The latest

We survived Christmas, but it was a little rough. All three of us were/are still sick, and it hit us hard. Derrick is mostly better but Carter and I are still coughing. Carter is getting more quick each day and is definitely walking the majority of the time now.

I saw the PERFECT Valentine's Gift on TV today, but Derrick laughed when I told him about it. I can't imagine why. ;)

They are called smittens and the one is to share with your partner so you can hold hands in the cold. Too funny!

Organized Chaos

So yesterday was "one of those days" that I hope isn't repeated frequently. It started out with Carter waking up much earlier than usual. When I finally got him down for a nap, he was only sleeping for about 45 minutes when someone came to the front door and rang the door bell. The dog flipped out barking and he was awake and screaming instantly. I had offered to watch a friend's kids for her yesterday afternoon ( her husband is in Iraq for a year), so she brought them over around 1:30. Carter was of course crabby from having such a short nap and when she dropped them off she informed me that her 15 month old hadn't had a nap at all. So I had 2 older kids and 2 crabby babies to contend with. I tried to put the other baby down for a nap around 3. Rocked him to sleep but as soon as I stood up to lay him in the pack n play he woke up screaming. I left him for a minute to see if he'd settle, meanwhile went back downstairs where the oldest was keeping an eye on Carter. Picked him up and immediately felt his diaper leak through his pants onto my shirt. Needless to say, without going into every detail, it was a crazy afternoon, and I was very glad to survive it without any major incidents!!

Carter is walking everywhere now...when he wants to. Somedays he walks all over the place and others he still crawls...depends on his mood I guess? He loves reading all of his books, loves my pots and pans still, loves chasing the kitties everywhere and generally tormenting them and loves pulling the bows off all my Christmas presents....grrr.

December Pix

Carter's latest pix from this week. He has surprisingly not tried to pull down my Christmas tree yet....yet...there are still 12 days to go, remember.



He has 2 new teeth as of last week. He also now knows that a cow says moo (he has a book with a picture of a calf in it and always says "Booo" when we get to that page.) Booo - mooo, close enough, right?? :)

Animusic

So Carter rarely if ever watches television, which is fine by me. I have tried a handful of times to get him to watch something so I could make dinner or do a load of laundry, but to no avail. But yesterday I stumbled across a special on PBS that caught my eye. It's called Animusic, and as soon as Carter saw and heard it he was mesmerized. I have to admit that I was somewhat mesmerized as well. Here is a clip



There are a bunch of different songs that they do, you can find most on You Tube. Pretty cool!

LuLu Bell Strikes Again

All my well-orchestrated plans for a few minutes of free time yesterday were nearly thwarted....by a dog named "LuLu Bell". I kid you not. Said creature has previously ventured into our yard. Apparently her owners think it's fine to let her roam free throughout the neighborhood. She is a small white fluffy dog, the kind I affectionately refer to as a Fufu.

Well I knew when I saw it that I was doomed if the dog or cats caught a glimpse...they would all be woofing and howling at eachother. I shooed Radar down into the basement before she saw it and the cats were safely upstairs sleeping on my bed. Phew...close call!

"Tasty Treats"

Carter was on an eating spree yesterday for some reason. Not like I don't feed him constantly or anything. He started by sampling some of the dirt from a house plant. Next he took 2 bites out of a candle in my family room, yuck! And finally he made a valiant attempt to put one of Radar's bones in his mouth, but I grabbed that away before he was able to, phew. You never know what this kid is going to try!

Decorating

I love this time of year and all the traditions that go along with it. This past weekend we went out in the sub-zero temperatures to get our Christmas tree. Due to the extreme cold, we spent about 5 minutes looking around the lot of trees, grabbed one, tied it to the roof of my car, and sped home to get warmed up. Only when we arrived home and set up the tree did we realize our lack of sound judgement in this decision. The tree was very much see-through and had several gaping holes in it. But, trying to remain optimistic, I assured Derrick it would look fine once it had some decorations on it. Several hours later, it did look much better, but it certainly wasn't one of our better tree purchases.

After all the decorating was complete, I was trying to take the boxes downstairs to get the house back in order. There was a large box that had about 10 strands of lights still in it and as I was walking down the steps, the handle ripped and the whole thing went crashing down the steps. Needless to say, Derrick wasn't all that happy that I had desecrated his sacred lights.

