20 Months with Carter

May 28th-June 27th

Well this month has been a fun one full of outdoor activities...man, we sure love summer around here!!  A certain little someone would stay outside every minute of the day and night if I would let him.  I'm not 100% sure if it is just because he is a little boy or if it is just his personality?  And add a tractor into the mix and you just might not ever get him back inside!

One thing that he has enjoyed all month long was bringing out the baby pool at home.  I bought it last year but we never really used it, but we are making up for that this year!  Brent keeps it out by the garage, so most evenings Carter is out there playing and will stop by and splash around for awhile.  We haven't really done any major "swims" in there, but he is always walking through it or dipping in sticks or toys and usually soaking at least his shorts in the process.  He was totally fine with playing in it with his cousin Brayden one night, but when we let our chocolate lab Bella hop in that first day we got it out he was less than thrilled about her being in there!  

Even though he loves his baby pool, he is not much of a fan of the big pool at my Mom & Step-dad's.  He is hesitant about getting in at all, and once you force him into it, he is decently happy for a bit and then he says "out" over and over until you give in.  The shallow end is 4 feet, so he has a ways to go before he can touch and I think that is his problem.  He is not one to be still...like, ever!...and he can't run around and act a fool when he is in there so I really think that is the issue.  I'm hoping our condo for vacation in a few weeks has a baby pool or at least a really shallow area where I can test that out!  I'm not sure I can handle having a kid who doesn't like the pool!

Another new thing we got out this month was Daddy's old Hot Wheels collection.  When Brent and I got married, my mother-in-law wanted us to keep them but I told her to just throw them out or sell them because we didn't have much storage area in our old house (and probably because I didn't realize the love little boys have for these things!!).  But, being a smart lady, she kept them anyways and brought them over for us.  I just about broke down crying thinking about a little Brent many years ago with his chubby toddler fingers playing with many of these same cars and now it is Carter's turn.  So, Rene, if you are reading THANK YOU so much for holding on to them!  He plays with them pretty much everyday. 

A big change this month was turning his car seat from rear-facing to forward-facing.  I realize that two is the new standard but it was just time for it for us!  And, oh my goodness, did we regret it after changing it the first week or so!  He wanted us to turn around and talk to him/watch him...which we obviously couldn't be doing while trying to drive!!  So instead, it was a constant flow of "mama, mama, mama" coming from back there.  Thankfully, the newness wore off and he seems to be over that now.

Carter continues to blow us away with his strength for such a little boy!  He is now climbing up the slide and will go down as long as we are there to catch him...but even more crazy is the fact that he can climb up the ladder on the other side!!  He practically has to lift his leg up to his belly height because the steps are not made for such little people...but he is totally capable of getting up it with no help from us.  

He is picking up new words left and right.  He is now asking for his pacifier by name, "paci" and we seem to be hearing it ALL THE TIME.  We are trying to limit it to bedtime, naptime and the car, but he doesn't always oblige to that.  And anytime he asks for paci, "blankey" is always next.  He would take his blanket and pacifier everywhere if we would let him.  He has also finally learned the word "more" which is helpful when he is eating, and "mine" too!  I can't even remember all of the other words he is saying, but he really is picking them up from us constantly and we have to remember to watch what we say.  One day when Brent was watching the World Cup, he was getting aggravated and yelled "crap!" and it was repeated seconds later by little man.  It could have definitely been worse...but still.

Another silly thing he has been doing is making us drink when he does.  We will be trying to eat supper as a family and he goes to have a drink and will point to our glasses and say "juice."  He pretty much won't stop saying it until we take a drink too, so we usually just go along with it but it is so hard!  We cannot drink near as long as he can, so we end up pretending we are drinking and then laughing about how wrapped around his fingers we are!

He had lots of fun days with his Nene & Pawpaw Red while his babysitter Judy was on vacation for a week.  They took him to Chuck E. Cheese and to the park to see the ducks and play.  I think it's safe to say he got plenty of spoiling that week!

Other fun stuff we did includes a trip to the fair in town for the antique tractor pulls.  They didn't get started until 7:30 when we saw online that they would start at 6, so we weren't really happy about the wait with a toddler in entirely too hot weather.  But, thankfully, there was a free petting zoo that kept Carter entertained for quite some time.  We had to keep him from trying to kiss all the dirty animals!  We didn't end up getting to watch very many tractors do their thing since it was practically bedtime once they got going good, but it was a pretty fun night out of the house.

Then, last Friday, we took a trip up to Saint Louis to their amazing zoo.  We headed out as soon as Carter woke up that morning and he did good in the truck for about an hour.  After that, he was DONE with the car seat and I was trying my best to entertain him.  We tried the portable DVD player with some "fishies" AKA Finding Nemo, but the TV still just doesn't hold his attention.  He is just an on-the-go kind of kid.  We finally got to the zoo around 11 and it was packed and miserable at first.  Thankfully, after we stopped and ate lunch, either the crowd died down or we got away from most of them.  Carter loved the Children's Zoo and he even pet a huge snake, a guinea pig, and a porcupine while we were in there.  And of course the goats.  His definite favorites of the whole day were the elephants and the monkeys.  Really anything that was moving was what he was in to. We made it at the zoo until around 5 pm and then started our trek home.  Carter crashed within minutes of hitting the car seat, but woke up after about an hour and a half, so I got to entertain him all over again.