Carter is 5!!!

Can you believe this kid is 5?!?!  Because I can't!!!!  My mind can't wrap around the fact that he'll be in Kindergarten in 7 short months.  Where did the time go??

Shoe Size

Carter is comfortably wearing a size 11 shoe now.  I think he went through a big growth spurt, foot wise, about a month ago because I bought him a pair of shoes that he's only worn probably 3 or 4 times before he outgrew them!! 

Clothes

He is wearing mostly 5T clothes.  A lot of his jeans are still 4T though.  Just depends on the brand.  We're about to transition in most clothing stores though.  He's still in the toddler section but within the year, my guess is we'll cross the aisle into the kids section where there's no longer "t" sizes.  I'm sure it will be super easy to buy matching clothes for the boys once that happens.  Sarcasm.

Eating

Favorite foods at this age definitely include hot dogs, yogurt, granola bars, gummy packs, and ham.  He still loves to eat out at Mexican restaurants and he also loves Chick-fil-a.  He eats pizza (this has been a struggle for him over the last year), but it's definitely not a favorite.  He requires me to cut it up for him to eat it though.  He won't eat a slice the way adults and big kids do.  He still refuses anything related to a hamburger or cheeseburger.  We even try to make it a little easier by making cheeseburger quesadillas (just a cheese quesadilla with some hamburger meat sprinkled in there).  You'd think I'd stolen his favorite teddy bear and put it in a shredder.  He cries his eyes out when we have that for dinner and a timeout is usually involved.  Other than the cheeseburger thing, there's not a ton of foods he completely refuses.  He'll usually at least try one bite of something before telling us he doesn't like it.  Carter is really good about cleaning his plate too.  Whatever food he is given, he knows he has to clean his plate and he does.  He is still on the slow side when it comes to eating.  He's a social butterfly so he tends to talk and talk and talk and before he realizes it, meal time is over and he isn't finished.  He'll get a little upset because he knows he needs to finish but doesn't understand that in order to finish, he's gotta quit yapping!!

Sleep

Naps at this age are hit or miss.  I would say he takes, on average, about 2 to 3 naps a week.  When he does nap, it lasts anywhere from 1-1.5 hours.  He rarely takes a nap that's more than 2 hours.  On the days he doesn't nap, he knows that he has to go to bed early.  Even when he doesn't actually fall asleep during naptime, he always goes into his room for at least an hour and a half of quiet time.  He may just toss and turn and talk to his animals, but he is required to stay in his room with the light off.  Bedtime on days that we have a nap is 7:30-7:45.  No nap days-bedtime is at 7pm.  All of this is of course assuming we don't have anything we're attending.  If there's a church event or something special we're going to, bedtimes tend to be later. 

Preschool

Carter switched preschools this year.  He was attending our church preschool last year and he really loved it!  But we wanted something closer to our home.  So this year, he started school at Hunter Street in Hoover.  I was so nervous for him on his first day.  Not knowing any students or any teachers is tough.  At our church, he knew everyone, even the teachers that weren't his, because we were members there.  The building was familiar, the hallways were familiar, and he knew where everything was.  At Hunter Street, it was all so new to him.  But he had absolutely zero adjustment issues.  He loves all his friends in his class.  He's never been on yellow or red (teachers there put kids on green, yellow, or red depending on their behavior that day) and his teacher loves him and says he's a joy.  At Hunter Street, they learn two bible verses a month.  We were already doing one per week in our house, so we just decided to do the two per month that Hunter Street was doing.  It made it easier for Carter!  He's up to 20 bible verses that he's memorized!!  I'm so proud of him.  I asked him the other day which one was his favorite and he said Philippians 1:21 which says "To live is Christ, to die is gain".  That's a pretty good one to be a favorite!!

Statistics

At his five year appointment, his blood pressure was 98/62 and his heart rate was 99.  He was 38lbs (35th percentile) and 41.5 inches tall (25th percentile).   He's on the small side for sure, but he's healthy and growing just as he should.  Doc guesses he'll be at full height at about 5'8 or 5'9. 

Other Abilities/Random Things to Note

• He is reading like crazy!!!  I haven't even taught him certain words and yet he knows how to pronounce them.  I can't wait to get his reading level tested in Kindergarten.  It will be interesting to see where he is on the reading scale.  He's also starting to pick up on math.  He told me this morning, for instance, that 6 plus 6 was 12 and that if he had 4 hands, then he'd have 20 fingers.  So he's starting to pick up on that kind of stuff too.
• Still loves cars to the moon and back.  He can tell you every single hot wheel he's got.  Buying him Hot Wheels at Walmart or Toys R' Us is a challenge because he already has most of them.  But he doesn't care.  When he gets a new hot wheel car it's like Christmas morning to him.
• LOVES Christmas.  Just like his momma.  When we got out the Christmas tree ornaments he FLIPPED. OUT.  He got so excited seeing them all, especially the ones he made in school or church in previous years.  He loves the ones with pictures of him or his brother on them.  And he really enjoyed helping me hang them.  He'd pick on out to hang and give it to me and then he'd tell me where on the tree to put it. He loves Christmas lights and frequently makes us drive around the neighborhood just looking at lights.
• He still doesn't really watch tv much.  That's a good thing, I know.  He's just not too interested.  I'm trying to get him to be interested in movies.  He's only seen one movie in a theater (minions in 3d).  Justin and I are planning to take him to see Secret Life of Pets in the dollar theater this weekend.  We'll see if he makes it the whole way through.  He made it about 45 minutes of Minions in 3D but I really think he didn't like that one because he didn't like wearing the glasses.  He kept complaining about them.  I also think he'll like the topic of this movie better because he LOVES animals. 
• Carter loves to pick out his own clothes.  Most of the time they match, but every now and again, I have to go change the shirt he picks out. 
• He played a sport for the first time this year!!!  He was on the Hunter Street Upwards Soccer team league.  It took some time for him to figure out the game.  I think he loved all the running back and forth, but he wasn't competitive at all.  He didn't like trying to steal the ball from the other team because he said that was "mean".  I don't see sports in Carter's future at this point, but we'll see what the future holds.  I'm not saying he won't be good at them.  He'll be good at whatever he puts his mind to.  I just don't think his personality is that of a sports guy.  He opted out of basketball but has said he wants to do baseball so we'll sign him up for the same Upwards league in the spring to do baseball.  He is enrolled in a class at school that meets once a week called "Playball".  They go in the gym when school is over for about 45 minutes and they work on all sports related skills (dribbling, throwing, rolling, running bases, Frisbee, etc).  He loves that class!  He got his evaluation back this week and he was in the green for all skills, meaning that he wasn't struggling to pick up on any of the skills.  I'll be interested to see if he likes baseball.  I hope he does.  Part of me kind of always wanted to be a baseball momma.  We'll see!
• He remembers EVERYING.  And I mean…EVERYTHING.  We can’t promise him something and not follow through because he will totally call us out on it.  He also repeats absolutely everything he hears so if you come around my child and curse, be prepared to see the bad side of this momma!!  **I actually wrote this bullet point in his 3 year post but left it in his 4 year post and I’m leaving it here because it is STILL true**
• Sadly we don't play outside much right now because it's so cold.  I'm hoping we may have a couple of warm days over Christmas break where we can go on walks outside.  Both boys love to walk around the circle we live on.  It's almost a mile long circle so I'm shocked they like doing it.  They just both love being outside. 
• He has seven trillion stuffed animals on his bed.  It's ridiculous!!! 
• And yes, he still loves and adores all things related to Buicks!

