By Your Side

Not gonna lie, I’ve struggled lately.  With a lot of things.  I feel like there are so many people I know right now that are having miscarriages.  People struggling to get pregnant.  People that have climbed the miscarriage and infertility wall only to be met with the wall of having a child born with special needs.  Or something worse (this is just worse in my opinion, may not be in someone else’s), experiencing the death of a child.

Justin and I have talked about when the best time to have baby #2 is, but to be honest, I’m scared to death.  I feel like every time I turn around, I’m hearing about another situation as listed above.  I’m scared that because we were so incredibly blessed with number 1 that we could never be lucky enough to be blessed with two healthy pregnancies and babies.  But even if I put those fears aside, I struggle with what to say to friends when something like this happens to them.  What do you say to a friend who has had multiple miscarriages when they miscarry again?  What do you say when your family member struggles with infertility?  What is the best way to respond to this?  I feel like I’ve used the “I’m so sorry.  God has a plan” bit over and over.  I imagine it gets old after a while. 

As I was at my desk working, I was listening to my Pandora station (which happens to be set to my all time FAVORITE band, Casting Crowns).  Then the Tenth Avenue North song “By Your Side” pooped up and I realized….THIS is what I should be telling people.  I should just refer them to this song.  This song isn’t new, in fact, it’s several years old.  I’ve heard it numerous times before.  But I guess it just registered that it could apply to any of the above situations.  Above all, it’s important for people that have experienced such losses to know that God is there.  He’s holding their hand.  And He NEVER leaves.

Wordless Wednesday

13 Month Update

Don’t be confused.  This is NOT going to be as detailed as Carter’s normal monthly posts the first 12 months of his life.  I just wanted to share a few pictures from the last month and document the things he’s doing now.  I feel like this last month held a lot of milestones that made me feel like my kid was officially a toddler and I wanted to write them down.

This month, we got Carter’s first ever art work from school:

Obviously the teachers made the clouds :)  We got this on a Tuesday and then on Thursday we got another one.  We thought it was weird we got two in one week, but then we realized that it appeared to be art week at church because all of a sudden, the hallways where the classrooms are were FULL of artwork on the walls!

Carter started talking A LOT.  He’s still babbling in a language that only he understands, but he truly thinks he’s talking like we do.  He’s all into pointing at things now.  He points at something, looks at me and then says a bunch of jibber jabber as if he is telling me what he’s pointing at.  It’s so cute!  Like I’ve mentioned before, he knows how to wave hello and bye bye.  I think he’s so used to us waving at someone that is leaving and saying “say bye bye Carter” that he now even says it.  Yep.  He says “bye bye” now. 

Yesterday, while we were all getting ready for church, I was in the laundry room folding laundry from the dryer.  Carter was playing in my closet (which is connected to the laundry room) and he walked into the laundry room, looked at me, looked at the dryer, then walked over to the dryer, shut the door and said “bye bye” and then walked away.  This was an interesting moment for me.  It literally stopped me dead in my tracks because 1) I just realized my son can say a new word and 2) he knows the context of that word.  I don’t know if he was saying “bye bye” to me as he walked away, or if he was saying “bye bye” to the clothes that were in the dryer when he shut the door (afterwards, he came back in the laundry room and put his sippy cup in the dryer).  Either way, it was hilarious.  He loves watching the clothes get tossed around in the dryer!

I’ve been putting some pictures on Instagram and have had a lot of comments from people regarding said pictures.  See, when Carter gets sleepy, he will literally just go up to something soft and lay down on it and just lay there for a little bit to see if we come get him to take him to bed.  He’s not actually asleep, but his eyes are usually closed, like he’s pretending to be asleep or something.  It’s so weird.  See pictures:

See?  Strange, strange child.  But I love him :)

This month, Justin and another couple from our Sunday School class ran the Krispy Kreme run.  This is new to Birmingham.  Basically, you run 2 miles to Railroad Park, eat a dozen glazed donuts, and then run the 2 miles back.  I would have vomited.  Justin finished and so did Bryan, but Bryan’s wife Stacey only made it halfway through the box of donuts and couldn’t do it anymore.  I can imagine it has to be extremely difficult shoveling that much sugar into your body.  Barf.

On the left is the night before the race.  Daddy put his Krispy Kreme hat that came with the race packet on Carter during bath time.  On the right is Justin and Bryan after finishing the race.  You only get that medal if you finish all of your donuts and finish the race within 1 hour.  Way to go boys!!

As far as eating goes….