Unanswerable questions....the rantings of a tired mom

1. Why does Carter sleep in on the days we need to go somewhere early (Sundays) and wake up at 6 am on days I would LOVE to sleep in?
2. Why does my cat who usually can't/won't meow, decide to start howling his little lungs out every single night after I turn off the lights?
3. Why does my dog, (who I was promised would clean up all the food Carter drops on the floor), turn up her nose at almost anything he drops, except maybe steak and chicken?
4. Why does pet hair accumulate faster than the national debt?
5. Why is my cat obsessed with licking his belly and playing with straws and q-tips?
6. Why does the phone always ring right after I put the baby to sleep?
7. Why too do my cats somehow sense I have just put the baby to sleep and commence immediately with chasing eachother all over the house like 2 stampeding elephants?
8. Why do telemarketers always call at dinner time?
9. Why does juice apparently taste better after the sippy cup has been thrown down on the floor several times?
10. Why at 8 pm am I ready to collapse and my son is still going stronger than the Energizer Bunny?

Why bother with toys...

Why do we buy toys. This doesn't seem like a deep philosophical question, and if you observe the pics I just took this morning, you will see the cause of my frustration. Yes those are ALL of my pots and pans all over my kitchen floor...again...

What should I be asking for for Christmas for my son who refuses to play with his toys? Yesterday I took a bunch of toys out of his toybox for him to play with, and there was a spatula on the floor...what does he go for, but the spatula.

He's also been on a beat-up-mommy rampage this week, giving me a fat lip twice by headbutting me and yesterday he threw a train at my head which hit me in the eye and left a big bump by my eyebrow. BOYS!!!!

I better go clean up the mess...

Catching up...

So I've been a bit remiss in my blogging efforts lately with the holiday and all, but hopefully I can get back on track before the Christmas craze sets in.

We had a nice Thanksgiving catching up with lots of family and friends, but are now ready to crash at home for the next week after all the traveling. Carter is doing great in the car these days, staying awake for most of the drive but being really good the whole time. He's been looking into some career options lately, trying his hand out at being a train conductor...
...or a pilot...

It is hard to believe it's already December and that Christmas is only 24 days away. I was debating about putting up a tree this year due to the craziness of my son, but I found some shatterproof ornaments and figured I'd give them a try. I just hope he doesn't pull the whole thing over on himself!

From 70 to Snow...

This picture was taken on Friday when it was still warm and sunny. Today it was not...it was very cold and windy and flurried all day, occasionally landing on the lawn just to taunt me. So sad. Carter has a whole repertoir of new tricks these days. He loves to say "Uh-Oh" anytime he drops something or bumps into something, he waves, claps, throws a ball as seen in this photo, and points, and Derrick swears he can say "potato" now...which is rather odd, but it's also odd that he has repeatedly crawled into my pantry when I accidentally leave the door open, grabbed a raw potato and eaten part or it. Disgusting, I know.

This is a picture of my MOPS craft from this past week. We made package cakes using fondant icing. It was tons of fun and really cute.

The Big 1

We had a birthday party for Carter yesterday and he really enjoyed himself. We did a dog-themed party so I had a doggie banner, dog bone cookies and paw print balloons....that was the extent of it.
I gave Carter a little cupcake for his "smash cake." He was rather dainty with it at first, just playing with the icing.




It is crazy how quickly one year has flown by. It really does seem like it was just yesterday that I went into labor and we brought little Carter home from the hospital. He has brought unimaginable joy to our lives in this past year and we are all the more excited for the years to come and what new adventures those will hold for our family.

Chocolate Chip Catastrophe

So I thought it'd be cute to make chocolate chip cookies the shape of dog bones for a dessert/favor for Carter's big bday party this Sunday. (We are doing a dog theme for his party) Note to self, stop coming up with these clever but ridiculous ideas, PLEASE!!! I made the cookies just as the directions said, then I was trying to figure out how to get them shaped correctly. I have a dog bone shaped cookie cutter so I pressed the dough into that and then onto the trays...perfect. Stuck them in for 10 minutes and when they came out of the oven they were these indistinguishable blobs, all grown together and really quite hideous looking. Not only that but they cooked all unevenly, (I think the cheapo butter I used totally messed them up) so that made them all the more hideous. So I took the cookie cutter again and cut the cookies out of the blobs, which kinda worked for about 1/2 of them and the other half stuck or fell apart. Trying to salvage some shred of dignity, I made another batch of just regular cookies...but these I burned. My final batch I tried a different cookie sheet...they look so-so...but they are so stuck to the sheet that they are still sitting on my counter, 4 hours later, stuck on the sheet...maybe I'll feel like chiseling them off later tonight.

