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’s First Birthday Party

I’ve already discussed Carter’s birthday party before in a previous post.  I got the pictures from our photographer, Volree Wade, that was kind enough to photograph the party so that I wouldn’t have to worry about pictures!  Since I already discussed the details of the party in this post, I won’t rehash everything.  Instead, this will be just my favorite pictures.  She took over 100 and I love them all!!!!  But here’s some of my favorites from Carter’s “Winter WONEderland”.

Also, Volree did a GREAT slideshow!  You can see it here.

Carter - Twelve Months

12 months.  One Year.  I just can’t believe it.  We’ve said goodbye to the newborn and infant stage and are welcoming toddlerhood with open arms.   I can’t wait to watch Carter grow into the person he’s going to be.  The past year has been by far the best of my life because of this little guy (and has also been the quickest year of my life).  I can hardly remember him as a newborn these days!

Diapers

Still wearing 3’s.

Shoe Size

3 1/2 wide. He only has one pair of shoes and he wears them all the time. This is why I got brown shoes. They go with everything!

Clothes

There are still 9 month clothes that he wears, but he has just recently started wearing 12 month clothes.  They’re still a bit big on him, but they are wearable.  He got a lot of 12 month clothes for his birthday so we’re trying to start wearing those.  But there are still so many 9 month clothes that still fit too.  It appears, however, that he’s finally wearing his age!  He’s been behind his whole life and thanks to the growth spurt he’s going through right now (see below), we can finally wear the right clothes!

Feeding

Feedings will change once we go to his one year appointment.  We’ll switch from formula to whole milk (kinda dreading that because I’m not sure if he’ll like it or not) and he’ll begin to join us for our three meals a day with some snacks in between instead of him eating separately and more often.  I’m sure we’ll still puree some of his foods for a little bit (depends on what pediatrician tells us to do), but we’ll also begin making him actually eat a green bean instead of having it blended all the time.  We’ve tried to get him to eat string cheese, but he doesn’t like it.  We’re going to try shredded cheese to see if that’s any better.  He also started eating ham and loves it.  He will sometimes eat turkey sandwich meat, but he doesn’t really like the texture so it’s a 50/50 shot on whether he’ll eat it or just throw it.  He began eating bananas too.  He was hesitant at first because of the texture of it (I really don’t think he likes things that are sticky) but he loves them now.  Also worthy to note, he hit a growth spurt about a week before his birthday and it’s still ongoing.  He is eating everything in sight.  We’re just doing our best to try to make sure he’s not eating significant amounts of puffs or some snack related things like that.  If he wants to eat all day, it’s going to be fruits and veggies and protein!  Oh and we tried eggs for breakfast the morning of his birthday and he was NOT a fan.  I’m going to keep trying with that.   Lots of changes coming once we go to his appointment!

Sleep

Carter is still a 12 hour/night sleeper with two naps that last anywhere from 1.5-2 hours.  The only exception to this is the nap at MDO.  That nap is usually between 20-45 minutes.  In his 12th month, he must have had a growth spurt or something because he was sleeping ALL THE TIME.  His naps were over 2 hours each and he frequently had to be woken up in the morning as late as 9:15am!  This lasted about a week or two.  Then his naps got to where they were about an hour or an hour and 15 minutes instead of the normal hour and a half or more.  I am still reading the Babywise book series and am currently reading “Pretoddler-wise”.  That book talks about growth spurts and  how at his age, some pretoddlers decrease the time of the nap because they are hungry and their little bodies are ready for more table food and more calories than they had been getting as a baby.  We tested this theory and started giving Carter a mid-morning snack right before his first nap.  It’s working well so far.  His naps went back to being 1.5-2 hours in length. 

The only other thing notable regarding sleep is that his nighttime sleep routine changed about halfway through the month.  Carter used to eat his bottle while being read to and then after the bottle was gone, he would cuddle for about 5 minutes or so (unless dad was the one putting him down and they would play and tickle each other for 5 minutes) but then he would go in the crib.  He wouldn’t fall asleep immediately, but he would play with his stuffed animals for about 15-30 minutes and then would go to sleep.  But now he no longer does this.  He has gotten to where he throws his bottle away and then desperately wants to be put in the floor to play.  Of course we won’t allow that though.  Bed time is for sleeping, not a few extra minutes of playing with toys.  So instead of cuddling or playing with us, he cries because he wants to go to the floor to walk around.  Since we don’t let him do that, he goes straight to the crib and then he’ll cry when we leave the room for a good 5-10 minutes.  He has NEVER done this before.  I am HATING this!!