I love this kid to the moon and back y'all.  There are days where he makes me want to pull my hair out, but I just can't fathom my life without this precious blessing.  He made me a momma and for that, I will forever be indebted to him.  Happy Birthday Carterman!

Carter At Age 4

It's been so long since I blogged that I'm trying to organize where to start.  For now I'll start with Carter turning 4 and all the things he's doing at this age.

 

This is Carter's school picture for 3k.  His teacher is Mrs. Rodgers and he LOVES school.  See Preschool section below.

The picture above is from Carter's Thanksgiving Program.  They have been doing this same program for at least 30 years because Justin did the exact same program dressed the exact same way using the exact same songs when he was in 3k.  I love that Carter has experienced exactly what his daddy did at the same school.

 

Shoe Size

At 3 years old he was 8.5 wide.  He can still wear an 8.5 wide, but sometimes he’ll even wear a 9.  I don’t know if his foot is still wide.  Sometimes they grow out of the wide foot, sometimes they don’t.  All his shoes are wide and I’ve never had him try on a non-wide shoe, so I honestly don’t know. 

Clothes

Carter had a bit of a growth spurt recently.  He’s always been short, usually wearing a size below normal for his age range.  At 2 years old he was still in 12-18 months.  At 3 he was wearing 2t and at 4 he was mainly wearing 3t, but about a month after turning 4, his jeans were all of a sudden too short.  So I went and bought him some 4t jeans and pants.  They’re a bit baggy in the waist (he’s got a small waist for his age) but overall, the 4t pants seem to fit much better than the 3t did.  I just have to make sure the adjustable waist is as tight as it can be.  Most of his shirts are 3t or 4t, depending on the brand.

Eating

Carter has opened up his horizons so much when it comes to eating.  He loves fruits and vegetables and is starting to finally eat more meats.  The only thing I wish he would eat better is pizza and hamburgers.  He refuses a hamburger still.  He’ll eat pizza, but has to be convinced and you pretty much have to hold his hand (not literally, but figuratively speaking) to get him to eat it.  I should be glad though.  Pizza and hamburgers at fast food places in particular can lead to bad eating choices later.  He would much rather have grilled chicken or ham with some green beans and yogurt.  He has started eating hot dogs finally.  And even eats sandwich meat, but still won’t eat a full sandwich because he doesn’t like bread.  I sure wish I didn’t like bread!!!  He’s eaten a peanut butter sandwich (on a tortilla though, not normal bread…because apparently there’s a difference) a few times, but it’s not his favorite.  Which I really don’t understand because he loves peanut butter with his apples, and he eats the tortillas all the time with cheese quesadillas…so I don’t really understand why he can’t eat the two together, but whatever. 

Sleep

Carter still frequently takes an afternoon nap from about 2-4ish.  He doesn’t do it everyday, but most days he does.  He usually always at least has quiet time in his room unless there’s some reason we are purposely skipping the nap routine all together.  He always goes to bed in his room every night around 7:30 or 8pm.  However, if he’s had a nap that day, he won’t fall asleep till closer to 9pm even though he goes into his room at 7:30.   On the days that he doesn’t have a nap, we start the bed time routine at 7pm instead of 7:30pm and he falls asleep MUCH faster.  He wakes up somewhere in the 7-8am range in the mornings on most days.  Every now and again he’ll wake up around 6:45am but we always tell him to just go to his closet to read books until we’re ready for him to come downstairs. 

**He had swim lessons for the first time this past summer.  He did great!  But he’s not a swimmer just yet.  He needed more practice than I was capable of giving with a baby in tow.  So we plan to put him in lessons again this summer and attempt to go to the pool more often so he can practice.**

Preschool

Carter goes to school 3 days a week at church.  His teacher this year is Mrs. Rodgers, who happens to be one of my friends as well.  Her husband is me and Justin’s Sunday School teacher.  He loves all his friends in his class and does very well at school.  He goes to Spanish class where he learned to say all the main colors in Spanish as well as counting to 10.  He plays outside on the playground and on any given day, he’ll say playing outside is his favorite part of school.  He goes to chapel one day a week and learns a Bible story and sings a song about the story.  He also does something called “Move and Groove” which is the equivalent of P.E. for us old school kids.  They ride bicycles and run a lap and play hand eye coordination games.

Statistics

Carter’s four year appointment was on January 6, 2016.  Justin took him to this appointment.  The four year appointment is a rough one because of all the shots.  I’ve heard horror stories about this appointment so I made Justin go with him.  He did a good job overall.  He cried during the shots and apparently didn’t stop until Justin pulled into the Wal-Mart parking lot to get him a new car for being such a big boy during the shots.  Even now if you ask him about it he’ll tell you how much he didn’t like it and is quick to tell you that he doesn’t have to get any more shots until he’s 11. 

His blood pressure was 98/62 and his heart rate was 99.  Carter is now 35lbs (40th percentile) and is 39.5 inches tall (35th percentile).  