Lessons learned from this experience today:

1. Buy Land O Lakes Butter for cooking...unless you like crusty burned cookies that are impossible to scrape off the tray

2. DO NOT attempt to make chocolate chip cookies into different shapes - they will spread while cooking and all your efforts will only result in creepy deformed looking cookies

3. Don't make cookies when you are trying to keep to a strict diet...you end up eating all the rejects and in this case when they are ALL rejects, you end up eating like 2 dozen cookies or bits of cookies before it's even 10 am!!!

4. Sam's club sells perfectly good cookies...next year I will remember this.

Spoiled milk and splish splash fun

So I started giving Carter cow's milk over the last couple weeks in an effort to transition him from nursing to regular milk. We were making good progress but the last few days he's been totally refusing it when I offered it to him. So I'm like, OK, why did he stop liking it all of a sudden?? But tonight I got a whiff of it and WHOOEEE...it was smellin' a little shady. So I took a sip, which would have been bad enough as it is because it was whole milk, but it was definitely a few days past being good...nice bitter aftertaste...yummmmmyyy. So I guess that is why the poor kiddo didn't want any. Just hope I didn't scar him from drinking it ever again.

New talent learned yesterday was waving goodbye. I was video taping him and while turning off the camera I said byebye...and when I looked up at him he was WAVING at me!!! Of course, I missed it on tape...grrr. But he keeps doing it all the time now so I'm sure I'll catch him in the act sometime soon. He hasn't gotten the hand wave quite down, it's more like a spastic whole-arm wave but that makes it all the more cute.

His new bath talent is pulling the drain open to let the water out and if this isn't successful, he splashes so much that the tub is basically drained. I think I was wetter than him at the end of the bath, my pants were soaked!

Ready for Winter

Carter was testing out his new winter hat tonight...thanks Mama K!! We took a walk after dark in the cold and he stayed nice and snuggly. I can't believe he's turning 1 in 11 days!!!!

Despair.com

I love these, here are some new ones I had to post:

Blahhhh Winter

Did I ever mention how much I dislike winter? I know it's only just fall, but seriously, it's close enough to start whining. We change the clocks back this weekend which is even more depressing. Seriously, why do we need to do that? I hate to sound all un-enviromentally friendly, but is a little Global Warming all that bad? Who couldn't admit that being able to wear shorts in winter would be awesome!?! I know, I know...the polar bears, the ice caps, holes in the ozone...you won't see me out in my backyard spraying aerosol cans into the sky anytime soon, I'm not that crazy...but I really wouldn't mind it being just a few degrees warmer.

Yoda, I am

We had our neighborhood Halloween Parade last night. About a hundred kids showed up in garb along with all their parents which created quite a spectacle. Carter seemed to enjoy himself! He even kept his hat on the whole time without protest which was a small miracle to be sure. You can see the goose egg/mark on his forehead from a spill earlier this week...poor kiddo!

He got right into character in this photo by actually trying to levitate our house. His efforts were noteworthy, however unsuccessful.

Yearning for a fall treat?

I was tonight, so I made these...delish!!


Old Fashioned Apple Dumplings

INGREDIENTS
1 recipe pastry for double-crust pie
6 large Granny Smith apples, peeled and cored
1/2 cup butter
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
3 cups water
2 cups white sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract


DIRECTIONS
Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). Butter a 9x13 inch pan.

On a lightly floured surface, roll pastry into a large rectangle, about 24 by 16 inches. Cut into 6 square pieces. Place an apple on each pastry square with the cored opening facing upward. Cut butter into 8 pieces. Place 1 piece of butter in the opening of each apple; reserve remaining butter for sauce. Divide brown sugar between apples, poking some inside each cored opening and the rest around the base of each apple. Sprinkle cinnamon and nutmeg over the apples.