He eats a lot!  He still eats pureed veggies and some pureed fruits.  Adult breakfast foods he eats include bananas, waffles, yogurt, and oatmeal (still on baby oatmeal though-I kept giving him this because there’s a lot of iron in it).  For dinner and lunches, he usually eats grilled cheese, grilled chicken, fried chicken, or turkey.  He eats these with a mix of pureed veggies.  The things I’m still working on trying to get him to eat are eggs and sandwiches.  He doesn’t like the texture of eggs nor of the turkey meat in a sandwich.  I tried to give him a small bite of my hamburger the other night but he didn’t like the texture of that either.  He does LOVE rice and chicken from the Mexican restaurant though!  What I have learned with him is that his preferences change and nothing is permanent.  He used to not like grilled chicken, but after some persistence, he likes it now.  He used to love fried chicken, but just the other night, he refused to eat any of it.  What is his favorite food one day may be the least favorite the next. 

But what I’m most happy about….

Yes, he is for good off the bottle and they have all been packed up!  Justin managed to wean him of the bottle all by himself, I literally did nothing!  It took a couple of days but we pretty much just took away bottles.  It was basically “drink from the sippy cup or don’t drink at all”.  That first day he barely drank any milk and the next day he drank about half of what he should have and then the next day he was drinking like normal.  Bye bye bottles!

Onto the next topic.  Henry.

Henry is the lovable and cuddly giraffe that our neighbors, Blake and Whitney Prime, gave to him when I was still pregnant.  Carter didn’t pay this little giraffe any attention until about 2 months ago and now they are inseparable. 

You can also see Henry in the above picture of Carter pretending to sleep on Gizmo’s dog bed AND in the bedroom floor.  Like I said, he goes everywhere Carter goes!  We now have Henry I and Henry II.  I wonder if we’ll get to Henry VIII?  HA….a little British history humor.  But we did purchase a second Henry just in case anything ever happens to the first.

A few other randomly adorable photos from this month:

Only other thing worthy to note is that Carter had to go to the doctor this month for a sick visit.  He was coughing extremely badly and had a runny nose that just never quit.  Both of his twin cousins, Cynthia and Celia, were coming off ear infections, so we all thought it best to take Carter to see if he had an ear infection.  If he did, then the cough medicine we were giving him wasn’t going to do any good and we needed antibiotics.  Luckily, there was no ear infection, just an upper respiratory infection.  Doc even suggested us to give him honey.  Honey.  Never would have thought of that.  We started giving him about a tablespoon a day of honey and honestly, I’ve noticed a difference!  He is still coming off the sickness now, but he acts completely normal and never ran a fever.  KNOCK ON WOOD - y’all, my child is 13 months old and has never once had an ear infection.  I hope I didn’t just curse myself.

52 Things - Numbers 5 - 8

To keep trucking with the 52 Things Kids Need from a Mom (to read the first post, click here):

Number 5: To Keep a Date Night With Dad

I don’t think this is a huge secret to anyone.  Moms and dads need alone time to make sure their lives don’t revolve around baby.  This is how divorce happens.  You must continue to make your spouse your number 1 priority (because according to God, Dad trumps baby).  But the author stresses how important it is for your KIDS to see that date night is a priority for their parents.  If they see their parents committed to their marriage, they will likely also grow to believe that marriage is a huge commitment and not something than can just be dissolved with a piece of paper.  She says in the book “…our commitment to date night seems to give them a confidence about us”.  In a world with an unknown future and certainly an unstable economy, our kids need us to give them confidence that all is right in their world.

Number 6: To Make Them Sit Around the Table….And Linger

The author makes a note that as great as cooking for your family is, sometimes, the family needs to go out to eat so that there’s more “face time”.  It’ shard for mom to spend quality time with the family when she’s pulling dinner together, setting the table, cleaning up, etc.  Go out to a restaurant and….linger.  Hang out with your family while someone else makes the meal and sets the table and cleans up after.  The author makes note that during this “face time” everyone in the family is required to give 3 high’s and 3 low’s of the day.  It’s just a way to get your kids talking about their day and engage in their lives.

Number 7: Let Her ‘Yes’ Be ‘Yes’ and Her ‘No’ Be ‘No’

Boy is this a tough one or what?!!?  Especially when you see those tears when you’re saying no.  But kids need consistency.  If you give them loopholes, they WILL use them.  But she goes one step further.  “As their mom, I have learned to respond to the kids the way I would like someone to respond to me.  I try to take enough time to think about my answer, and then I respond to them with a decision I believe I can keep.  A long time ago, someone told me to say yes every time I can, so I’ve tried to do that.  Every time I can say yes, I do.  When I have to say no, I usually give my no accompanied by a quick explanation.  I like rational explanations, so that is what I try to give.  I can’t remember saying, ‘Because I said so’ but there have been a few times I’ve said ‘It’s not appropriate for you to know the details, so you’ll just have to trust me-my answer is no.’”  That little snipit kind of sums up this category.  Kids need mom to keep her word because as a result, we are training them to be like Jesus, we’re building a sense of security and we’re teaching them how to trust.