**He got a big boy full size bed this year too.  I was nervous he’d fall off, but we stack pillows on the sides and he has only fallen off once in his sleep.  He’s used to the bed now.**

Other Abilities/Random Things to Note

• Carter still likes to learn countries on his placemat that shows the entire world.  So far he knows where America, Russia, China, Mexico, Canada, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, India, Turkey, Greenland, Iran, Brazil, Tanzania, Israel, Georgia, Egypt, Madagascar, Iceland, Thailand, Malaysia and Australia.
• Loves cars.  Oh have mercy does he love cars. He has pretty much every single hot wheels car that exists.
• On the cars note, he loves actual cars too and can tell the difference.  He recognizes Buicks, Toyotas, BMWs, Jeeps, Chevy’s, Fords, Volkswagens, Mercedes, Lexus, you name it he knows it.  He knows pretty much ALL of the makes of cars and is beginning to memorize the models.  For example, he can look at a Buick and tell you if it’s an Enclave, Encore, Lacrosse, etc.  Same with Toyotas.  He knows the difference between a 4Runner, Camry, Avalon, etc.  He doesn’t know all of the makes of each car yet but he does know most of them.  This past year, the 4th year, was what I call "the year of the Buick". 
• He went to his very first football game this year with Justin.  He went to an Auburn football game about 2 months before he turned 4.  They made it a whole guys weekend.  They went to the game and then stayed at a hotel and then the next day went to the Georgia Aquarium and to some drive thru zoo.  I try to get them to have a guys weekend twice a year.  When Garrett’s older, I still want him to have a guys weekend with each boy individually so that they can get individual attention from Justin.
• He dresses himself for the most part, but sadly I must say that I usually dress him because it’s just so much faster.  He knows how to put on underwear and pants on his own.  He tends to need help with socks and sometimes needs help with shirts.
• He still isn’t interested in sitting down to watch movies.  I took him to see Minions in 3D for the first time but he only made it about 40 minutes.  He didn’t even get restless at all during the movie, he just looked at me and said “mommy I’m bored can we go?”.  He just doesn’t like tv or movies really.  I have no idea why.  He has recently gotten into a tv show on Nickelodeon called Blaze and the Monster Machines.  It’s actually a great show.  It’s about cars (so a win for Carter) but it teaches math and science too.  A good show to be obsessed with for sure!
• We have still yet to allow Carter to have any kind of caffeinated drink.  He’s had sprite but that’s it.  I’m honestly not sure when I will allow him to have a coke.  Probably not for another couple of years.  Not sure if you’ve met my child, but the last thing he needs is caffeine!
• We do notes every day for Carter’s lunches when he goes to school.  Every index card has a note from me or Justin and each note has a car symbol on it.  He brings these notes home and puts them in a photo album so that he can go back and look at them.  If I forget a note one day, I don’t hear the end of it.
• He remembers EVERYING.  And I mean…EVERYTHING.  We can’t promise him something and not follow through because he will totally call us out on it.  He also repeats absolutely everything he hears so if you come around my child and curse, be prepared to see the bad side of this momma!!  **I actually wrote this bullet point in his 3 year post but I’m leaving it here because it is STILL true**
• Carter is a boy, and with being a boy comes typical boy things.  Like potty words.  He thinks saying “poo poo” and “pee pee” are funny.  We get on to him about this all the time.  He has gotten significantly better, but boys will be boys as they say.
• He rides his bike with his helmet very well now.  We need to buy him some elbow and knee pads to ride but we just haven’t yet.  Being outside is still his favorite.  He adores doing any and everything outside!
• Loves to read!  He is capable of reading so much.  I have no idea how he knows some of the words he knows, but he has a beginning reader's set of books (12 books per box and we have 3 boxes).  He knows almost every single word in them and can read the books on his own.  This is very advanced for his age.
• He has seven trillion stuffed animals on his bed.  It's ridiculous!!! 
 

Carter - 3 1/2 Years Old

Potty Training
In his 3 year old post, I mentioned that Carter was tee tee trained 100% and that we were working on pooping in the potty.  My big boy is now completely trained for everything!  I also mentioned in that post that even though he was tee tee trained I was still having to help him put his clothes back on.  He used to be big into completely taking off his pants/shorts and underwear instead of just pulling them down so I was constantly having to help him put them back on.  He’s been doing this all on his own for a while now.  These days, if Carter does have to go poo poo, he will literally go into the bathroom and close the door and turn on the fan.  Such a boy.  We do still leave his little Elmo potty in his bedroom with him in case he needs to go in the middle of the night or something.  He’s not allowed to leave his room once he’s in there (we have a child-proof lock on the door).  We do this because Garrett’s room is right across from his and I just don’t want him going to check on his brother without my knowledge.

Shoe Size
Last time we got him measured he was measuring around a size 9.  His foot is also narrowing too.  Some of his shoes are still wide, but some of them aren’t.  It just depends on the brand.

Clothes
At his last doctor appointment at 3 years old, Carter was 50% for weight and 40% for height.  As of now, he’s wearing 3t shirts and pants/shorts (though some shorts are still 2t-depending on the brand).  We’re even starting to buy some 4t pajamas because his 3t ones are getting a tad snug already. 

Eating
Carter’s always been a picky eater, but everyone has told me that as he grows up he will be more willing to try  new things and will like them.  I have found this to be true.  In his 3 year post, we mentioned that he just started liking pizza.  Carter will eat pizza under the right conditions, but he just really doesn’t like it all that much.  I’m sure this is definitely one of those things that he will learn to like as he gets older.  Pizza is what most kids have at birthday parties and what kids order when there’s a large group.  So I do think that he will eventually hop on board the pizza train.  He recently tried a hot dog for the first time and liked it.  No bun on the hot dog though, obviously.  The kid still doesn’t like bread.  He loves lunchables though, even the ones with meat.  He used to only eat the ones with cheese, crackers and oreos, but now he really loves the ones with ham, turkey and bologna.  It’s usually what we send him to eat at school.  He also has tried pork chops and liked that too.  We do still have to try to convince him to eat the pork chops though.  He’s also eaten roast!!  And one of his favorite breakfast meals now is oatmeal (I’m still working with him on eggs-as of now I think it’s a texture thing for him).  All this to say that he’s becoming more and more open to trying new things.  But he is overall a big health nut!  He’s not doing it intentionally, but he prefers lean meats with veggies and fruits.  He’s not big into things like bread, macaroni and cheese and pizza and hamburgers.  I’m still hoping he gives those things a shot in the future but we’ll see.