With slightly wet fingertips, bring one corner of pastry square up to the top of the apple, then bring the opposite corner to the top and press together. Bring up the two remaining corners, and seal. Slightly pinch the dough at the sides to completely seal in the apple. Repeat with the remaining apples. Place in prepared baking dish.
In a saucepan, combine water, white sugar, vanilla extract and reserved butter. Place over medium heat, and bring to a boil in a large saucepan. Boil for 5 minutes, or until sugar is dissolved. Carefully pour over dumplings.

Bake in preheated oven for 50 to 60 minutes. Place each apple dumpling in a dessert bowl, and spoon some sauce over the top.

Goth Baby and the Marshmallow Fiend

I took Carter to a free "Babies and Books" class at the Library today. It was an interesting experience to say the least. I will say that he sat on my lap quietly almost the entire time without making one peep. Not sure if it was out of interest in the class or out of awe from all the older kids running around. One little boy and his mommy really caught my eye. She came dressed in all black with huge black sunglasses, black platform clogs and a zebra striped jacket. Her little boy, whose name was Lucky, was also wearing all black, including little black crocs, and had a mohawk. This class was for kids under 2!! Not trying to judge, but don't expect to see Carter with a mohawk anytime in the next year. Anyway, the class was ok, mostly singing and chanting rhymes. When the lady did finally bring out a book, she was not really reading it but kinda making up her own story, and even skipped a bunch of pages and went out of order on some which I thought was totally weird. After spending like 3 minutes on that one book, which she truly didn't even read, she grabbed about 30 books from a stack behind them, spread them out all over the floor, and told the kids to have fun.

Ok, don't get me wrong, it is awesome to foster an interest in books as early as possible, but telling a room full of 20 under-2-year-olds to have a free for all with books they can't really do anything with is totally inviting chaos. This was not they way I remembered story hour going when I was a kid...but I suppose times have changed.

We made it back from the class and by the time we got home Carter was sound asleep in his carseat which has now officially become the bane of my existence. With the seat weighing in at 7 or 8 lbs empty and Carter adding a healthy 23 or 24 more lbs on top of that, it's an all-out ordeal loading and unloading him from the car. I did manange to get him inside without waking him but as soon as I tried to get him out of the seat, he was wide awake.

I took him upstairs and did my fail safe naptime nursing which always puts him right to sleep, however about 2 minutes in I felt my lap growing very warm...and wet....ewwww, yes he peed all over himself and me. Can I scream at the makers of Pampers Cruisers and ask why a diaper would leak like that all over the place when it's not even that wet?! So after changing him and me, needless to say, he was not at all ready to go to sleep, even though he was dead tired from waking up at 6:45 AM this morning.

So what else do I do now with the crabby but not ready to nap baby? Feed him! Yes he will always eat, even if he's not hungry it seems. After downing a jar of delicious smelling green beans and rice, I thought I'd indulge him a little and poured a few Lucky Charms out on his tray. Like any kid, he grabs ALL of the marshmallows first and stuffs them all in his mouth simultaneously. So when I turn around after taking 60 seconds to seal the bag and stick it back in the pantry, all that are left are the oat cereals, no marshmallows and Carter looks like a chipmunk with the marshmallows bulging out of his mouth. I swear I don't teach him these things!! I did finally get him down to sleep an hour and a half later...sigh with relief.

Punkins and leaves and chilly weather....oh my!

 

We are loving the fall color right now. I dragged Carter out this morning in the chilly weather to grab a few fall leaf pictures. Some turned out better than others...

Between Two Worlds: Barack Obama on "What Is at Stake in This Election"

This is the agenda Obama wants to pursue...this is who he really is. There are 1.2 million abortions in our country each year. He is working hard to get Senate bill 1173 passed "The Freedom of Choice Act" which basically is open book legislation to allow women to obtain abortions at any stage of pregnancy for such reasons as her "health and well-being". Don't know if you caught that in the debate last night but health and well-being can basically mean anything. He has stated that passing this bill is the first thing he will do when he is elected president. I fail to see how increasing the number of abortions in our country creates equal opportunities for our daughters. That is a very flawed argument.