**UPDATE 12/30/12 - This stage ended already.  He still takes a bit to fall asleep, but he lets us cuddle and play with him a bit before bed again.**

Waketime

Waketimes consist of one thing and one thing only these days:  walking.  Carter loves to walk all over the house.  He frequently will stop to play with something but he is constantly testing how far he walks and what he can do while he’s walking (such as holding onto something without dropping it and walking at the same time).  He was so proud of himself the first time he was able to walk a few steps, stop, turn around, and then walk back.  All without falling.  Mommy was pretty proud of him too.  I think he could just walk around the house for hours.  Seriously.

Mother’s Day Out

Nothing interesting to note in this area.  He still goes two days a week from 9-1pm.  On December 18, the kids were all asked to bring one wrapped gift to a birthday party for Jesus during which the kids took to the nativity set in the church and put next to the manger.  In reality, these gifts are all going to families in need.  Carter gave baby Jesus some hooded bath towels :)  Last week was the last week at MDO for the holidays so Carter didn’t have school all week AND I didn’t have to work.  Also, Justin was home from work too!  Lots of family time this week!!!

Statistics

Carter’s 12 month appointment isn’t until January 2nd.  I’m a little irate about it.  Don’t get me started.  I’ll come back and update this section after his appointment.  My guess is that by that appointment he’ll be around 21lbs (which is the 25th percentile).  Height is much harder to measure.  If I had to guess, I’d say around 29 or 30 inches (about the 30th percentile).  Short and skinny!

UPDATE:  We went to Carter’s appointment yesterday.  Carter was 30.5 inches long (75th percentile) and weighed 21.6lbs. (25th percentile).  Our pediatrician even asked what heights Justin and I were and we told him and then he told us that we may be looking up to our son when he’s older.  It’s still too early to be set in stone, their height is more predictable around 2 years old, but at the rate Carter’s height has been, he’s most likely going to be taller than us.  His head was 18 inches around which is also the 25th percentile.  I thought he’d be short and skinny but it turns out he’s tall and skinny :)

Abilities

On his 11 month birthday, he took his first step without holding onto anything.  He stood for a little bit afterward but then fell.  The next day he took 3 or 4 steps and he’s been increasing the number of steps he can take ever since.  Now he can walk across our whole house and back without falling.  The only thing, as of about 3/4 of the way through his 12th month, that he couldn’t do was stand up on his own from the ground.  He always has to pull himself to a standing position by pulling on me or a chair or a table or something like that.  Once he was pulled up, he could walk for a long time.  On the morning of December 20th (at 11 months 3 week sold) I saw him walk to his sippy cup (it was on the ground), squat down to pick it up and then stood right back up.  This doesn’t seem like a big deal but it was the first time that he was able to do that!  Starting to use those leg muscles!

He said “mama” for the first time while I was in NYC with my sister (on November 30th to be exact).  He was 11 months and a couple of days old.  Took him FOREVER to say it and I guess he was saying it because I wasn’t there and he was wondering where that lady that says “mama” to him all the time was :)  You can see a video of it here.

He also started waving.  I have been working on this with him forever.  After bathtime, like clockwork, I wrap him up in his towel and we leave the bathtub and stop in front of the mirror.  I wave in the mirror and say “hey” so he can see my hand.  Seems like months now he just stared at me and never tried it.  He finally started trying it and now waves (mostly with his left hand - kind of wondering if he’ll be a lefty like his Papa) really fast, almost like he’s going to hurt you if he hit you with his hand.

As far as speaking goes, Carter can say multiple things now.  But what I’m most proud of is not what he says, but that he tries to say everything you get him to say.  During bathtime, we go over colors.  He has a ton of alphabet letters that he plays with in the tub and they’re all different colors.  I try to focus on the main colors; blue, red, green and yellow.  I think blue is his favorite color because that’s the letter he was trying to repeat first.  I would pick up the letter and say “blue” and he would stare at my mouth when I say it then he says “bu bu bu bu” trying to say blue.  Justin noticed this week that Carter keeps saying “yea yea yea yea”.  We were confused until just last night I was in the bath with him and we were working on “yellow”.  I realized that this is probably what he was trying to say.  Granted, he has no idea what the colors actually are.  He’s only repeating what I’m saying.  But I’m just so happy he is trying to say new things!  Oh and he also says “hey” when he waves because that’s what I say in the mirror as I wave at him.