**This was the first time I’ve ever let Carter help me make a cake.  It was for Justin’s birthday.  Carter picked out the flavor (blue of course-it’s still his favorite color) and he also decorated it, as you can probably guess by looking at the picture.**
Sleep
Everyone told me that age 3 is when they drop the nap.  Carter isn’t even close.  He loves his nap…and so do I!!!!  He still takes a solid 2 hour nap every day!  Some days I will let him skip the nap, particularly if there’s a reason we need to skip it.  On days that he takes a nap, we still put him down for the night around 8pm, but he usually won’t fall asleep until closer to 9.  On days he skips the nap, he goes to bed right at 7:30.  He wakes up anywhere from 7am-8am most days.  Our night time routine hasn’t changed much.  He still loves to read books except now he actually points out words that he recognizes.  We’ve been working on spelling and reading and he’s already picking up on it and can point out words he knows in books.  We pray with him every night before bed.  We usually ask him to tell us 3 things he’s thankful for every night and we incorporate that into the prayer.  At naptime he says the “As I lay me down to sleep” prayer all on his own.  Carter is still in his toddler bed that has a rail.  Not sure when we’ll give him a twin or full size bed yet.  My guess is that we’ll go straight to a full size bed so that we don’t have to buy another one.  No plans to do that on the horizon though.  He’s content with his bed right now.

Mother’s Day Out
Carter is out of school for the summer.  He was in the Older Two’s class last year and went to summer school for a month but is now out of school until September.  Also, he “graduated” from Mother’s Day Out and will begin preschool in the fall.  I can’t believe he’s already had his first graduation!  He got a diploma and everything! 

I will say this-my kid is really smart.  And I know most parents say that about their kids, but mine really really is.  He can already spell so many words that I can’t even count them all.  One day I came up to his room and he had used his letter books and spelled the word “Washingto” on the floor.  My jaw just dropped when I saw it and he looked at me and said “I only had one ‘n’ mommy, I need another one to finish the word”.  He’s three y’all.  Three.  He’s known the alphabet for over a year now and he can count up to 40.  Carter has an extreme interest in learning new things, particularly spelling.  He’s always asking how to spell stuff.  Well one day I saw a preschool packet for sale on Zulily that had flashcards and DVD’s and everything so I bought it because I wanted to encourage his desire to learn words and be able to read.  Well come to find out, some of what I bought is for kindergartener’s, not preschooler’s.  Didn’t stop my kid though.  He knows about 60% of the sight words by heart already.  Where we do need work is writing.  He’s really good at tracing letters, but struggles to write them on his own without a template to follow.  So we’ll have to work on that, however none of that is expected by preschoolers.  I’m just trying to work with him while he’s showing interest.

**Carter demanded taking a bath with Garrett one time.  He didn’t realize how cramped the quarter would be so he hasn’t done it since then!**
Statistics
Carter won’t have another official appointment until he’s 4 and I’m dreading that because that’s when he’ll get his first tetanus shot.  Eeeeeeekkkk!!!!  As of now he weight roughly 34 pounds and is about 39 inches tall.  This puts him in about 50th percentile for both height and weight.

Chore Chart
I was in a mom’s bible study on Wednesday nights at my church and the book we were reading was about parenting (duh) and in the book it suggested doing a chore chart for kids Carter’s age.  So I started one.  They weren’t hard chores, but more like things I wanted him to work on personality-wise instead of physical labor.  So his chore chart included things like manners (saying yes ma’am and no ma’am and please and thank you), being kind to others, sharing, trying a new food, obeying mommy and daddy (this means no time-outs), cleaning up toys before naptime and bedtime, cleaning up after he eats a meal (putting plate and cup in sink), etc.  He had to get so many checkmarks at the end of the week for doing these things in order to get a surprise (a doughnut from Krispy Kreme, cookie from Great American Cookie company, a trip to Yogurt Mountain, etc.).  It has worked REALLY well.  He loves the challenge of trying to get checkmarks!  I highly suggest this for anyone who has a kid preschool age!

Other Abilities/Random Things to Note

• He still loves the states.  He can look at a map and tell you where the vast majority of them are and can even tell you some capitals.  Like I said, he’s kind of a genius.
• When I say this kid is obsessed with cars I don’t mean the little hot wheels cars (though he is obsessed with those too) but he’s really obsessed with pointing out cars on the road while we’re driving.  He can identify Buicks, Toyotas, Hondas, Jeeps, Chevy’s and Mazda’s.  Worthy to note:  Justin has a Chevy Tahoe.  So Carter would look at the Chevy symbol and call it the “dying cross” (because it looks like a cross and Jesus died on the cross…you know…a conclusion any three year old would come too!).  So we did have to teach him to call it the “Chevy Bowtie” which is what he now calls it.

• He can put all of his clothes on and off by himself.  Sometimes he struggles with putting on the shirt and getting his head in the hole, but most of the time he can do it.  He also sometimes struggles to put his socks on by himself. 
• He’s gotten several big boy haircuts at Sports Clips.  He’s no longer scared to get his hair cut because he is ALL ABOUT the sucker he gets afterwards!

• As far as drinks goes, he still likes applejuice, milk (we don’t heat it up anymore thank God), Hawaiian Punch (he drinks all of the flavors of HP but he doesn’t call it that, he calls it “red drink” or “orange drink” or “blue drink”…whatever color it is).  Any juice that we give him is 50% diluted with water.  Overall we’re lucky with Carter though because he loves water and will frequently just ask to drink water instead of some sugary drink.
• ADORES his baby brother y’all.  I’ve listed so many things with Carter in this post but in the past 8 months I think what can define Carter is being an amazing big brother.  He loves Garrett so much and is always wanting to be with him.  If Garrett cries, Carter will drop what he’s doing and run to him saying “it’s ok brother.  I’m here!!” (As if the reason Garrett was crying had to do with not being able to see Carter instead of the fact that he had a diaper full of poop).  Garrett is the first thing Carter asks about when he wakes up every morning and he requires giving brother a kiss and a hug before every nap and bedtime at night.  He talks to him in the backseat of my car all the time and I find it incredibly heart melting.  He is so kind to Garrett and to me when I’m dealing with Garrett.  He’s a great helper!  He gets me diapers, throws things in the trash, puts Garrett’s clothes in the laundry basket, puts Garrett’s bottles in the sink…he does so much for him and I love it!