Note around 8:30 when he says he opposed the appointments of Justices Roberts and Alito. McCain mentioned this last night that you elect Supreme Court Justices not based on your personal beliefs but on their merits. Obama clearly has strong beliefs and he intends to act and lead based on his personal beliefs, not on what is right for our country.

http://www.nrlc.org/abortion/pba/diagram.html

My 2 cents

Don't read this post if you don't want to hear my political opinions...I don't profess to know all the answers to our nation's problems, nor do I believe EITHER candidate will solve every issue...but I believe there is a clear moral distinction in the way we as Christians should vote in a few weeks.

Professor Robert P. George of Princeton University is, hands down, the most eloquent voice of the pro-life movement; and his latest essay, “Obama’s Abortion Extremism,” is nothing short of a masterpiece. Here is just a taste of Professor George’s must-read compilation of Senator Barack Obama’s radical views on abortion and embryonic stem cell research:

What kind of America do we want our beloved nation to be? Barack Obama’s America is one in which being human just isn’t enough to warrant care and protection. It is an America where the unborn may legitimately be killed without legal restriction, even by the grisly practice of partial-birth abortion. It is an America where a baby who survives abortion is not even entitled to comfort care as she dies on a stainless steel table or in a soiled linen bin. It is a nation in which some members of the human family are regarded as inferior and others superior in fundamental dignity and rights. In Obama’s America, public policy would make a mockery of the great constitutional principle of the equal protection of the law. In perhaps the most telling comment made by any candidate in either party in this election year, Senator Obama, when asked by Rick Warren when a baby gets human rights, replied: ”that question is above my pay grade.” It was a profoundly disingenuous answer: For even at a state senator’s pay grade, Obama presumed to answer that question with blind certainty. His unspoken answer then, as now, is chilling: human beings have no rights until infancy - and if they are unwanted survivors of attempted abortions, not even then.

Read the entire piece, and email it to everyone you know (especially those who claim to be pro-life and currently support Obama). Voters need to know just how extreme Obama is when it comes to abortion and other “culture of life” issues.

Also, take a minute to watch this commercial...it is extremely thought provoking!

11 months and counting

I can't believe it's less than one month till Carter turns 1 year old!!! Where did the time go??? It's been a whirlwind since finding out I was pregnant to having him and now, a year later almost...look how far we've come. He's jabbering like crazy these days, most favorite word is Dada of course. :) He's climbing and crawling on everything. It's only a matter of time until he walks now. He's getting braver by the day ...letting go of whatever he is holding onto when he stands. He seems to require less and less sleep as time passes which means I have less and less time to get anything done around the house or for myself...which is rather exhausting at times. But it's fun to see him becoming more engaged with his surroundings and with other people and his smile still melts my heart.

Today he learned how to blink...with both eyes at the same time. He would blink, then I'd blink back, then he'd blink again and smile...it was really cute. No idea where he came up with that but it entertained him for a few minutes at least.

Prayers for a family in need

There was an announcement at church this morning about a family whose house burned down last Monday. Two young boys (8 and 4) were killed in the fire. It turns out this family were attenders of our church. Their mother led a Bible study I attended in town a few years ago. Her son, the boys' father, was tragically shot to death 15 months ago, and now, his widow lost everything she owned to this fire, including 2 of her three children. Our pastor was crying out loud as he prayed for this dear family...it was heart-wrenching. His whole sermon today was about going through hard times and knowing that God works out all situations for the good of those who trust in Him. Hard to imagine in a situation like this. There are a lot of hurting people right now with our country going through the economic struggles that we are, but we can't forget those around us who are in greater need and be there to support them.

Take care of yourself

Today at my MOPS group they had a group of doctors come in to do health screenings. I got my first bone density test...very cool little ultrasound device that scans your ankle, and found out that my bone density is off the charts good. Which is good to know. I must be doing something right! They also had a BMI screening, blood pressure, posture screening and a massage therapist which was WONDERFUL. I haven't been for a physical in at least 6 years and this did make me think about it more and realize how important it is to take care of yourself. I mean, ever second of every day I'm stressing about the well-being of my child, what I feed him, is he getting enough of all the food groups/vitamins/nutrients he needs, regular check-ups, etc. And here I am not doing these same things for myself. I do try to eat as healthfully as I can, but I know I can do more. As moms, we owe it to ourselves and our families to be sure we are healthy and to take good care of ourselves. After all, we want to be around for a long time!!