Number 8: To Be Delayed, Rerouted and Canceled with Poise

The author goes through an airport example of when something happened to her and her daughter that was so not acceptable.  But instead of losing her cool and going off on the employee, she kept her poise and later, her daughter commented on the fact that she didn’t lose control.  Kids are watching and they see when you lose your temper, whether it’s with them or with someone else.  We must keep our cool.  If we keep our cool, it will teach them to not over exaggerate things and to not be quick to anger.  This is one that will be extremely hard to do because there are things that happen to us all that make us want to blow up, but we MUST control our tongue and our temper.

The Fast

So our Sunday School class is reading a book and doing a video series on the 7 Experiment.  This goes through seven areas of our lives where we are very materialistic and makes us “fast” those things.  They are:  Food, Clothing, Waste, Possessions, Shopping, Media and Stress.  The book is meant for 7 months, so one thing to fast each month.  But because of how our class is organized, we chose to do it for 7 weeks instead of 7 months.  So which one is up first?

FOOD.

How come we couldn’t start with something easier, like social media or clothing?  Ugh.  I dread fasting food.  But regardless, the purpose of the fast is to rely solely on God and prayer to get your through the fast period.  Starting Sunday, we will begin our fast.  There are tons of different options to fast food.  Some people eat out a ton, so for them, a good fast would be to not eat out for the week.  Some people just love all kinds of food and eat a variety of things every day.  For those people, the idea of eating the same breakfast, lunch and dinner every day is certainly challenging.  For me though, I had to think hard.  I don’t eat out much.  I already pretty much eat the same meal for breakfast lunch and dinner, so what could I do that would be difficult enough where I would have to pray my way through it?

I looked online at several different options and came across the Daniel fast.  You can read what you want on this fast, but I am only doing a version of it.  The Daniel fast, simply put, is fruit, veggies, water and whole grains.  I’m going a step further and doing just fruit, veggies and water and one grain, brown rice.  To make it more fun painful, I narrowed it down to only 7 fruits and 7 vegetables.  So starting on Sunday, January 27th, through Saturday, February 2nd, I can only eat the following things:

Fruits:

Strawberries, Grapes, Bananas, Blueberries, Apples, Oranges, Pineapples

Vegetables:

Lettuce, Asparagus, Lima Beans, Corn, Green Peas, Broccoli, Carrots…..and Brown Rice

So we’ll see how this goes, but I am very hopeful! It will be a great detox if nothing else.  Also, I usually drink about a liter of water a day, and with this fast, I plan to force myself to drink 2 liters of water a day.  Prayers appreciated :)

He’s Just So Dang Cute

Carter has been in the phase lately where he LOVES putting things in my mouth.  Whether it’s at the dinner table and he’s feeding me his food or, as in the case below, he’s in the bathtub feeding me bath letters.  Also, he likes to look at himself in the camera on my iPhone that is flipped backwards so that he can see himself.  He’s not vain at all :)

He’s also a huge fan of waving these days.  I recorded this video a long time ago but just now getting around to posting it:

He’s just so dang cute!!!  I’m a little bias, I know :)

52 Things - Numbers 1-4

As promised, I am blogging about the first 4 items on the list of 52 Things Kids Need From a Mom.  I won’t go into too much detail, but enough to give you an idea of the item.  Keep in mind that even though my son is just over a year old, these are things I plan to begin doing as soon as possible.  Repetition is the key to parenting just like anything else.  The more Carter sees and witnesses these things, the more he’ll understand my priorities.

Number 1:  To Pray In Secret with the Door Open

Kids are observant.  EXTREMELY observant.  And when we least expect them to be.  I know I’m not the only one to pray with my child at night before bedtime and that is a great habit to start forming when they’re young.  But I can’t help but think about when I was kid.  My parents would give me a list of chores to do around the house and I always thought “why do I have to do it if they don’t have to do it”.  Now granted, prayer is not necessarily a chore, but the concept still applies.  I can pray with Carter every night before bed, but he needs to see me praying on my own when no one is watching to completely understand how important prayer is and that I’m not doing it with him just for the heck of it, but that there’s a reason.  Carter has already stepped in on my Bible study time numerous times, he’s just not at an age where he’s aware of it yet.  I have my Bible in my bathroom on my vanity and I read it everyday.  It’s usually the weekends where Carter stumbles into the bathroom and runs to me and puts his hands up to me as if saying “I want to sit in your lap mommy”.  I pull him up to sit in my lap and continue reading.  Naturally he gets bored and squirms to get out to move onto the next thing, but the key is that he sees me reading my Bible.  I wasn’t doing it for show, he came to me.  This is how our kids need to see us spending time with God.  It’s the only way they’ll truly know how important it is.

