Glow in the Park 5k and Brief Carter Update

Last Friday night, myself along with several other girls that live in our neighborhood did the Glow in the Park 5k.  It was at the Hoover Met (for those of you from Birmingham and know the area) and it started once the sun went down.  The purpose of this race was to put paint all over your body and wear bright neon glowing bracelets and necklaces.  Four of us painted each others arms and legs before the race started and drove there together.

 

This picture was the last one we took before we did the race.  This was at our “cleanest”!

This race was SO much fun.  I mean, this was the most fun I’ve ever had at a 5k!!  Running at night with neon everywhere was super fun.  On top of the paint we put on our bodies before heading to the Met, there were powder and liquid paints at stations during the race.  There were people throwing colored powder on you throughout the race as well as liquid paint so by the end of the race, we were DRENCHED in paint.  And to my surprise, there was even a bubble machine that you had to run through.  There was something resembling a disco ball that was dropping a huge amount of bubbles to the ground that just built up over time and you had to run through it.

Michele wanted us to take a picture with J’s since our neighborhood starts with a J, but they turned out more like L’s.  And I kinda feel like I’m throwing up a gang symbol in this picture, but still a cute pic of us girls regardless!

They had blacklights set up so that you could take fun pictures that made the paint on your bodies super bright!

  The race was at 8:30ish and we all hung out at the little dance party doing the cupid shuffle for a bit afterwards.  Then we went to eat dinner at La Paz at the Galleria and then went home.  I didn’t get home until almost midnight.  Officially the latest I’ve stayed out since before being pregnant with Carter!  And of course I had to take a shower the second I got home to wash all that paint off.  Shockingly, it all came out of my clothes too!

Such an awesome race and I highly suggest it for anyone in the Hoover area.  There were TONS of families with their kids there.  Naturally all the kids thought it was the coolest thing ever.  I can so see Justin and I doing this with Carter when he’s big enough!

So for a little update on Carter... he turned 19 months old on Sunday.  I doubt I will attempt to keep up with his monthly posts anymore.  He just learns so much and does so much now that it’s just too hard to document it all.  He is talking like crazy, repeating pretty much everything you say.  He still says please, but struggles with thank you.  We’ve also begun making him say he’s sorry when he does something wrong.  Anytime he goes to timeout, he has to say he’s sorry before coming out.  No, he has no idea what “sorry” means at 19 months, but over time, he will.  Also for timeout, he’s stopped crying uncontrollably during it.  I think he’s becoming fine with being in the pack-n-play as long as he can see what’s going on around him.  I may need to move the pack-n-play to a more isolated location to make timeout seem more like a punishment.

For some reason, he doesn’t like anything to be over his toes other than shoes or footies.  When I get him out of the bathtub and wrap him in a towel, if the towel gets over his toes, he’ll pull it off and say “no, no no!”.  He does the same thing if he’s playing on the bed and the sheets get wrapped around his feet.  He is saying tons of words, like I mentioned above, but we’re still working on simple sentences.  His first sentence was on our way back from Pensacola for family vacation when he saw me peek my head over the top of his carseat and said “I see Mama”.  Since then, he has started saying things like “my Mama” and “my Daddy”.  When Justin takes him upstairs for bedtime, he tells Carter to “say bye bye to good girl” (the dog) and Carter will say “bye bye good girl”.  This is about all he’s done at this point.  I’ve tried to get him to say “I love you” but all I’ve gotten is “I wuv”. 

His favorite thing to do right now is hurt himself.  Seriously.  He says “ouchie” and then bangs his head on the floor or into the wall.  He thinks it’s funny.  I don’t think it’s funny at all…this kid bruises extremely easily so it looks like we beat him.  He also LOVES to drink juice/water out of a sports bottle instead of his sippy cup.  I think he’s just trying to be like daddy. We’ve discovered that bribing him with food to eat food goes a long way.  If he doesn’t eat what I put in front of him, I will tell him that if he eats it, he’ll get a blueberry…or some applesauce, or something like that.  9 times out of 10, he ends up eating it all.  For times when he doesn’t eat it anyway, then he doesn’t eat.  If he doesn’t eat what I give him, then he doesn’t eat until the next snack time.  I also don’t think that “bribing him” is bad.  It’s no different than a mom that says “eat all of your dinner and you can have dessert”.  That’s what we’re doing.  I say “eat all your spaghetti O’s and you can have a banana”.  If he eats them all (even if he whines his way through it) I will give him the banana.  If he doesn’t, he doesn’t get the banana.  And the final eating related item to mention is that he has become fascinated with eating like Gizmo eats.  When we put bites of food on his high chair tray, he likes to bend his head over and try to pick it up with his mouth only instead of using his hands.  I am doing everything I can to discourage this so that he doesn’t develop bad table manners!  But I will admit, the first time he did it, I couldn’t help but laugh!

Big stuff coming up for Carter in August.  He’ll start school back at our church.  He goes two days a week from 9-1pm.  He’ll be in the toddler room which sadly is not the same room as his twin cousins that he is around all the time.  They’ll be in the younger 2’s room.  I wanted them to all be together, but my mother-in-law brought up a good point.  You don’t want them to form comfort around the same people.  You want to mix it up.  That will help his social skills and his “friend making” skills as he gets older and will also help in keeping them from getting sick of each other.  Also, he will move up a room on Sundays.  Right now, he’s still in the nursery with all the babies from 0-18 months.  In a couple of weeks, he will move up a room and will be with the twins again in the toddler room.  Finally, my sister and her son are coming in town this week and will be here a full week (maybe even longer).  Last time Carter saw Cooper he was when he was about 8 months old (I think).  Couldn’t walk yet, couldn’t talk yet.  I am going to be so interested to see them interact now.  And of course, I’m excited to see Jennifer and Jeff!

Till next time friends :)