Upon arriving home to my chaotic household, the scene I beheld was as follows - carpet from my stairs was laying on my driveway and front door step, all the furniture from my family room is scattered throughout my downstairs, pieces of carpet are everywhere, pets are running around frantically. My mother-in-law was kind enough to watch Carter all morning amidst this chaos. I will be SO glad when the carpeting is done...(we had already gone through this once when Derrick tried to install it himself 2 weeks ago).

The Weekend in Pictures

Dangerous crackers

So I was looking at the ingredients of my animal crackers the other day and noticed they have partially hydrogenated oil in them. Anything with "partially hydrogenated" means Trans Fat, in case you weren't aware. This made me pretty angry since these are a popular children's snack. Won't be buying those ever again. Keep your eyes open!

** To note, if Trans Fat content is under .5 grams, they don't have to list it. So you can still be getting small amounts of trans fat even if it says there are 0 grams!

Crazy Day

So we are leaving for NY tomorrow and I spent the whole day packing a crazy amount of stuff we need to bring along. It is going to be oh so much fun cramming it all into my car tonight, then getting up at 3 or 4 am to drive up there, me, Carter, Derrick and of course we couldn't go without Radar this time. Oh joy. Do I sound whiny at all??? Maybe the fact that I got like 3 hours of sleep last night has something to do with it??

I had to go fill my car up with gas this afternoon and ran into Target afterwards to grab a few things. When I came out to my car, I was totally confused because the lights were on and it was RUNNING!?! I was like, ok, is this the twilight zone or something because the key is totally in my hand, not the ignition and I'm standing outside my car and it is running. I really must be halucinating from sleep deprivation or something. Apparently the remote starter Derrick installed on my car several years ago responded to someone else's remote...yea we better take that little feature off my car before I have a serious heart attack.

Anyway, here's a pic of Carter in his fall-ish garb, sporting his new haircut. Isn't he cute?? :)

Playtime Ideas??

Does anyone have any advice/tips for getting a baby to play independently? Carter used to be better at this but recently he ALWAYS wants me to be right by his side when he is playing. He can be totally engrossed with a toy when I'm there and as soon as I turn my back to do something else, he immediately wants me to hold him. Very endearing yes, but it makes it hard to get anything done around the house. That and the fact that he only takes one nap a day. Anyway, I'm all ears for anything that worked for you.

Great Race

We competed in the Great Race again today...my 10th time running in it. And for having had a C-Section less than a year ago, I was really pleased to have finished in 53:47 for 6.2 miles. It felt good to run it again this year (I had to walk last year due to being 7.5 months pregnant.)

Not sure if we'll do any more races this year...once it gets cold it's not much fun to run in races.

Let them eat GARLIC!!

So I never have professed to be the mother of the year...far from it! Yes, it's slightly embarrassing from time to time some of the things Carter gets into, but I promise you it happens to every mom in some way or another (just not all may be willing to publicly admit it!) Anyway, this is too funny not to share...Carter was crawling around on the kitchen floor yesterday morning while I cleaned up breakfast. I saw him put something in his mouth which I immediately tried to dig out. (Not an easy task) I couldn't see anything and he was flipping out so I figured he had swallowed whatever it was already. A little later I was carrying him around the house and I kept smelling this really strong garlic smell. Finally I took a whiff of his breath and whoooeeee, it was SOOO garlicky. He must have eaten a pretty good size chunk of garlic. (I'd cut a bunch up the night before to make homemade tomato sauce and a piece must have fallen on the floor). Well, all day yesterday, he had garlic breath. Ok, maybe not the funniest story ever but it made me laugh every time I held him. :)

Sunny Smile

How could you not love this kid??

Dirt Deficit

I have very lofty goals these days....eat three square meals a day, manage to change out of my PJ's before noon, get outside of my house at some point, (even if just to get the mail), and rid my house of more dirt/mess than has accumulated that day. I'm sorry to say there are many days that these goals are not achieved, particularly the dirt deficit. Being able to get rid of more dirt and mess in the house than accumulates in one day really doesn't seem like that big of a deal, RIGHT? NOT QUITE!!