Number 2:  To Never Stop Touching Them

Ever heard of the Five Love Languages?  Justin and I read the book and took the test during our premarital counseling and I loved it.  We discovered that Justin’s love language is quality time and that mine is acts of service.  This has helped us a lot in our marriage.  Well, I had NO idea that there’s a kid version of the Five Love Languages.  One of the love languages is physical touch and that’s where this item comes from, though it applies to all children, even if their language is not physical touch.  Boys and girls alike, everyone loves to have their hair played with or their back scratched or something of that nature.  That physical touch is a powerful thing.  A touch that says (as the author in the books states) “I am madly in love with you”.  Our children must know that we are MADLY in love with them and touch is the best way to show it.  A hug.  A pat on the shoulder.  A rubbing of the back while laying in their bed with them before they doze off.  Touch shows that we care enough to take the time show our love.

Number 3:  To Hang Hearts of Love over Their Lives

LOVED this one.  I had no idea what this meant when I started reading it and then it got to the point and I was like “Oh my goodness, this is amazing”.  How do you show the people that you love the most that you love them?  When I think of that, only one answer comes to mind.  I simply tell them that I love them.  Carter is no exception to this.  Every night before I leave his room, I always kiss him on the head and say “Mommy loves you very much Carter, but God loves you more”.  That second part is a whole other thing to discuss at a later time, but the point is the first part “Mommy loves you very much Carter”.  You could say those three little words so often that they become meaningless.  Which I imagine is what it does with our kids.  They hear us tell them that we love them because it’s routine.  We’re parents.  We’re supposed to say that.  But here’s what the author suggests, and it’s shockingly simple.  Be specific.

Tell them what qualities it is that you love about them.  What do they do that brings you joy?  Be specific!  The author gave an example of what she does on Valentine’s Day and I am stealing this tradition for my own household.  Every Valentine’s Day, while her kids are at school, she makes cut out hearts from pink, red and white construction paper.  She hangs yarn between the hearts and on each heart, she writes down one thing that she loves about that child.  Y’all.  So simple, yet I would have NEVER thought of it.  How cool would it be to come home from school to see a crap ton of hearts all over your bedroom that list out all the things about you that your parents love?   I am going to start doing this in 2013.  Not because Carter will understand it this year (he won’t).  But I plan to keep them every year so that he can see them later.

Number 4:  To Watch Them Go Out of Sight

The book gives an example from an airport that, given our current TSA restrictions, couldn’t be replicated, but you can get the overall idea of it.  Guy is talking to his friend about the fact that he just took his girlfriend to the airport.  Guy asks friend why she didn’t just take a taxi and friend says that he wanted to take her.  Guy asks if friend dropped her at the curb, or walked her inside.  Friend walked her inside.  Guy asks friend if he stopped at security or if he walked her to her gate.  Friend walked her to her gate.  Friend also waited on her to board the plane.  Waited on the plane to push back from the gate and even waited on the plane to take off.  Guy responds with “dude you’re in love”.  We want our children to see us never taking our eyes off them.  Granted the airport security scenario won’t happen, but substitute a school bus for it.  Don’t just walk your kid to the bus stop and then leave (or even worse, not walk them to the stop at all).  But go with them to the bus stop.  Wait for them to get on the bus.  And wait for the bus to drive off.  If your child is on the bus and driving away and turns to where you were standing, you need to still be there.  By doing this, you are saying to your child “I will never take my eyes off of you and I will be here to the end”.

5 through 8 coming later.  Might be a few days though.  It took me two days to write this because I’ve been so busy!

52 Things

You know how you sometimes get confused about something or are really concentrated on figuring something out and then God just takes the wheel when you least expect it?  That kind of happened to me yesterday.  I was at Walgreen’s waiting on my prescription to be filled so I sat in the sitting area.  I saw a revolving bookcase filled with numerous books with intriguing titles.  Lots of them had to do with parenting and religion.  See, given that it’s busy season, my head has been filled lately with the idea of being away from Carter so much.  I have been thinking of ways to make sure he knows that I love him and am always here for him, even though I’m not technically the one that sees him the most (insert knife into my heart as I write that).