Teething

He cut tooth number 8 on December 4th.  I can’t believe he has 8 teeth.  Early teether for sure!  Also, towards the end of the month, he started putting his index finger WAY in the back of his mouth.  Me and Dad are wondering if a molar is coming in.  His attitude is great though and I have heard horror stories of molars affecting personality, so if one is coming in, I’ll take it!

Discipline

I made him cry this month :(  I’ve made him cry before by doing things he didn’t want to do (diaper changes, bath time, putting in a car seat, etc.), but this month was the first time I made him cry because I was disciplining him.  I was trying to feed him dinner in his high chair.  During dinner, he always drinks a juice and water mixture from his sippy cup and usually drinks it fine with no tantrums or mischief, but this time, he would drink from it and then throw the sippy cup as hard as he could to the floor.  I picked it up and looked at him and told him “No Carter, don’t throw the cup on the floor”.  I gave it back to him, he took another sip and then threw it again.  I did the same thing but with a little more stern of a look and a slightly harsher tone.  I gave him the cup back and he did it again.  This time, I didn’t pick up the cup but I grabbed his hand (not firmly by any means, just a little squeeze), looked him straight in the eye with my face much closer to him than it was the previous two times and said the same thing again.  This time he started bawling.  I immediately felt so bad, but this is part of parenting.  I know he’s going to cry and get upset in the future when I’m disciplining him, but he must know boundaries.  I’m trying to set good mealtime manners and unfortunately for him, throwing the cup off the table three times after being told no is not acceptable manners. 

Other Notable Things

Carter’s first birthday party was on December 15th and he was such a good boy!  He was shy at first because he was still napping when everyone got there so when he came downstairs, our house was packed (he is usually shy when he’s around someone else for a few minutes until he warms up to them).  Daddy went upstairs to change his clothes and feed him his bottle (he would NEVER have eaten a bottle with so many people around him) and then brought him downstairs.  He was surprised at all the people there saying his name and reaching for him, but he adjusted quickly and started being his normal outgoing self.  He showed off his walking skills a bunch!  We had a great time and he got great gifts! 

Likes

Carter still likes everything I’ve put in this section in the past several months (golf cart rides, being outside, Baby Einstein, puffs and mums, etc.) so I won’t repeat all of them, but will just list the new likes or the likes that seemed the most prevalent this month:

• Walking.  Anywhere and everywhere!
• Remote controls…he loves these so much he got two in his stocking just for him (because mom and dad are honestly sick of not knowing where remotes are since Carter takes them off and leaves them in random locations in the house)
• Talking - he is seriously talking all the time now.  I am so confident that he has babbled every letter in the alphabet, with exception to Q and X of course.
• Teething pacifier and other teething rings
• Eating his shoes. He likes the rubber at the bottom for some reason. When we go to get him out of the car, he almost always has taken his shoe off and is chewing on it. Gross, I know.
• Watching older kids move and play.  He loves watching older kids at church and was following our friends Chase and Allison’s little girl, Brantley, around at his birthday party.
• Doors . Still loves experimenting with opening and closing doors.
• Diapers.  Not diaper changes, just diapers.  He pulls them out of the diaper bag and carries them all over the house.  On Christmas night, we let him watch a Baby Einstein so that I could cut his fingernails (see dislikes).  When I was done we left the room and let him watch his movie.  A few minutes later Justin called me back into the room only to find Carter leaning back in his chair, feet crossed, sucking his thumb on one hand and holding the diaper in the other hand.  So funny!
• Animals.  He’s always loved Gizmo, but he loves ALL dogs and even cats too.  For some reason, animals just crack him up!
• The rollercoaster toy he got from the Smith’s for Christmas.  More posts to come on this later.

Dislikes

• Being put in the car seat first thing in the morning.  On the days that I take him to my MIL’s house for the day, we literally come from upstairs and go straight to the car seat to get in the car and drive to Nana’s.  He doesn’t like this.  He wants to play before leaving.
• Still frequently cries during diaper change time.  He doesn’t like being burdened with diaper changes.  There’s too much world to explore!
• Lord help me…he will NOT let me cut his nails.  He hates it.  Hold the breath scream, hates it.  I can never get all 10 nails in one sitting so it usually happens twice.  I have never even clipped his finger before so I have no idea why he hates it so much!
• Lately he’s been seeming to not like bathtime as much.  He doesn’t play with things like he used to and is starting to whine a bit.  I am really beginning to think it’s because he knows bedtime is next and he really doesn’t want to go to bed (see “Sleep” section above).

Sippy Cup

We use the sippy cup very frequently now for water or apple juice.  The big test will come when we start feeding him whole milk instead of formula.  Once we get him used to that change, we’ll begin using the sippy cup for milk.