• He remembers EVERYING.  And I mean…EVERYTHING.  We can’t promise him something and not follow through because he will totally call us out on it.  He also repeats absolutely everything he hears so if you come around my child and curse, be prepared to see the bad side of this momma!!  **This bullet point was on the three year post and I’m leaving it here because this is still so incredibly true!!  He absorbs EVERYTHING you tell him.  Everything.  He asks questions all day long about random things and I think most parents brush it off when their kids start asking questions non-stop.  Sometimes I do that if I’m really busy trying to get something done, I just tell him we’ll talk about it later and I end up forgetting.  But most of the time, I try to take the time to answer his questions.  And I can tell that he listens and remembers for MONTHS. 
• He is now riding a big boy bike with a helmet and loves it!  By big boy bike, I mean that it’s not a baby radio flyer, but that it does have training wheels.

• He still likes Elmo and Cookie Monster, but just not quite as obsessed with them.  We have Brighthouse Cable at our house and they just picked up this channel called Baby First Channel.  We let Garrett watch that a lot and Carter is now hooked.  He is WAY more interested in it than Garrett is.  So Carter now watches this Baby First Channel more than he will watch Sesame Street.  I actually can’t remember the last time we watched Sesame Street!

Carter - Three Years Old

Cannot believe I am mom to a three year old!!!  So here’s what’s going on with Carter at age 3 now:
 Diapers
No diapers!!  Carter is completely tee-tee trained and has been for a while.  I don’t even have to take him to go to tee-tee.  If we’re at home, he’ll just go on his own and the only way I know that he’s gone to the bathroom is to hear the toilet flush.  Then he brings his underwear to me and asks me to help him put them on.  I usually put them on around his ankle and he pulls them up on his own.  He’s just not coordinated enough yet to put each foot into it’s respective whole just yet.  As far as poo goes, well, we’re unfortunately still not trained for that.  He just won’t go in the potty for some reason.  He waits until naptime or bedtime because he wears a pull-up during those times (he’s not ready for underwear while sleeping long stretches just yet-his control over his bladder only applies when he’s awake).  So he basically waits until he’s wearing a pull-up and then goes poo in the pull-up.   I’m about to force him to sleep in underwear during naps.  Hopefully this will force him to go in the potty because he really does refuse to poo in his underwear (and I’m ok with that!).
 
Shoe Size
It’s been a while since we had his foot measured, but last time we did, he was an 8.5 wide. 
 
Clothes
Our small boy is still small!  He can wear 2t and 3t shirts, but his 2t pants are still a little big!  I got a bunch of 3t jeans from consignment sales and NONE of them fit him.  I went and bought some 2t jeans from Children’s Place and even those are still a little too big!  Pajamas are all still 2t or 3t, though I’m starting to put away a lot of the 2t ones that don’t fit. 
 
Feeding
This year had a lot of ups and downs with feeding.  We know that we do have a picky eater on our hands (at least when it comes to trying new things), however his pickiness has started to get less and less as time goes by.  He now eats pizza!  It’s not his favorite thing to eat, but he will eat it.  I finally got him eating grilled chicken again, too.  He used to eat it but he hit a spurt where he just refused to eat it for some reason.  So I let it go for several months but tried again just this month and he eats it again.  I’d like to try for a peanut butter jelly sandwich next…or even a grilled cheese.  Bottom line-he still doesn’t like bread, so that’s what we need to work on.  He also doesn’t eat hamburgers yet, but I’m hoping that will come with age.  He tried potato soup for the first time this month and liked that as well.  He still does really well with his vegetables-preferring peas, green beans, corn and carrots.  As far as meats goes, he likes ham, grilled and fried chicken, and fish nuggets.  He still loves fruit too, particularly blueberries, strawberries, bananas, apples, peaches and pretty much any flavor of yogurt.  He’s tried a ton of other new snack foods, too.  His favorites right now are Doritos (cool ranch kind) and Mike and Ike’s. 
 
Sleep
Still naps once a day for the most part.  Sometimes he just goes up to his room for a couple of hours but doesn’t actually sleep.  I’m ok with that as long as he still has quiet time.  On the days that he doesn’t nap, he falls asleep FAST at night.  On days that he does nap, he still goes upstairs to his room at 7:30pm, but a lot of times he doesn’t actually fall asleep until 9ish.  On average, he still sleeps about 10-11 hours at night.  Naps range anywhere from 1 1/2 hours to 2 1/2 hours. 
 
Mother’s Day Out
Carter is in the Older Two’s class at our church.  He loves it.  This was also the first year that he will walk into the room and not cry.  He did cry for the first few weeks (new teachers and all) but eventually stopped and he hasn’t done it since.  When we get to his room door, he ALWAYS turns to me and says “kiss and a hug” and I give him a hug and kiss him and tell him I love him and to have fun and then he runs into the room and plays with the other kids.  I love his teachers (I knew them before this because they are members at our church).  This is also the first time he’s come home and sung me songs he learned or talked about things that happened.  He’s memorized not only who the moms of the other kids in his class are, but also what cars they drive.  He can tell me in the parking lot whose mommy is driving what car and he’s always right.  
 
Statistics
Carter’s three year appointment was on January 5, 2015.  They took his blood pressure for the first time.  He had Henry with him of course and naturally, Henry had to get his blood pressure done too.  Thank God for the sweet nurses at our pediatrician office that are patient and understand that sometimes the only way a toddler will do something is if his “friend” has it done too.