As I've mentioned in previous posts, the amount of animal hair that can build up in one day is absolutely sickening, hence I have to vacuum and swiffer nearly every day. But just because I vacuumed the floor and wiped off the linoleum in the morning, doesn't mean I'm scott-free for the rest of the day. (See exhibit A below - the culprits)

After each meal Carter eats, a lovely mish-mash of food manages to be stuck all over the floor under his seat. The dog, who I was told would LOVE TO EAT his scraps, seems completely uninterested in anything he drops to the floor. Hence I now need to clean the floor 3 to 5 times a day. Worthless mutt.

Carter's "toys" also seem to overtake every room of the house these days....as well as two baby gates I now need to maneuver around to get up and down the steps, his carseat, his carrier/backpack, his exersaucer, his jumper, and the boppy.

He revels in chaos, if I pick something up, he pulls it back down, if I stack some books he's finished reading, he then decides he wants them spread out all over the floor again.

I really do promise my house is not a disgusting mess, but I sometimes feel that all I do all day long is clean and pick up stuff...over and over again. Maybe I am somewhat OCD when it comes to cleaning, but I feel like I can never get ahead of the dirt. Just to be able to sit down at the end of the day and feel that my house is really CLEAN would be so nice. (Maybe in about 50 years from now)

A sneak peek...

at Carter's Halloween Costume....can you guess what he'll be?


Also, the toybox Derrick made him is almost finished...see Carter testing it out!

Annual Performance Review

So about this time of year, I'm used to writing my own performance review. Since my new "boss" isn't quite capable of writing a review for me yet, I figured I'd continue the trend and write one for the past year. My new "job" is certainly different than any of the previous ones I've held, so the review will be a little different than the typical business review. Without further ado:

CREATIVITY:
Able to adapt to quickly-changing situations and find new activities to occupy even the shortest attention span. Not afraid to act like a fool, dancing and singing whenever necessary to induce laughter and smiles.

TEAMWORK:
Works well with other parental unit in successfully managing the baby.

CLEANLINESS:
Needs improvement in this category as child is in constant state of disarray whenever food is present.

BATH TIME:
The purpose of bath time is to keep child IN the tub. Due to the fact that child now spends most baths in a standing position, the maximum cleanliness is not always achieved.

PATIENCE:
No matter how many times a book is read, parent must never tire of it. Parent must learn to deal with the screaming every time a diaper is changed or face is wiped. The baby is always right.

ADAPTABILITY:
Making plans to get up early and get lots of things accomplished around the house is great, but no plans should ever be definite. Parent must be able to deal with the fact that the child woke up very early this morning, thereby thwarting all efforts to get things done, then refused to take a nap for almost 6 hours, and is now waking up after being asleep for only 30 minutes....AHHHHHHH

Read this book

I read this book on vacation for our neighborhood book club. I recommend that every woman and especially mother read this book...really makes you stop and think how good we have it in this country. Very few books have actually made me cry but this one did.

The sacrifices we make...

I used to think I was a fairly thoughtful, selfless person...not incredibly self-centered or self-focused....and then I became a parent. And THEN I understood what it TRULY meant to be self-less and other-focused. ALWAYS putting the best interest of your child before your own. Feeding him when he's hungry, even if I'm completely ravenous, rocking him to sleep when he's tired, even if I'm so weary I can hardly keep my eyes open, bathing him every night, even when I don't even get a chance to shower sometimes for a couple of days. Tiptoeing around the house while he's napping, even though there are about a million things I'm trying to get done in the hour or two he sleeps. But I'm not complaining...yes it's hard a lot of days and yes there are times I want to just ignore his demands and do something for me...but I do feel I'm a better person for being made to basically serve someone else, 24/7.

Rough weekend

Kiddo is getting a new tooth, and we are all suffering because of it. Last night he woke up at 12 AM and was up until 3:30 AM. Oh what fun that was. He hasn't really been napping much at all and is very crabby...and so am I. My tolerance for him being up half the night is definitely diminshed at this stage in the game. I can see the tooth coming through at least so hopefully the worst is over.

