Carter Update

Carter is getting more flexible. He's no where near putting his feet in his mouth yet, but he is now bringing them up to his hands some when he's getting a bath or we're changing his diaper. It does make changing him a little more difficult though.

Tonight was the first time Carter tried to lift up his head just a bit when on his tummy.


Carter's baby acne has been getting a lot better. His chin is still a little broken out but that's probably from the spit up that doesn't get wiped up right away.

Carter's hair doesn't seem to be getting much thicker yet, but it is getting a little longer. He's got some stray inch long pieces in the middle of his head. The color is still a strawberry blonde. Also, he has this really cute swirl pattern in his hair at his forehead on his right side.

Carter has been out of all his newborn clothes for over a week now and fits into most of his 3 month size stuff. Those clothes don't even look big anymore.

We've tried putting Carter in his Bumbo seat a few times. His neck is getting stronger and stronger, and he seems to be able to keep his head up when in the seat. Here's a picture of the 30 seconds he didn't mind it, and a picture of what usually happens as soon as we sit him in it.

Little Feet

Poor Charlotte

Charlotte has been putting up with a lot while we get through Carter's newborn stage. Yes, she is just a dog, but she's still part of our family and we enjoy interacting with her.

She has been getting a lot less attention. It's hard to play with her the same way while holding a baby. Plus, it took her awhile to even want to be near me while I was holding Carter - I think she was jealous. She used to come to work with me at least twice a week (sometimes five days a week if Brian was out of town) and she got lots of love from people in my office. Now, she hasn't left our neighborhood in almost two months. That's got to be a big change for her. We haven't been able to play outside much because we have gotten so much rain since Carter has been born. And if it's not raining, it's been really cold. We've really only had a few nice days the past couple of months.

Charlotte also has to put up with us taking away her squeaking toys when Carter is finally sleeping. And getting scolded when she barks when he's sleeping.

Hopefully the weather will improve soon (doesn't look like it's going to be this week though) so we can get outside and really play with Charlotte. I'm sure she misses playing her version of fetch with her little orange basketball. Her version is getting the ball and then waiting for you to come to her to throw it again. At least this is the version she usually plays with me. She plays a more normal version with Brian most of the time.

Still, we're really happy with how Charlotte is doing with Carter. She's not very interested in him yet, but she usually sniffs him a few times a day and gives him a little lick every once in awhile. Carter has looked at her a few times, but usually ignores her too. We're looking forward to seeing how they do together once Carter gets a little older and is a little more mobile.

Carter Smiling at His Dad

Tongue

Carter discovered his tongue today! He's been sticking it out and moving it around more. He also started cooing some the last couple of days. It's a lot of fun to "talk" with him now.

We signed up for Netflix today. My mom got us a Blu-ray player for Christmas. We picked out a Samsung one with the ability to instantly download movies from Netflix. The interface is really good, and we're really impressed with the features. Not everything is available to download, but there are some movies we want to see and a lot of TV shows we haven't watched the first few seasons of. We used to have Blockbuster, but they were starting to take about a week to send us new movies and several of them had been arriving damaged or with the wrong movie in the envelope. Hopefully Netflix is better.

Baby Bjorn

I successfully got Carter to hang out in his Baby Bjorn today for the first time without him screaming. He even fell asleep for awhile. After about an hour he had had enough of it, but it was nice up until then.



Here are a few other cute pictures, including a little bit of a smile that Brian caught and one of Carter toppling over while I was trying to take his picture.

Chameleon

I think Carter is a chameleon. He has been extra fussy the last couple of days and has discovered a new type of crying. He lets out an awful scream and doesn't breathe. He'll take a small reloading breath and scream again. He turns almost purple in seconds. Usually I can calm him from this in a minute or two and a few seconds after this his color is back to normal. It's amazing how quickly he changes color.

Carter is having trouble "just chilling". If he's not sleeping, we're almost always having to hold him and be walking around so he's not crying (too much - he's still crying a lot of the time). He's also getting upset as soon as he's done eating, which is new. Generally he had been content for awhile while being burped and held upright. He's been like this for the last few days. I did reintroduce dairy into my diet almost a week ago with no change initially in his temperament. But maybe the dairy is the problem so I'm going to take it out again and see what happens.

But Carter did take 2 long naps today so I did have some time to get a few things done. My arms and back are getting stronger from holding him so much and bouncing him!

Some Pictures

Here are some pictures of Carter we took the last few days.

Carter chilling in his swing.


Sleeping with his pacifier barely staying in.


I like the one leg over the side of the sling. He always does this.


Carter looking content during bath time.


Carter bonding with his dad.

Go Pack

Carter got all dressed up for the PapaJohns.com Bowl today. All his NCSU clothes are still too big for him so it looks like he's wearing a dress!


Woohoo! State is winning ...


What do you mean our quarterback got hurt? The other two guys always throw lots of interceptions ...


NCSU ended up losing to Rutgers 29-23. At least we got a bowl game this year.

I had my 6 week postpartum appointment today. Everything looked good and I've been cleared to exercise. Now I can start my half-marathon training!

Smiles

Carter is starting to smile more and more. I haven't gotten a picture of him doing it yet because he's usually being held when he smiles and it's hard to take a picture of him while you're holding him. It's very cute though.

Carter's neck is getting stronger and stronger. He can somewhat hold his head up on his own, but you still have to be ready for it to flop back.

Carter's favorite sleeping spot is on someone's chest. Here's a picture of him taking a snooze on his grandma.


Carter isn't consistent with sleeping yet. For the last week and a half he has done one 4 to 6 hour session between feedings at night. (An hour of this is the actual time to feed, the 30 minutes of holding him upright afterwards, a diaper change if necessary, and the time to settle him down once he's mad about being put down in his playard.) Sometimes he'll go back to sleep easily for another 3 to 4 hours between feedings. Other times, he'll be wide awake and not want to sleep. He still doesn't like sleeping on his back in his playard. If we'd let him sleep on our chest at night, he'd probably sleep through the entire night. Carter isn't consistent during the day either. Some days Carter naps a lot during the day and other days not much at all. He's eating about every three hours. Some times he'll doze off right after eating, some times a little later, and some times not at all.

Brian and I are going to try to work on figuring out a schedule this week since he's taking another week off. We may also try to get Carter to sleep in his crib.