Goodbye

Well my friends, I’m impressed if any of you actually read all twelve of these posts.  You deserve an award if you did.  I write these down, not necessarily for readers, but for my own documentation purposes.  As you probably saw from Carter’s birthday party post, I put all of these posts (minus this one of course since he wasn’t 12 months old yet) on a word document and made a little book to put on the table at his party so everyone could see these posts and the pictures with them.  I plan to give this book to Carter when he has his own baby…or maybe before that.  We’ll just see.  I probably won’t give it to him until he’s married or his wife is pregnant.  I’m too afraid that if I give it to him before that, he’ll lose it.  But in addition to doing that for Carter, it is also for me.  Whenever Justin and I decide (or rather, whenever God decides) we’re ready for a 2nd baby, I will probably have forgotten the ways I trained Carter in sleeping, eating, behavior, etc.  It will help to be able to go back and read these posts to see what I did with him so that I can apply that to our next baby!

So needless to say, the monthly posts are over!!  Thanks for hanging in there with us!

More Walking

I’ve already posted one video of Carter’s first steps that were taken before I went to NYC with my sister.  Well, since then, he has practiced (all the time) and has already gotten so much better at it!  Allow me to show you:

**Sorry it’s long ways….I keep forgetting to turn my phone sideways so that it looks better when viewing in youtube or on the blog.**

With the beginnings of mastering the walking skill and a one year birthday next week, my sweet baby is no longer a baby, y’all :(

#59 - CHECK!

Number 59 on my list of 101 things to do in 1,001 days was to throw Carter a very memorable 1st birthday party.  Carter’s actual birthday isn’t until December 28th, but with that being so close to Christmas , we decided to move his party up a couple of weeks.  As I’ve mentioned before, Carter’s birthday party was a “Winter ONEderland” theme since he was born in the winter.  We decorated the place with all things penguins and polar bears and everything was red, blue, white and black.  Even Carter’s smash cake was a cake in the shape of an igloo.  One of my friends from high school took pictures at his party and it will be a couple of weeks before the pictures are ready so until then, you’ll have to make do with the pictures I took on instagram:

Cookies on the left and Carter’s igloo smash cake on the right.

The main guest cake on the left and Carter’s monthly photos on the right.  I made that frame display all on my own!!  I’m so proud :)  I’ve never done anything crafty before so this was my first time.  The blank wood frame came from Hobby Lobby as well as the close pins.  I spray painted all of that blue and used ribbon and red card stock for the actual pictures.  I think it turned out pretty good!  Both cakes were made by my friend Jackie Marchant.  She owns her own cake making business, Cakes by Jacqueline.  Check her out!

Banner and cupcake toppers as well as the invitations that are in two frames on this table are from a shop on Etsy (I just searched for Winter ONEderland parties).  Those white igloo blocks I also did on my own.  I bought glass “krafty blocs” from Hobby Lobby and spray painted them white and stacked them like an igloo.  I made the cupcakes on my own the morning of the party.  The cookies came from a bakery in Homewood called Icing on the Cookie.

Playing on the television in the living room for the duration of the party was the birth slideshow that my sister made of Carter the day he was born.  To see that slideshow, go here.

And here is my sweet boy playing with his cake.  It’s kind of funny, as you’ll see in the below video, he wouldn’t really play with the cake.  Justin and his mom were quick to tell me why he wasn’t banging into the cake.  It’s because I taught him not to bang his hands on the table while he was in his highchair.  I guess there’s pros and cons to everything ;)  Oh and one more thing, I also got Carter’s shirt (which was a white long sleeve onesie with a blue “1” and a penguin on it) from Etsy as well.

Naturally I took some videos.  The first one is just a quick sweep of the house to see all the decorations:

And then my sweet friend Ashley took a video of Carter digging into his cake (this video is 10 minutes long so I know most of you won’t watch all of it, but I’m glad she recorded as long as she did.  The more memories the better!).

I wasn’t originally planning to open the presents at the party, but we did the cake thing around 2 and everyone was just hanging around since the party didn’t technically end until 3 so we decided to open presents.  Carina took the video on this one and unfortunately the card ended up being full about halfway through opening presents so the camera turned off automatically.  Boo.  I really thought Carter would come play with the toys as I opened them, but he seemed extremely content with his shoe and remote ;)

I’ll post the photos that Volree took when I get them back from her.  I know they’re going to be incredible!

#78 - CHECK!