Last night we ran a few errands and stopped at a hamburger joint for a quick bite to eat. Cater was sitting on Derrick's lap and all of a sudden Derrick looks at me and says, OH NO!! Carter peed all over him! So.... not... cool. I didn't however feel 100% sorry for Derrick, since Carter did the same thing to me the day before and Derrick laughed at me....not so funny after all huh?? :)

Making Trouble

Why is it that kids always seem to be on a mission to make trouble? I mean really, with a closet full of colorful, learning-oriented toys, a bookshelf full of books and three pets as distractions, you'd think SOMETHING would appeal to Carter, but no, he'd still rather chew on my disgusting flipflop, pull on power cords, bang on pots and pans, or try to eat dog or cat food. Lovely! (No I do not intentionally let him eat my shoes, I promise!!!) What is a parent to do...when a kid has a whole 2 minute attention span and they don't like any of their toys and only want to get into things they shouldn't be getting into..it can make for a long day sometimes. And he's not even walking yet!!! The other night Derrick was complaining at the number of dishes in the sink to wash, a spatula, two sets of measuring spoons, a pot, a measuring cup, a wire whisk and a mixing bowl...Carter had been playing with all of those during the afternoon.

His newest pasttime is climbing up on top of my coffee table. He loves the idea of lifting himself off the floor I guess...who knows...but he's already taken one tumble and I am sure it will happen again as long as he keeps trying these daredevil stunts. :)

10 Months Old!

10 months old already...where has the time gone?? Some new talents this week are, clapping when I say "clap", climbing up two steps, and climbing up on top of the coffee table.


He also does this cute little nose scrunch ALL the time now which always makes me smile. He's a real character.

Where did summer go??

We made it back from NC safe and sound on Saturday. It's good to be home, but sad to say goodbye to summer. Carter had a blast at the beach...loved the sand, the birds, the water. It was a real joy to see him having so much fun last week.

We were joined by a few college friends for a couple days at the beach. So fun to catch up with Laura and Brian!!
We found this pint-sized turtle walking down to the beach...
All in all, it was a wonderful week away and we have so many great memories from the trip. Carter is crawling everywhere, pulling up on all the furniture, climbed up two steps yesterday, chatting away, eating all kinds of new food by himself...growing up too fast!!!

Time for Vacation

Well, we survived the first leg of our journey to the Outer Banks. We drove from Pittsburgh to New Jersey yesterday and had to pass through about three hours worth of heavy rain and fog from Tropical Storm Fay. So pleasant. At one point there was so much water on the road that my car hydroplaned really badly...quite scary. I was still catching my breath after my life flashed before my eyes and Derrick looks over at me after skillfully maneuvering out of the fishtail and says, "it's a good thing I played so many video games when I was younger." Uh ok, not what I was thinking at that moment. At least we were ok and my car was unscathed.

Tomorrow begins stage 2 of our trip from NJ to the Outer Banks. We'll hope for a less eventful drive!!

Zucchini Remix

I made this recipe for Zucchini Patties for the second time tonight. I'm a big fan...very yummy.

Makes 4 servings

INGREDIENTS
2 cups grated zucchini
2 eggs, beaten
1/4 cup chopped onion
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1/2 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
salt to taste
2 tablespoons vegetable oil

DIRECTIONS
In a medium bowl, combine the zucchini, eggs, onion, flour, Parmesan cheese, mozzarella cheese, and salt. Stir well enough to distribute ingredients evenly.
Heat a small amount of oil in a skillet over medium-high heat. Drop zucchini mixture by heaping tablespoonfuls, and cook for a few minutes on each side until golden.

Ball Pit

Not much explanation needed...my friend I.C. recommended this to me and I finally got around to buying the balls for a homemade ball pit. Needless to say, Carter is loving it. He kicks like a little frog and sends the balls flying...so cute!

His first "mama"

Carter said Mama for the first time yesterday. I sorta half heard it and then he didn't do it again the rest of the day. But this morning he said it again several times. Soooo exciting.

He is now pointing at EVERYTHING too, which is neat to see. He's finally connecting words to objects and he is communicating with us this way too. He's crawling everywhere and faster by the day. This morning he spilled the dog's food all over the floor...don't know what I'm going to do with that but it will probably have to be moved very soon. Ugh.

Haircut: before and after (and a new talent)

BEFORE

Derrick got tired of people calling Carter a girl, and so finally after an incident at Kohl's last week when he was wearing all blue and a woman asked me how old "she" was, I bit the bullet and let Derrick proceed with a haircut. Sniff, sniff...I wanted to hold out till 1 year, but I have to admit it does look better now.



AFTER


You can see in the background of my after pic, my OCD kitty licking his bald stomach. Yes, my pets are all insane. Like Carter's new skill of standing on my coffee table??