While looking at all of these awesome books, I happened to pick one up called 52 Things a Kid Needs From a Mom by Angela Thomas.  I browsed through it while waiting and it was long enough for me to decide that I needed to purchase it.  I love reading.  LOVE reading.  I don’t always have time for it, but I try to make time when I can.  When I was pregnant with Carter I was obsessed with reading all things that related to pregnancy and towards the end of the pregnancy I began to read about what to do when he was here.  I have become an AVID fan of the Babywise book series as well as the book Happiest Baby on the Block, both of which I HIGHLY recommend to new parents.

I knew nothing about raising a child or being a parent, obviously, and these books helped.  By reading some of these books, I gained a lot more confidence that what I was doing, even if Carter didn’t love it, was the right thing for him so that he could grow into a healthy, academically advanced, and routine sleeping machine :)  But as great as this was, I needed help in the “I’m a working mom and don’t want my child to think I’m abandoning him” area and these books didn’t provide that.

Enter 52 Things.  And God saying “Here you go”.

Now granted, most of these things are things that Carter won’t pick up on yet, it will be something he’ll pick up on maybe after turning 3ish or so.  But it’s great to have an idea ahead of time of the things I need to make sure I’m doing.  I haven’t read all 52 things yet, but I do plan to blog about them over time so that any other moms out there can read about it and apply to their lives, if they feel so desired.  Each item has it’s own chapter and each chapter is only a couple of pages so it’s definitely an easy read.  I did scan through the table of contents to get an idea of what all I would be reading about and I gotta tell you, I would NEVER have thought of some of this stuff!  My particular favorite that I have read so far is chapter 3 which is “Kids need a mom to hang hearts of love over their life”.  At first glance, I was thinking “what on earth could this be referring to?” 

I’ll go into more detail on it in a later blog post, but it’s GOOD.  Like, I literally just created a Valentine’s Day tradition for our household that I will do every single year starting this year.  That good.  There are other heart stopping chapters like the following:

• Pray in secret….with the door open
• To miss a few things they do wrong
• To put down the phone
• To keep a family blog (Got this one under control!)
• To make a big deal out of God
• To make a big deal out of grandparents and extended family
• To teach the boys how to love a wife and the girls how to love a husband

Obviously I could on on with this list by showing you all of the 52 things, therefore ruining further detailed posts about each item, but I’ll wait until I read more about them.  I’m really excited about this book because by reading it, I’m finding ways to make sure our kids know we love them before they ever have the thought that we don’t.  Being proactive :) 

iPhone Dump

This week is our first week of increased hours.  It’s a 45 hour week for us CPA’s!  Which really isn’t a big deal to me at all.  All that means is that I work through lunch and work 8-5 Monday through Friday, which I kind of did already anyway.  Next week we’ll be up to 50 hour weeks which will be slightly more difficult.  Luckily I can arrange it however I want.  If I want to come in on Saturday to get some of those hours so that I don’t have to stay late during the week, I can, but more than likely, I’ll work late a night or two and utilize working from home some as well.  The two weeks after that week are 55 hour weeks and the remainder are 60 hours weeks until April 17th.  Luckily for me, I don’t have to go above 50 since I’m part time.

Moving on to more interesting things….

This little guy is LOVING the racecar shopping carts at Publix.  He smiles and laughs the whole time I’m at the store and I’ve gotten comments on his absolute cuteness while playing in the cart both times I’ve been to the store and used it.

Like I mentioned in Carter’s 12 month post, we were still working on the transition to the sippy cup from the bottle and were having a hard time with it.  I came to work one day and when I called Justin he said he was done with bottles and that he was going to wean Carter that day.  My initial thought was “man I’m glad I’m at work and he’s dealing with that!”.  HUGE props to daddy because after just a couple of days of refusing to give Carter a bottle, Carter is now solely on sippy cups.  We went from this:

To this:

He also has a new favorite toy.  One of my co-workers got him this farm knob puzzle for his birthday and he LOVES it.  Not gonna lie, mommy doesn’t love it.  For two reasons:  1)  Those little puzzle pieces end up ALL OVER my house and we somehow managed to lose the sheep at the Lobdell’s house, and 2)  Carter likes to flip it upside down to get all the pieces out of the big board puzzle and then he walks around the house with it.  I know it’s hard to see, but this is made of wood.  So she ain’t light!  It makes mommy nervous when he walks around the house with it because I’m afraid he’s going to drop it on his toes!  See video:

On a more positive note with the puzzle, I frequently sit down with him and go over all the puzzle pieces.  I say things like “this is the farmer, this is the goat, this is a horse, etc”.  After I took the above video, I asked Carter again (because I asked him once in this video) “Carter, where’s the farmer?”.  He was next to me by the couch and he walked over to the entertainment center across the room and picked up the farmer and walked back over to me.  HE UNDERSTANDS!!!

