New Tooth

Carter is getting another new tooth. He's getting his lower left lateral incisor (the one next to the two middle teeth). He was pulling his ears a lot during breakfast and then I noticed it starting to break through after lunch. Hopefully he won't be as cranky as he was when his top middle teeth came in. I haven't had a chance to really feel around and see if any other teeth are starting to break through now as well but maybe Carter will let me check tomorrow.

Brian's parents are here visiting this weekend. We all went to the zoo today.


The elephant trainers are having a special program for the next few weeks where they are letting a few people help when they wash one of the elephants. Everyone that shows up at a special time gets a number and a poker chip with the same number is put in a bucket. Then one of the elephants draws a poker chip and if it's your number, you get to go into the exhibit and help. We didn't get picked (the group one ahead of us had the drawn number) but the elephants were really close to the window while we were waiting. Carter was actually paying attention to them and hitting his hand on the glass towards them.


Checking out the camels with Grandpa:


Brian got to take Carter on the carousel:


It was hot, but we had a fun day!

Eggs

Carter tried egg yolks today (apparently the whites are what people can be allergic to). I hard boiled a couple of eggs, removed the yolks, mashed them, and mixed them with some applesauce. Sounds gross to me so I tried a little and it wasn't too bad. But it didn't smell very good.



Carter was mixed on his opinion. He made some sour faces but ate about half of what I had made for him. It definitely wasn't his favorite, but he didn't totally reject it either.

Yuck, I think ...


Seriously, Mom, can't you tell that I don't like this stuff!


Carter is getting really good at pulling himself up on things. He's really good at getting to his knees and hanging out like that.


But he's also hitting his head a lot more now. Notice the big red mark on his forehead in this picture.


We had dinner with a friend at Aubrey's tonight. It's probably the nicest restaurant we've been to with Carter so far and he did pretty good. For some reason when Jason got there he wasn't too sure about him and got a little spooked. He got tears in his eyes and his lip started quivering and he tried so hard to get over it but finally let it out and had a short cry. He quieted down quickly but never was too sure about Jason for some reason.

No More Pink

I finally got around to painting the guest room this week (and finished just in time for Brian's parents who are coming for a visit this weekend). I need to get new bedding and decoration for the room, but I like the new color so much better than the pink the last owners had painted the room.

Before:



After:

Carter's Crawl

After Baby Bookworms today, I let Carter crawl around for a few minutes. Apparently Carter's belly crawl is a bit unusual because everyone was commenting on it. He's fast at it and I think that's partly what everyone was surprised by.

Here's another video of him crawling and then pulling himself up using the gate at the bottom of the steps.

Random Stuff

Carter is getting more and more mature! He definitely knows his name. When he's crawling around, if you call his name he'll turn to look at you and smile.

He's finally helping when you want to lift him out of his car seat or stroller by reaching his arms out towards you.

Carter grows by getting chunky and then he'll shoot up in height and get skinny again. He just keeps repeating that cycle. Right now he's in the "getting chunkier" phase.


When I'm driving and Carter is fussing (which is a lot), I can get him to settle down immediately (most of the time) by singing to him. He likes songs like "The Itsy Bitsy Spider", "B-I-N-G-O", "Old McDonald", and "The Farmer in the Dell". As soon as I stop singing, he'll usually start fussing again. I have an awful voice so I have no idea why this soothes him!

When we're at home and I'm rocking Carter before a nap or trying to soothe him when he wakes up at night, I always sing "Hush Little Baby". It's the song I've used with him since he was about 3 months old.

For the last few days, Carter has really enjoyed taking his books off the bookshelf in his room. He takes them off one by one and will stop every once in awhile to chew on one of the books.



The books he is most interested in right now are the ones that have something to feel (like a little patch of fake fur on an animal). He sees those spots right away when I'm reading to him and feels them with his index finger.

Today's New Food: Pasta

Carter tried pasta today. I found some small pasta that seemed small enough for Carter not to choke on.


I cooked it.


Then I mixed in some applesauce to give it a bit of flavor.


Carter did okay eating some of it. He was tired and a little grumpy so it was hard to tell how much he did or didn't like it. But he ended up eating about half the bowl.




I had a soccer game tonight that started at 6:30pm so Carter got to stay up way past his bedtime (about 1 1/2 hours late). I'm hoping that staying up may make him sleep later in the morning. He's been waking up really early the last few days (before 6am - closer to 5am). Typically he'll sleep about 10 hours at night and get in 2 hours of naps during the day. I really hope he starts to sleep a little more soon! I feel like I'm giving him the opportunities and conditions to sleep longer but he's just too interested in seeing the world. But there are still a few more things I can think of trying so I'll see if those might help.

Naps in the crib have been going well. Carter is now up to a solid 25-30 minutes (at least) per nap while in his crib. So he's sleeping as well there as he used to in his bouncer. I've even been able to transfer him to his crib if he falls asleep on me while eating. He's typically taking 3 naps per day right now.

