believe you’ll be sitting up all on your own soon.

Look at that neck control!

You are sleeping really well.  Some nights you sleep all the way from midnight to 7am.  Other nights you wake up once at 4am.  Then nights like last night you get up 3-4 times.  You move around a lot in your sleep.  Mostly as you are falling asleep or right after you fall asleep.  This morning I went in to check on you and found you peacefully sleeping on your belly.  I was shocked!  Normally when you roll onto your belly you scream and I have to go in to roll you over.  I really don’t like the idea of you sleeping on your tummy, so I hope you don’t do that regularly.  I’m guessing it’s not as big of a deal since you can roll onto your belly on your own.

Sleeping on your tummy.

This month you got an ear infection.  It was so sad and broke my heart.  You were such a sweet boy all day long and then night would come and you were miserable, crying, and screaming.  The infection didn’t clear up with antibiotics so you had to get shots which cleared it up, thankfully.  It was in your left ear.  I really hope you don’t have to deal with one of those again!

At daycare you still LOVE Ms. Tracie and Ms. Kim.  They both say you are always such a good boy.  You still love sitting in the chair they can snap you into.  They will give you little stuffed animals with rattles inside them.  You love to hold onto them and suck on the tags.  You also enjoy the circle mat surrounded with triangles and mirrors.  You are such a people watcher, just like your mommy and grampy!  You enjoy watching the other kids play.  One little girl loves to come over to you when you are in your chair and rock you and you just smile at her!

Your favorite toys at daycare.

Your favorite things at home are smiling and laughing.  You still love talking with me and daddy, watching Harper, and reading .  You enjoy being outside a lot more now that you have sunglasses.  Riding in your stroller or being carried around outside are both things you really enjoy.

All the sudden at the end of this month you totally switched your opinion of tummy time.  When you are on your back, you quickly either roll to your side or your tummy.  When I was taking your month pictures I had a hard time getting one of you on your back because you just kept rolling to your tummy.  Daddy says you get that from me because I love sleeping on my tummy.  Not gonna lie, I was stoked to sleep on my tummy again the night after you were born!

Your jumperoo is a favorite toy.  It really shows how much you have grown!  When I first got it out, you stood on your tippy toes.  Now you are flat footed and can really bend your knees and bounce!  Your favorite things to do in it are to watch the lights, move the beads, grab the string with the rattle on the end, or turn the pages of the book.

We didn’t have a doctor’s appointment this month so I measured and weighed you myself.  According to our scale at home you weigh 16 pounds, 3 ounces.  The last time we were at the doctor’s office a little over a week ago you weighed 15 pounds, 12 ounces.  So I’m saying you weigh 16 pounds.  You are now 26 inches long!

You still wear size 2 diapers.  You have outgrown your 3 month jammies and now wear 6 and 9 month jammies!  You fit the best in 3-6 month clothes, but also fit into some 6-9 month clothes.  Our favorite outfit is your yellow and white striped pants with your turtle onesie.  It is one of the first outfits we got.  Your grammy and grampy bought them for you before we knew whether you were a girl or a boy.  You look so handsome in them that  your grammy keeps buying you yellow clothing.

Our favorite outfit this month.

From Daddy:

Smiles, smiles and smiles! I love how generous you are with your smiles. It warms your mother’s and my hearts. You also can pick out our voices, turn to look at us across the room and smile. You are so happy and easy going all the time; unless you’re hungry (you get that from me I think). 

You are also quite attached to your giraffe, Gerald. I can bring him into your view and your eyes light up, you smile and reach for him. It if fun watching you become attached to these things, especially when they brighten up your day.

Everyone who spends any time around you always comments on how laid back you are. Just this weekend, your mom, I, Uncle Jeremy, Uncle Thomas, and Grandpa Hurford ran the Warrior Dash. Since we were all signed up, we decided that your mom and I would run after everyone else so that they could watch you. Your Uncle Jeremy finished first and came right over to us. Always confident with you, your mom and I were able to head to our start time. Once we were finished, all three of them assured us that you quietly sat and watched your surroundings, happy as can be.

Mother's Day

The Mother's Day card Carter made for his grandmas and great grandmas, well and me because I had to have one too!

Mother’s Day started with a surprise for me on Friday.  Ty picked Carter up from daycare to take him to the doctor at 11 and returned him to daycare in time for me to see him at noon for lunch like usual.  As I opened the door to the nursing room I noticed something was in the chair.  I was surprised because I know I’m the only person who uses the room.  Then it crossed my mind something may have been left there for me.  As I got closer I recognized Ty’s handwriting on a bag in the chair.

I had told Ty I really wanted a membership to the aquarium so I could take Carter over the summer.  He had gotten me a membership and a stuffed otter from the gift shop.  When I called to tell him I got the surprise he said he had wanted to get a seahorse (they are my favorite animal at the aquarium) but they were all girly and Carter had liked the otter the best.

Carter really does love the otter.  The only problem is that he'll rip it's hair out and stick it in his mouth!

It was so sweet and such a huge surprise.  Ty loves to surprise me and couldn’t resist the chance to do so by getting me something I had asked for but giving it to me on a different day.  He is always thinking of ways to make things even more special.

This present awaited me at daycare!

When I picked Carter up from daycare I was again surprised.  His teachers had helped him make me a card and a gift which were both wrapped very cute.  It was so much fun to get items made by Carter.

My mom had to explain that his little thumbprints were grapes.  Makes so much sense now!

Friday evening my friend, Erin, and her husband were in town for a concert and we got to eat dinner together and they spent the night.  It was so much fun to see them, hear all about Hayden, and show off Carter’s handiwork.