He wasn’t a fan once it started getting tight.  He kept saying “it’s too tight!!!” but he was able to keep it on because we distracted him by showing him the screen that had the numbers that kept changing as his blood pressure was being taken.  It was 108/50, which the nurse said was a tad high for his age, but she said it’s likely a bad reading since it was his first time and he was really nervous.  The doc didn’t seem worried.  Carter is now 32lbs (50th percentile) and is 3 feet 1 inch tall (40th percentile).  Our doc estimates that he’ll be 5’9 at full growth.  Justin is 5’9 so that won’t shock me.  We opted to do a vision test where the nurse stood several feet away from carter and had some pretty small pictures of objects (house, car, birthday cake, christmas tree…stuff like that).  He had to cover one eye and tell the nurse what the objects were and then do it again covering the other eye.  Carterman got all of them right!  We talked to the doc about him not pooping in the potty and after a few questions on his part, he decided that Carter is likely constipated and when he does poop, it hurts, which is why he won’t go on the potty.  He told us to give him a stool softener and we would likely see a difference so we’re going to start that soon.  The doctor also noted that Carter is developmentally advanced for his age, which we knew already.  He is so stinking smart it’s ridiculous!  We go back again when he turns 4 at which time he will get his very first tetanus shot.  Yikes!!!
   
Other Abilities/Random Things to Note

• My insanely smart kiddo loves to identify the states on a map of the U.S. now.  He knows the name and location of about 15 states so far.  For Christmas, he got an Encyclopedia Britannica U.S. Map puzzle.  Once you put a state in it’s proper location, you press the state and the map will tell you the state, it’s capital and the nickname of the state.  So for example, when he presses Alabama it says “Alabama.  The Yellowhammer State.  State Capital-Montgomery.”  He has learned so much by playing with this toy!!!
• He loves puzzles
• He still absolutely loves the alphabet and it’s the very first song he asks to sing at night before going to bed. 
• He sings songs on his own now too-mainly songs like Jingle Bells, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, and, thanks to daddy, the Auburn fight song.  Thanks to me, however, he also knows a good chunk of the Alabama fight song ;)
• We are currently working on him putting his own underwear on.  He’s good at taking his clothes off, but is pretty dependent on us to put them on, so we are going to start working on that too.
• His new obsession-CARS!!!  Like the little hot wheels cars.  He doesn’t even necessarily play with the roads that the cars come with…just the cars.  He got roughly 20 of them for Christmas and he just puts them all in a line and plays with them. 
• We introduced him to Sprite and he is obsessed.  He wants it all the time!
• The biggest thing to note is that he is an AMAZING big brother.  Y’all…this kid just brings me to tears how much he loves his brother.  He is always checking on him to make sure he’s ok, he wants to help change diapers, wants to go upstairs with me to put him down for naps and ALWAYS has to give him a kiss and a hug.
• He remembers EVERYING.  And I mean…EVERYTHING.  We can’t promise him something and not follow through because he will totally call us out on it.  He also repeats absolutely everything he hears so if you come around my child and curse, be prepared to see the bad side of this momma!!
• He also (just last month) started using the pedals to ride his tricycle!!! 

**Picture above is of him eating a donut.  He LOVES donuts!!!**

Carter - 2 1/2 Years Old

The last post I did on Carter was a whopping 6 months ago!  Man oh man the differences in the first 6 months of the second year!  I’ll go through the main categories I’ve been doing in the past and just add any tidbits I find necessary to document. 
Diapers
Still rockin’ the size 4’s.  We’ve done pullups a few times, but most of the time, Carter prefers the Sesame Street diapers, though he’s now starting to ask for the pullups every now and again.  Once we get big time into potty training, we’ll use pullups more.  Speaking of potty training, Carter has poo poo’d (sorry for the wording) in the potty TWICE.  It’s not something he asks to do, it just so happened that I hit it at the right time when he had to go.  There were a few days where he was constantly asking to go to the potty, but then he stopped.  Now I ask him to come to the potty and he usually says no-which is why I’m not potty training yet.  I am trying to get him psyched about it though.  I’ve shown him pictures of big boy Elmo and Cookie Monster underwear from Target and he loves looking at them and knows that they are for “potty training” (yes, he actually says potty training).  He also knows that we will be using M&M’s as a treat during the process and that if he keeps his diaper dry, he’ll get an M&M every so often and then when he goes in the potty he’ll get many M&M’s.  I’m hoping all this talk of big boy underpants and M&Ms is getting him excited.  He has, within the last couple of weeks, started telling us he had to tee tee and he actually does tee tee…a lot!  But he still wets his diaper too.   I think I’m going to hold off until July or August to attempt the 3 day boot camp method.        
Shoe Size
He can still fit into his size 7 shoes, but I have recently gone ahead and bought some size 8’s.  They’re still slightly too big.  We went to Kicks to buy some new shoes and they sized him and he still measures at a 7.  But right now he wears anything from a 7-8 because that’s what we have.

Clothes
Shirts are 2t or 24 months.  For shorts, the kid can still wear some 18 month shorts!!!  I was dreading spending a ton of money buying shorts for summer wardrobe and wondered if some of his shorts from last summer would still fit so I pulled them out and sure enough, about 75% of them still fit.  So he usually wears a 2t or 24 month shirt with 18 month shorts.  He’s a small kid, what can I say!

Feeding
We still struggle with a relatively picky eater.  I think we tried too hard to make sure he liked “healthy” foods when he was younger by staying away from the bad stuff and now he won’t even touch the bad stuff.  He doesn’t eat most foods kids love like hamburgers, pizza, hot dogs, grilled cheese, peanut butter jelly sandwiches, etc.  Most of this boils down to the fact that he still won’t eat bread.  I’m cutting him some slack because he’s only 2, but when this kid gets to be around 4 or 5, he’ll be eating pizza and hamburgers or he will go hungry.  Period.  We did manage to get him to eat pieces of the cheese off of a  Little Caesar’s pizza at a birthday party the other day so that was a success!  Part of this is our fault too because Justin and I don’t typically eat these things, therefore Carter’s never had the opportunity to eat them.  All these are mistakes that we will correct with Garrett once he starts eating table food.  That being said, Carter’s absolute FAVORITE meal is mexican.  He LOVES LOVES LOVES to go eat at a mexican restaurant and is constantly asking to go.  He even knows that when we turn right out of our neighborhood, it means we’re going to a mexican restaurant and he gets extremely excited.  He always gets a chicken quesadilla with rice and he devours momma’s cheese dip.  I’m working on him with peanut butter jelly sandwiches.  We know he likes peanut butter because he’ll dip his apples and animal crackers in it.  So we’re going to start trying to get him to eat a peanut butter and banana sandwich.  We’ll see how that goes.  I put a mini corn dog on his plate the other night and he literally screamed until I took it off.  Bribed him to eat it with M&Ms (his FAVORITE) and everything and he still wouldn’t touch it.