“I love my puzzle mommy!”  You may notice the tie on the onesie.  A girl in my Sunday School class has picked up a monogramming hobby so I let her make Carter several onesies and this was one of them.  He wore it to church last weekend and was his first tie :)

Feeding with adult food is going ok.  He’s gotten to where it’s easy to feed him non-pureed breakfast.  He likes yogurt, waffles, oatmeal and bananas.  Still working with lunch time and dinner time foods though.  He has eaten grilled chicken and ham before, but still sometimes refuses them.  He does like grilled cheese.  He’s eaten pieces of a sandwich before but he had to warm up to it first.  It’s still a process needless to say.  Doc said we could still feed pureed foods as long as we wanted as long as we’re trying to transition to adult food, which is what we’re doing.  Obviously I can’t let him starve so when he won’t eat adult food, pureed veggies it is! 

He tried string cheese a long time ago and didn’t like it, but Justin sent me this picture a couple of days ago of him eating shredded cheese (to the left).  To the right his him eating a banana that Justin is holding.  We do usually cut the banana up for him, but he also likes to eat it like a big boy sometimes.

Last weekend, daddy met up with some of his Jeep buddies to see if they could help him put something on his Jeep.  I should know what it was, but Justin has had so much done to that car that I can’t remember the names of things.  Anyway, it was an all day process, so I decided to take Boo Boo to the Zoo since it was 70+ degrees outside.

To the left is Carter enjoying watching the hogs and to the right is us on the train.  The last time I took him to the zoo, he was only eight months old and I don’t even think he could really see any of the animals yet.  What a difference a few months can make.  He was loving watching the animals.  The giraffes in particular.  We were able to be very close to one and it was eating off one of the trees and Carter was laughing hysterically at it.  You’ll have to excuse my hot-mess of a hairdo in the picture above.  Maybe it’s not just me, but in the past couple of months, I’ve been noticing some very short fly-aways all over my hair.  I’ve never had this problem in my life!  When I went to my hair stylist to get color done, she told me that it’s because my hair is re-growing from when it fell out after I had Carter.  One of the unfortunate things after having a baby, other than the sleep deprivation that is, is that your hair falls out.  I read about this, but man, it definitely happened to me.  I by no means went bald, but my hair was EXTREMELY thin.  I could definitely tell a difference.  Now it’s just trying to grow back which means there are baby hairs all over the place.  UGH.

Also, this week we are turning in our enrollment form for Carter to take the next class up at Mother’s Day Out.  In the fall, he’ll be in the toddler class.  It hurts my heart to hear that.  I feel like I just had him still.  And he’s a toddler?!?!?!  Number one disadvantage of being a working mom - time FLIES.  Before I know it, Carter will be 16.  And driving.  Lord help us all.

So that’s what has been going on with us!  Hope everyone had a great weekend!

12 Month Doctor Appointment

Yesterday was Carter’s 12 month appointment with his pediatrician.  This was a big appointment because I was going to talk to the doc about all of the things that are supposed to change at one year:  bottle to sippy cup, formula to whole milk, pureed foods to table food, etc.  There was a lot I needed to know!  First thing they did was weigh and measure him.  Carter was 30.5 inches, which is the 75th percentile.  Some people get confused by this (like my mom when I told her), but it means that only 25% of babies in the US are taller than Carter is at his age.  When the doctor came in he even asked what height Justin and I were and said that we may look up to Carter when he’s older.  Of course there’s no real way to say this is true or not.  He said that it’s not really going to be more accurate until Carter is closer to 2 years old, but that the way his growth in height is going, he will be taller than me and Justin. 

Carter weighed 21lbs 6oz.  I think he is truly more like 21lbs. because he drank a 6oz. bottle of milk/formula while we were in the waiting room.  Regardless, he’s in the 25th percentile for weight.  Skinny.  And his head measured 18 inches which is also the 25th percentile.  He got three shots which he didn’t love, but the older Carter gets, the less bounce back time he needs from shots.  When he got those 2 month shots, he was upset most of the day.  Now he’s a year old and by the time we picked him up off the table and gave him some puffs, he was fine.