Number 78 on my list of 101 things to do in 1,001 days was to introduce Carter to Santa and have his picture made.  Our church, St. Mark United Methodist, welcomes Santa every year and always has some fun side activities for the kids.  They could make elf hats (obviously Carter was too young for this) and they served hot cocoa and candy canes!  The cool part was there there was a small train that had a conductor and everything that took kids for rides around the parking lot.  Carter was LOVING the train.  I wish I could have said the same thing about Santa. 

Unfortunately, Carter was much like most one year olds when he met Santa.  Justin recorded the encounter on video:

As you can see, Carter was NOT loving Santa.  Maybe next year :)

Here’s a couple of pictures I was able to take.  The video above was Carter’s first time to try to get a picture of Santa.  When that didn’t pan out like we wanted, we decided we needed a bribe to be able to get a somewhat decent picture.  Enter puffs and candy canes.

After a semi-successful experience with Santa during round 2, we took him to ride the train in the parking lot.  He was loving that!

We love daddy :)

#33 and #34 - CHECK!

These are big ones y’all….for me at least.  And for any other momma out there I’m sure.  Number 33 on my list of 101 things to do in 1,001 days was to watch Carter walk for the first time.  When I wrote this list, Carter was maybe 8 weeks old and I wasn’t really thinking about the difference between “walking” and “taking first steps”.  It will obviously take practice for Carter to perfect his walking skills, but what I meant when I wrote that as number 33, was that I wanted to see Carter take those very first steps.  And he did that on his 11 month birthday!  I wrote his 11 month post that morning and after work I went to my mother-in-law’s house to pick him up as usual.  We went back home and played all over the house like we normally do.  We were in the “man room” that really is no longer a man room, but I digress.  Carter was standing up holding onto the ottoman to a chair in there and there was another chair behind him.  Usually he will come down to his booty and just crawl there if the destination is too far away.  This time, he turned around and took 2 steps towards the other chair and never fell or wobbled in the process!  I was SO excited!!! 

The next day he went to my in-laws house again while I was at work (Justin was working out of town during all this).  When I went to pick him up, my MIL said that he had taken about 3 or 4 steps towards things during the day.  So when I went home with him that night, I was determined to practice with him.  Carter is a huge fan of positive reinforcement.  He LOVES to be cheered on and clapped for when he does something worthy.  So I used that to my advantage.  I put him standing up next to the shelving underneath the television in our living room and I scooted back and put my hands out and was telling him to come to me.  He did it so many times and I was so excited so obviously I cheered him on and when he did it, I would clap for him and say “yaaaaaaaay Carter!”.  Naturally, I had to try to get this on video.  I didn’t want to go pull our the video camera, so I just got my phone and propped it up on the shelving and hit the button on the i-Phone where you can make it use the video camera on the front of the phone so that you can see what you’re recording while you’re recording it.  See for yourself!!!

**Keep in mind, this was a very informal way of recording this.  You can see Carter’s upper body, but not his feet.  But it’s obvious he’s walking towards me on his own.  Also, I keep looking at the camera because I’m trying to make sure that it’s getting him in the view.**

Now on to number 34.  Number 34 on my list was to teach Carter to say “mama”.  If you read Carter’s monthly posts, you know that I have been trying for this SO hard.  He said his first word “dada” when he was about 9 months and a few days old.  Ever since then, I have been trying so hard to get him to say mama and he’s just never said it.   He says plenty of other things but for whatever reason, he’s never felt compelled to say “mama”. 

The day after the above walking occurred, I went to NYC for a short weekend with my sister, Jennifer, that lives in Tampa.  I told Jennifer and Justin that I was so worried he would perfect those walking skills while I was gone and that I worried that I had already seen my baby crawl for the last time and I didn’t even realize it.  While we were there, Justin told me that Carter indeed did something while I was away, but it wasn’t perfecting the walking skills.  Carter was finally saying “mama”.  I was excited, but at the same time so upset because I missed it.  But Justin got a pretty cute video of him saying it while he was eating lunch one day and sent it to me when I was in NYC.   I probably watched it a hundred times or more. 

People keep saying he did it because he missed me.  I know that at his age he doesn’t understand that, but I can’t help but wonder if he said it because he noticed I wasn’t around.  I can’t help but think that the reason he was saying it so much while I was gone is because he knew all along that I was “mama” and realized that I was gone.  I think he was asking Justin where I was.  Melt.My.Heart.

Two dates to go in the books!!!  Wednesday, November 28th (his 11 month birthday) he took his first step and Friday, November 30th he said my name :)