Sleep
Big changes in this department.  For starters, Carter went through about a 2 week phase where he was waking up in the middle of the night screaming.  Every night was different.  Some nights he wanted water, some nights he wanted to be re-tucked in, other nights he just wanted to chat.  You can imagine how frustrating this got, especially when Justin was out of town.  It was like having a newborn again.  He was waking up anywhere from 1-3 times in the middle of the night.  After about a week, Justin realized that this all started happening around the same time that Carter mysteriously stopped sucking his thumb.  Out of nowhere the kid decided not to suck his thumb anymore!  Since that was kind of how he soothed himself at night, it may very well have led to him waking up wanting us to soothe him.  Anyway, we knew that it was just going to take some time and after another week, he went back to sleeping on his own through the night. 
Another change was the transition to a toddler bed.  This happened when he was about 2 years 5 months old.  It went so smoothly!!!  I’ve read that if you wait until around this time to transition, they are so used to being in their cribs that they really don’t have a desire to get out in the middle of sleeping.  I found this to be true with Carter.  At night, he would get into his bed after our nighttime routine and we will tuck him in and then we leave.  He may play with his animals and talk to himself for a while, but he won’t get out of the bed and will eventually fall asleep.  The only time he gets out of the bed is in the mornings when he wakes up and he goes to get his books to read until we come upstairs to get him.  Naps started out a different story.  For some reason, he would get out of the bed during naps and sometimes he’d even wake up after only an hour nap screaming-as if he was confused about the bed he was in, but this only last a few days and then he took naps like normal too.  Overall, super easy transition for him.  And he loves his bed!

**The above picture was taken in January 2014 when he started climbing out of his crib for the first time.  It wasn’t until the next month when he finally fell out of the crib all the way to the floor.  He cried, but was not injured and it scared the dickens out of him and after that one incident, he never tried to get out of the crib again.  This was, however, when we began thinking about a toddler bed transition.**
Waketime
We do so many different things now that I may not even make this a category anymore, or at the very least change it to “favorite things” or something like that.  It’s summer time now so most waketimes include us being outside.  He loves to use sidewalk chalk on our driveway and draw pictures.  He also loves to get his umbrella stroller from the garage and push it up and down the sidewalk.  Justin bought him a blowup pool that goes in the backyard and he loves to play in that too.  Still loves golf cart rides, going to the playground, playing at the pool, going to the zoo, etc.  We had a first for him recently.  We took him to Oak Mountain State Park to the beach and he played with Justin in the water while mommy watched from the beach.  He loved it!  He really loves anything dealing with water.  Before summer kicked off, he was going to storytime at the library once a week, but they’re done for summer so it will be a couple of months before we go to that again.
 
He loves going to exercise class with mommy too.  Mommy and Me Time Fitness comes to our church on Monday nights and me and Carter along with his Nana, his aunt Jen Jen and his twin cousins Celia and Cynthia all do an exercise class together in the gym.  He loves those classes.  He still loves looking at pictures and videos on our phones and iPad and he loves to facetime people on the iPhone.  When Justin’s out of town he’ll say “face daddy!” and that’s what he  means.  As far as television goes, he still rarely watches it unless he strapped in the highchair eating or in the carseat while driving.  TV shows he prefers are somewhat the same as they have been:  Elmo’s World, Sesame Street, Mickey Mouse, Little Einsteins.  He’s recently started liking Super Why (which I love that he loves this show because it’s all about reading and the alphabet and he’s already mastered the alphabet!), Barney and a show that comes on Sprout called Zou which is about Zebras and the kid zebra’s name is Zou. 
 
 
Mother’s Day Out
So if you live in the south, you are familiar with the term “snowpacolypse”.  We had a BAD storm hit the south and it came out of nowhere.  Our meteorologists didn’t see it coming until it was too late.  We got several feet of snow within hours and roads were completely iced over.  Schools weren’t canceled until it was too late.  Parents couldn’t get to their children and in Alabama alone, some 11,000+ children spent the night in schools that night.  My sweet boy was one of them.  By the time I left to go pick him up, streets were so badly iced over that I couldn’t get out of my neighborhood.  Justin was out of town and my MIL couldn’t get out of her neighborhood either.  Luckily my FIL was at work and he was able to get to the church.  Carter and his twin cousins all spent the night at the church that night but luckily I have a sweet neighbor with 4WD that offered to go pick him up the next day so I got him back after about 36 hours.  It was rough, but he made it!  Mother’s Day Out ended in May and he was home with me for about a week and a half before he started in the Summer Fun program.  He goes 3 days a week from 9-1 for the entire month of June.  This is HEAVEN for mommy!  July and August are gonna be tough because I’ll have him 7 days a week and have to find new and interesting ways to keep him entertained.  But he loves school as always!!  In fact, when I come to pick him up he usually says “no see mommy!” because he doesn’t want to leave.  Quite the opposite from back when he was in the infant room and bawled anytime I left him.  The only downside I’ve noticed with summer school is that Carter FIGHTS taking a nap after school.  This didn’t happen until he started school so I feel pretty strongly that it’s somehow correlated.  The only way we can get him to take a nap is to make sure we rock him to the point of sleepiness before putting him in the bed.  Otherwise, he’ll stay awake in his room the entire time.  This makes the naptime routine a tad longer than usual, but he’s 2 1/2…he won’t be taking a nap much longer so I’m going to cherish him wanting me to rock him just a little longer :)
**The below pictures are from the “snowpacolypse” at the end of January**
On the left is a picture my FIL took when he spent the night at our church with all the kids.  They slept on those little cots in their clothes they wore to school that day.  Poor things.  Luckily Carter slept almost as good as he does when he’s at home.  On the right is a picture I took of when my neighbor took me to go get Carter the next day.  I brought Henry for him because I knew it would make him happy.  It made him so happy that he fell asleep on the ride home sucking his thumb holding Henry!  You should have seen that reunion.  When I ran into the church and he saw me and started running for me too.  I was just crying like a baby!!!