Yakima Bike Trailer

Yesterday morning I met Sarah at the Cedar Springs Church Consignment Sale. They have a HUGE consignment sale every year for children's clothes, toys, furniture, and other stuff. It is really well organized with everything grouped together in very specific categories (like strollers, exersaucers, bouncers, Halloween costumes, bedding, etc). The only somewhat disorganized area was the toy room. There was just too much crammed into a small room and since I had Carter and my travel system stroller with me it was nearly impossible to sort through anything and not be in everyone's way.

The sale started at 9am and when Carter and I got there about 8:50am, the line was wrapping around the building already. So there were probably 150+ people ahead of us in line. One of the first areas you can look through was the large outdoor toys. Since these are too big to carry around and still look, when you find something you like, you ask one of the volunteers to put a number on the item and they put it aside for you to pick up when you pay. Almost everything already had a number on it and then I spotted a bike trailer on the other side of the area that someone was looking at. I was hoping they'd decide against it and Carter and I started to make our way over to it. There were lots of people in the way and since I needed a big enough path for a stroller, a bunch of people without strollers kept cutting in front of me to get to things. I figured there was no way the bike trailer would still be available when we got to it, but when we got there, there wasn't a number on it! And it was a Yakima bike trailer which I knew had to be a good one. It was a little dirty and looked like it'd been sitting in a garage for a few years collecting spider webs, but it looked to have all it's parts so I quickly flagged down a volunteer and put it on hold.

I cleaned the bike trailer up a little this morning and it looks great. Yakima doesn't sell bike trailers anymore, but after looking a little online, it looks like they cost about $450 a few years ago. I paid $75 so I think I got a good deal.



It also came with the conversion kit to convert the trailer into a jogger. I probably won't do that, but it's a nice option to have. Unfortunately the user manuals weren't sold with the trailer, but I'm going to email Yakima and see if they can supply us with a PDF of the manual.

I'm so excited I found this. A bike trailer was the next big purchase I was planning on making and I was having trouble deciding between a very basic $100-$150 model and a nicer $400-$600 model. I'm so glad we spent the extra money on the BOB jogging stroller so it was going to be hard for me to settle on a cheaper bike trailer. Now I don't have to settle! Carter is still a little too small for trailer, but he should fit well in a couple of months. We could probably figure out a way to put his car seat in there now if we really want to. I can't wait to get out and use it!

Today's Activities

Carter and I went to Books and Blooms at the UT Gardens again today. For the second day in a row I had to wake him up from his morning nap so we could get somewhere on time. It's weird when this kid takes a nap that's over an hour long! Today he took 2 one hour naps. But that was it so he was a bit cranky still tonight.

Today's theme at Books and Blooms was bees. After listening to the stories we looked at some bees at the sunflowers that were planted at the first Books and Blooms program of the summer. Then we all made bees. Carter actually held his hand still long enough to let me trace it on the wax paper to make the wings for the bee.


After the program I took Carter running on the Neyland and Third Creek Greenways. I've never run those portions of those greenways before. They were okay but not my favorites.

After Carter's afternoon nap I got out the splash mat I bought the other day. Carter really liked it!


Carter liked playing with the streams of water and trying to catch them. A few times he tried to drink them like he was drinking from a water fountain. I had a lot of trouble controlling the water pressure though. I'd get the water at the right height for Carter and then the pressure would increase and it'd be shooting above his head again. I kept having to run back to the spigot to turn down the pressure while not turning my back to Carter in case he did a face plant and I had to quickly get him out of the water. Luckily there is a perfect place for him to sit on the mat that is shaped like a doughnut to help keep him upright.

Here are a few videos of him playing.

Eating Cheerios

I love Cheerios. They make meal time for Brian and me so much easier! We can now put Carter in his seat at the table with some Cheerios on his tray while we eat dinner and he keeps himself happy. When we go out to a restaurant, we now put him in a high chair and put some Cheerios on a mat in front of him and we can enjoy our meal. He just likes them so much!

Here's a cute video from today of Carter enjoying a snack while I ate my lunch. I think Charlotte and him really started bonding once Cheerios were introduced into his diet.

(I had to split the video into 2 parts because Blogger was giving me trouble when it was one large file.)

Zoo and Other Stuff

Carter and I went to the zoo today with Sarah and Mary Grace. It was a perfect day to go. It was overcast with the occasional light sprinkle. The weather kept it from being too crowded and kept us from getting too hot. Unfortunately a lot of the animals weren't in their exhibits today. Our favorite animals, the gibbons, were part of the absent animals. But we did get to watch the elephants working with the trainers. One was kicking a soccer ball and another was picking up a big stick with its trunk.

The guy running the carousel let us ride for free today! He's a little weird but we definitely appreciated the free ride. Carter LOVES the carousel and even sits and holds on like a big boy!



Carter figured out how to pull up on the new gate we have at the bottom of the stairs today. We finally bought gates this past weekend. Brian got the bottom one up and is still working on the top one (he needs to remount it this weekend to get it to line up better). Carter's feet kept sliding out from under him but he held on so he didn't fall.


Carter slept through the night last night for the first time. He's made it to 4 or 5 am a few times before but this morning he didn't wake up until his normal wake up time - about 6:15 am. It was awesome to get to sleep through the night, but I need about a week of that to even have a chance of feeling caught up on sleep!