I told the doctor we had already started whole milk.  We have been mixing it with formula for almost a week now.  His 6oz bottles were originally 5oz formula, 1oz milk and then we kept changing that ration to include more milk as the days passed.  Carter has already had a bottle of just milk and he drinks it just fine.  As of now, we’re still mixing with formula, not because he needs it, but because we need to get rid of the formula we have left. 

I told the doc that my only concern was the sippy cup.  Carter drinks water and apple juice from it, but he won’t drink formula or milk from it.  He said that was nothing to worry about right now and that plenty of babies don’t successfully drop the bottle until they are 16 months old, but that we definitely need to keep offering the milk in the sippy because otherwise, Carter will think that the good stuff comes from a bottle and he’ll never drink it from a sippy.  Doc told us about one patient he had that when the mom dropped the sippy cup all together, the baby went on a hunger strike and didn’t drink liquids for 24 hours.  By the time she called the pediatrician and they told her to come in, baby was finally guzzling from the sippy and never went back to the bottle.  He said it will always be a “battle of the will’s”.  Mom’s will has to beat baby’s will!

Carter also got the ok to eat anything we’re eating except for peanut butter and shellfish (as well as any other kind of fish that has high levels of mercury).  Doc asked about his developmental abilities and Carter even showed him his abilities.  He pointed to the doctor and started babbling random words such as mama, dada, nana and others.  He also walked for him and waved to him.  Since doc saw this all for himself he didn’t even need to trust our word.  He said Carter was doing great developmentally and physically.  YAY :)

Here’s a couple of pictures that Justin took with my phone of Carter (actually I took a couple of them too with the camera flipped backwards).  Justin was playing with him and he was laughing HYSTERICALLY.  Seriously, Justin is the funniest guy in the world to him.  Carter LOVES his daddy.

Also, this bad boy came in the mail yesterday:

This is the next carseat for Carter.  It’s the convertible Britax Boulevard carseat.  Carter will still be facing backwards in the car because it’s safer, but he was a half inch away from being at the limit for his infant carseat and his feet were already hanging off the end of it, so it was just time to take the next step up.  As if passing the one year mark wasn’t enough of a sign that my baby isn’t a baby anymore, the step up in car seats further proves that!

So a quick recap of Carter’s statistics for all his appointments in the first year (this is really for me):

2 Months (7 Weeks)

• Height:  22.5 inches (70th percentile)
• Weight:  10lbs 15oz (75th percentile)

4 Months

• Height:  26 inches (85th percentile)
• Weight:  14lbs 14oz (55th percentile)

6 Months

• Height: 26.75 inches (75th percentile)
• Weight: 16lbs 2oz (30th percentile)

9 Months

• Height: 28 inches (50th percentile)
• Weight: 19lbs (30th percentile)

12 Months

• Height: 30.5 inches (75th percentile)
• Weight: 21lbs 6oz (25th percentile)

Carter Videos

I recorded these videos of the little man over the fabulous 11 day break I had with him over the holidays.  I did NOT want to come back to work.  Justin and I were both at home the entire time and we so enjoyed being together as a family without work for so long.  So here’s some things Carter did:

Carter somehow figured out how to click his tongue.  We have absolutely no idea how he figured this out.  Justin and I don’t do this on a normal basis.

I think that anything Daddy does is funny to Carter but bouncing his balls in particular is apparently hilarious!

Starting next week is officially my tax season, which means long hours and not as much time at home.  Sad.  On the brighter side of things, this also starts my time at my job as a part-time employee.  Now only in the world of a CPA does “part-time” mean 50 hour weeks during busy season, but at least when April 15th is over, I’ll only be working 34 hour weeks (that means I’ll have every Friday off).  I know 50 hours seems like a lot, but in all honesty, it’s just me coming in at 8am, working through lunch and leaving at 6.  Now technically, I will probably leave at 5 everyday, but I will work an hour from home after Carter goes to bed.  The only required Saturdays I have to work are the Saturdays before the March 15th and April 15th deadlines, but I can work other Saturdays if I need to.  So basically, I could leave at 5 everyday and then just work 5 hours on Saturday if I wanted to.  It will just depend on Justin and my mother-in-law’s schedules. 

All that is to say that I will probably be slacking on the blogging in the coming months.  Not just blogging on my own, but commenting on other people’s blogs.  Please know that if I haven’t commented on your blog in a while, it’s because I’m super slammed, not because I don’t care about your life anymore!