Statistics
No clue in this department.  He stands on our scale every now and again and last time I check he was close to 31 pounds.  Height wise-I would say he’s close to 3 feet now.
Vocabulary
I don’t even think this can be a section anymore.  He’s learning from absolutely everything.  His vocabulary is insane and he learns new words and phrases every day.  He makes full sentences now and can hold a conversation with us pretty well.  The only thing not quite right is that he still talks about himself in the third person saying “carter” or “car car” instead of “me” or “I”.  The few times he does use those words, he’s not really using them correctly.  This is not unusual for this age at all though.  They say that the more he listens to us talk, the quicker he’ll pick up on the correct way to use pronouns.  We’ve already started noticing him picking up on the proper time to say “I” in the last few weeks.  Funny things he has said recently include:
Justin: “Carter are you ready to get out of the tub now?”
Carter:  “Not yet daddy.  Not quite.”  (Not quite???  Where did he learn that?!?!)
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While looking at a centipede that was crawling on our wall in the house:
Carter: “Look mommy!!!  That’s amazing!!!”
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After finishing breakfast, but not drinking all of his milk and eating all his oranges:
Carter:  “Carter all done mommy.  Put milk and oranges in refrigerator to save for later”.
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I swear y’all, he listens to EVERY SINGLE WORD we say and the context in which we use certain phrases.  He doesn’t always repeat them right away, but he remembers them and will use them a week later.  He’s so stinking smart!

Other Abilities/Random Things to Note

• Still cleans up after himself when asked to about 85% of the time (sometimes he’ll even do it without being asked to) but other times we have to ask him a few times before he’ll actually do it.
• Stopped sucking his thumb completely on his own at 28 months.
• We started him on a daily vitamin this month.  He eats one Flintstone gummy vitamin a day.
• HUGE animal lover.  He’s obsessed with going outside to look at bugs too (See below picture of him talking to ants in our driveway)

• Still quite shy around people he doesn’t know and is even shy around people he does know for a couple of minutes until he warms up to them.
• Very good at understanding that he has to hold someone’s hand when walking on “black pavement” like a street or parking lot.  He also knows not to go into the black pavement at our house.  He’ll run as far as he can down the driveway and just stand at the edge of the white concrete on the driveway and stare at the black pavement until one of us comes to get him.
• Still has a huge love of Henry.  He loves all his animals, but obviously Henry is the preferred one.  In the past 6 months, we’ve even increased our number of “Henry’s”.  I think we’re up to about 6 or 8 now.

• He’s still fairly obedient.  We are in the middle of the two’s and he is starting to push me and Justin on instructions, but we usually hold strong with the “obey mommy and daddy or we go to timeout”.   Obedience is about 80% of the time I would guess, which I personally think is pretty good for a two year old.  We’ve also been able to narrow down the times the he disobeys.  For example, he NEVER obeys us when we tell him it’s time to come inside.  He loves playing outside and always says “no” when we tell him to come inside.  I think this just comes with the territory of having a 2 year old boy-they want to be outside 24/7 and the fact that his mommy is 5 months pregnant and doesn’t want to sit in 90 degree weather doesn’t really phase him.
• Speaking of timeouts, he’s really good now about saying he’s sorry and saying why he was put in timeout.  He knows this is a requirement before we come out of timeout.  There’s been a few times where he was just so mad that he wouldn’t say sorry, in which case I let him sit there even longer.  He’s only been in timeout for a max of 4 minutes or so before he’ll finally give in.
• He gets into his carseat all by himself.  This helps mommy greatly since she’s only getting fatter each day and it’s hard for me to bend over and pick him up.  Sometimes he doesn’t get immediately into the carseat though.  Sometimes he’ll “take a lap” around my car before sitting down which is kinda frustrating, but again, he’s 2.   He can’t be perfect all the time.

• We’ve mastered ABC’s.  He frequently sings them to himself before going to bed every night.   If you ask him his favorite song, he’ll say “ABCs”.
• Speaking of singing, he’s doing A TON of singing.  He prefers Jesus Loves Me, He’s Got the Whole World In His Hands, ABC’s, Itsy Bitsy Spider, Row Row Row Your Boat, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and the Zacchaeus song.  Those are the ones he usually wants to sing every night before bedtime.
• He’s also mastered the following shapes: Circle, Square, Rectangle, Octagon, Diamond, Heart, Triangle, and Star.
• He has literally memorized certain DVDs that he watches in the car, namely the Cookie Monster Letters DVD.  We’ll be driving and he’ll be quoting the entire DVD in the backseat.  It’s pretty funny to listen to. 
• He can count to 10 every single time he tries, though sometimes I’ve caught him counting as high as 20, but other times he’ll get numbers between 13-18 mixed up.  He has a numbers and an alphabet puzzle and he has completely mastered both. 

• He loves riding his bike, but he still won’t put his feet on the pedals and ride it that way.  He’s just putting his feet on the ground and riding it that way.
• He is extremely affectionate.  I didn’t see this coming with him.  I thought he’d be the very social and playful but didn’t want to cuddle type of kid, but around 18 months I started noticing how much he loved affection.  Giving kisses and hugs.  Cuddling before bedtime.  Loving on his animals.  The other day we were in the car and he said “Carter gonna love baby Garrett sooooooooooo much”.  I about died.  Another day after naptime, we were walking out of his room to go downstairs to facetime Nana and Papa and he ran back to the crib and got Henry out, gave him a kiss and said to him “Carter is going to call Nana and Papa.  You go night night.  I love you Henry” and then gave him a hug and put him back in the crib.  He does stuff like this all the time.   His teachers at school always talk about his “sweet personality”.  Don’t get me wrong, he ain’t like that 100% of the time.  But for the most part, he’s pretty affectionate as long as he isn’t being told “no” or just in an overall bad mood.  I think we have the perfect balance of affection/playfulness.

An example of his affection-he LOVES to hold hands with his twin cousins.

• I’ve asked him what his favorite things are and here’s what he says-favorite color-blue, favorite number-zero, favorite letter-H (though sometimes he’ll say ‘X’),  favorite food-this is a tossup because sometimes he’ll say chicken quesadilla and other times he’ll say macaroni and cheese, favorite stuffed animal-Henry.