The back of the heart has his thumbprints together in the shape of a heart.

Saturday morning Ty made us all breakfast and then they left for home and we headed to visit my mom and grandma.  My grandma enjoyed watching Carter and even played with him a little bit.  When she got tired we headed out.  We got a Dairy Queen ice cream cake for Mother’s Day, had Ty’s award-winning chili for dinner, and then enjoyed the cake. 

Three Generations of moms together for Mother's Day.

I’m glad I was surprised with Mother’s Day gifts on Friday and then enjoyed the day Saturday with my mom and grandma because I woke up feeling horrible on Sunday.  I ended up taking a long afternoon nap with Carter, going to Urgent Care, and then sleeping most of the drive home.  With all the surprises and the time spent with family, my first Mother’s Day was a great one!

So It's Been a While...

Here’s why.  I woke up on Sunday morning dizzy and running a low-grade temp.  After a nap with Carter in the afternoon I decided to go to Urgent Care only to be told it was just allergies.  Tuesday morning I was still running a temp so I called and got into my doctor.  He told me what I knew deep down, there was no way it was just allergies. 

It turned out to be a viral infection and there weren’t any meds I could take.  I was feeling awful and would make it until Carter went to bed and then I would follow suit.  I went to bed around 8:30 each night.  I’m finally feeling better, thank goodness!  And luckily Carter hasn’t shown any signs of catching it.  Since I was told it was allergies initially I was still kissing all over his face, not worrying about spreading germs. 

Ty was such a great helper while I was sick.  During the night he would get up and bring Carter to me so I didn’t have to get up.  You wouldn’t believe how nice that was!  It was so weird to roll over to check on Carter during the night and realize the monitor wasn’t on my side.

Yesterday was Carter’s 5 month birthday, but I was so exhausted I wasn’t able to do his photo shoot.  I started it today, but still have some more pictures to take.  I’ll be finishing up tomorrow, but will leave you with a sneak peak.

 

 

Where's the Noise At?

So that beeping noise that I mentioned here, we still haven’t found the source.  I assumed it was our smoke detector.  When I discovered that wasn’t it I half-heartedly searched for what was responsible for the noise.  When I hadn’t figured it out in 30 minutes I decided whatever it was probably had batteries and the batteries would eventually die.  That was on Wednesday.  Four days later the sound was still going strong.  I guess that rules out the bomb theory.  Surely it would have blown up by now, right?

Last night Ty decided he had had enough of the noise.  He went on a rampage trying to figure out where it was coming from.  He, like I had, initially thought it was the smoke detector and then a game inside our game basket.  He proceeded to pull both game baskets out, open each game, and check timers or other objects in the box that may make noise.  I walked by as he opened the box to “Taboo”, found the buzzer, quickly opened the back, and groaned in disappointment when he saw there were no batteries in it.

Do you hear it over there?!!?

When I told my brother, Thomas, about the beeping, he said, "Don't tell Ty, he'll use that as an excuse to tear all the walls down."  He wasn't far off!  Ty took a break from his search and then the next thing I knew he had a broom and was using it to rip something off the wall.  Right as he was pulling the wire out of the wall we heard the beep come from a different section of the kitchen.  Ty quickly moved to that area of the kitchen and decided it was very possible Skippy had taken something into his kitty litter box, so he cleaned it.  Still no luck.

Pulling a wire out of the wall.

Next he moved over to riffle through Harper’s dog toy box.  There was nothing in there making noise.  Carter and I watched as he pulled a chair across the room, under the air vent, and listened.  Again the beep sounded, but not from where he was. 

Listening for the beep coming from the ceiling.

He never found the sound that night.  The next day he opened a drawer in our corner table and discovered our old smoke detector just beeping away.  

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Those Perfect Moments

Yesterday was one of those evenings that was just perfect.  It was 80 degrees and I was dying to get Carter home to play outside.  My parents found these adorable overall shorts at a garage sale and I couldn’t wait to put them on him.  We had also bought him sunglasses this past weekend and I was thrilled to try them out.

Adorable new overalls!

When we first arrived home I sat down to feed Carter.  As he was eating he would look up at me, get distracted, and stop eating to smile at me.  He was being one heck of a ham!  I loved it and couldn’t stop laughing.  I grabbed my camera as we went into his room for a diaper change because I had a feeling with how smiley he was I may hear a giggle.  I didn’t get my hopes up because I’ve been waiting for that giggle for over a month now!

Every time I change Carter’s diaper I bend down and kiss all over his roly poly thighs.  This time I did that as usual, but Carter squealed.  He was squealing and cooing the entire time I kissed his thighs, so I kept doing it.  Then it happened.  All of the sudden he laughed.  It was the most beautiful sound I had ever heard.  I tried to get him to do it again so I could take a video for you all, but he didn’t do it again.  I was able to get a video of his laugh today.  I couldn't hold my phone as I bounced him, so I balanced it in between the slats of his crib.  Sorry for the lack of good video footage, but it's all about the audio on this one!

If the video isn't working, view it on youtube by clicking on the link below.

Youtube Video

After attempting to get him to laugh for an extremely long time, I rounded up bubbles, Carter’s sunglasses, a few books, Carter’s bumbo, and outside we went.  Carter wasn’t too interested in the bubbles, but had a blast looking around and checking everything out.  I just couldn’t stop giggling at how adorable he looked in his bumbo.  

I am so excited for summer when we will have all day to have moments like these.  Only 11 days of school left!