Best of 2012 in Pictures

I was at home last weekend bored out of my mind and I started looking at old blog posts.  I ran across this one, which was entitled “Best of 2009 in Pictures”.  This was a big year because we got married that year so it was full of showers and bachelorette parties and travel and other friends weddings.  It was a jam packed year for sure.  Well, with the addition of the third member of our family (well, fourth if you count the Giz) at the very end of 2011, 2012 was obviously a gigantic year for us as well and deserved a similar post.  Without further ado, here is the best of 2012…in pictures:

Starting off in January:

**Never before seen picture on the blog!**  I hate this picture of me because I had just gotten out of the shower (hence the wet head) and had zero makeup on.  But that was my life for those first couple of weeks!  Carter had to be on lights at home to knock out his jaundice and they always gave him rashes on his back.  Poor baby wanted to cuddle with his momma.  I seriously don’t remember him being this small.

And he watched Baby Einstein for the first time.

We also took our very first family photos in January when Carter was a mere 9 days old.

Moving on to February:

We got that first smile in February.

Our pediatrician heard a heart murmur and we had to go to Children’s Hospital to get it checked out.  Carter was a champ through the whole ordeal and it ended up being an innocent murmur.

We went to our first church service and he slept half the time and stared at the lights the other half.

Carter met my grandparents on my dad’s side.

And finally, he got those nasty 2 month shots and did NOT like them.

In March….

We got even more of those adorable smiles.

Carter went to his first neighborhood party for St. Patrick’s Day (also, mommy lost all of her baby weight in March right before going back to work).

Mommy went back to work and got some BEAUTIFUL sunflowers delivered to the office with this note (it was really from Justin’s parents - they were in Mexico that week so Justin kept Carter while I was at work).

Then there’s April….

He met the Easter Bunny (a scary weird looking version of it at least).

These boys all turned 30 and we had a small celebration at the local Mexican restaurant with all of our friends!

But one of the biggest events in April was definitely Carter’s baptism.

And then May rolled around.

It was my very first Mother’s Day.  This is us at church.  It was also his first time to go to the church nursery instead of staying in the service with us. 

Carter learned to rollover from his tummy to his back when he was 7 weeks old.  At 4 months old, he was able to roll the other way, from his back to his tummy.  At 5 months old, being on his tummy was the way to sleep.  He rarely ever slept any other way.

Daddy decided to bust out the Baby Bjorn one day and we realized that Carter LOVED it.

May wasn’t a busy time of year for mommy or daddy so there were a lot of weekend days that consisted of family (including the Giz) chill time.

On to June…

We took our first trip to the pool with Carter.  He loved it!

Momma got a new ride!

At the beginning of June (just a few days after turning 5 months old), he got his first tooth.

He went to the McWane Center for the first time for my nephew’s birthday party.  We were there for 3 hours which was a LONG time for him at this age.  He should have had a nap well before he did, which meant he passed out in the car on the way home…

In July…

I took a surprise trip to Tampa to be there for my nephew Cooper’s first birthday party.  My sister, Jennifer, had no idea I was coming and cried when she saw me.

Daddy attempted to climb Mt. Rainier in Washington but the weather kept any group from summiting that day.  He’s going for round 2 next July.

Nothing major happened with Carter in July.

In August, we had his 7 month photos taken and these are seriously some of my favorite pictures of him.

Carter had a huge leap of development in August.  He started crawling on all fours AND pulled up at the beginning of the month.  This is also the month we had to lower his crib mattress to it’s lowest level so that he wouldn’t pull up and fall out of it.

He also started school at our church two days a week/4 hours a day.  This is his very first lunch box and back pack, provided by Nana.

Then September rolled around…

Momma went to Nashville to celebrate the last bit of freedom of my friend Ashley before she got married in December.

Carter went to the zoo for the very first time.

And he also got fitted for his very first pair of shoes.

In October, we went to our very first family event at Ross Bridge (it was a FREEZING day).

He went to our church Trunk or Treat with his twin cousins.

We trick or treated in our neighborhood (minus the candy part since he couldn’t eat candy obviously).  Our sweet little monkey.

In November, we took a few family photos for our Christmas card…

Mommy helped to build a house with Habitat for Humanity (and possibly scared some people with her ax-wielding skills).

We watched our best friends little boy, and hopefully Carter’s future bff, get baptized.

Mom and Dad pretended to be kids for a day by playing laser tag with our Sunday School class.

And finally, here we are in December.

My friend Ashley got married to Brad, the guy I set her up with.

Carter met Santa and was NOT a fan.

Had his first candy cane.

Mommy went to NYC with her sister.

And we celebrated Carter’s first birthday!

and his first Christmas too!!

2012 was pretty amazing in the Morris household and we can’t wait to see what 2013 will bring with a toddler!!