People keep commenting on Carter's belly, but it sure isn't enough to keep his pants up! Poor boy is in 18-24 month tops and 12 month bottoms. Here he is modeling some 18th month pants:
(I couldn't get him to cooperate for a standing picture)

How to eat a banana Carter style

1. Let Mama give you half of her banana

2. Take a bite
3. Shove the rest in your mouth and ask Mama for the rest of her banana

Carter started in a new classroom on September 19th. They divided the toddler room. So far, we are very happy and really like the teacher we have met. His best buddy is Aaron. Carter will say his name but no one else's from school when I try to get him to. When I leave, they have to tell each other, "bye." Carter even knocks on the glass as we close the door behind us.

His personality is really coming out. Here are a few of his antics:

• While on the phone with my mom, I look, and he is sitting in the middle of the kitchen table.
• When we ask Carter if he is stinky, he waves his had behind him, and say "oooo, ooooo" for "poo foo."
• I took Carter to a large sporting goods store. We were in there for quite some time. When we got to the car, Carter said "uh-oh." I looked to see him missing a shoe. I had to go back into the store and search for it. I was really beginning to sweat, thinking we lost a Stride Rite shoe on the first day he wore it.
• He is really affectionate and offers lots of hugs to us, Tiger, and his blankets.
• Carter wants to talk on the phone all the time and will turn anything into a phone.
• He refuses to sit down to eat. We have given him his own little table. He would rather just dump his food off his plate and onto the floor.

As for Kevin and me....I've been running, and Kevin is back to playing baseball. I'm trying not to drown in work, but I can never seem to get away with not doing quite a few hours worth of work outside of school. Thursday night, I will be spending the night on a field study in cabins with 6th graders leaving Kevin to be a single parent. I don't know who has it worse!

After Carter's nap today, we decided to take him to a park. We started by going to Finlay Park, but it was way too crowded. I have been running at Riverfront Park and remembered there's a playground there. There were only a few other kids. He had a blast. At first, he was unsure of what to do and just ran around. Once we put him on the slide, he decided this was a fun place.
He let Dadda chase him through a tube:


Carter loved the tube slide. Even when he fell over going down, he still cracked up laughing. He even tried to go back up the slide.
After, we went to the public library. They have a really cool kids room. Hopefully Carter will appreciate it when he is older.

Who knew a diaper box could be so much fun? Also, a laundry basket makes a great toddler carrier.

A shortened Swiffer can provide many hours of entertainment and little free floor cleaning:

Carter put all his toys in the bag and hopped in.

He also decided the bag a good mode of transportation to take his toys along:

Carter's vocabulary is slowly increasing. He has always said Mama and Dada. Mama can mean me or "I want."

His other favorite is "ct" for Tiger cat.

We have learned that "doot doot" means Kevin's keys for the noise his remote makes.

He is saying "ball" a lot and will say milk when we offer him some.

He says "thank you" when he hands us something.

He will also repeat "Poppa."

Carter just doesn't seem to be extremely interested in using words we can understand, but he jabbers a lot.

Carter has started taking my sunglasses and asking me to put them on him. Of course, he doesn't want to wear them when he outside! He also likes to hide in Kevin's clothes in the closet.

Now that Carter is getting older, we decided to join the zoo. Last Sunday, we, along with half of Columbia went to the zoo.

I think Carter enjoyed people watching more than anything else. His favorite animals were the bats, penguins, and a tortoise. We parked his stroller in front of the penguins. His eye level was under water, but he would crack up laughing any time one swam by.

Looking at the wallabies.

Watching the giraffes:

On Thursday, we found out that there was a confirmed case of swine flu in Carter's class. By the time I picked him up at 4:00, all but 2 other babies had been picked up. On Friday, there were only 5 kids in his class. I guess these parents are paranoid. Yesterday, Carter's eye started getting red, and he had a low grade fever. His eye didn't look any better today, and his fever was hovering around 100 degrees. We took him to our doctor's weekend clinic. The doctor confirmed he has pink eye and ran a flu test. Thank goodness it came back negative.

Carter and I will stay home tomorrow. We were told that he can go back to school after being on eye drops for 24 hours. I just hope he doesn't have fever tomorrow.


You can see a little pink in the outside corner of his left eye. It's really not that bad.

Happy Birthday, Dad!

We couldn't ask for a better one!

Carter is becoming such a good little helper. He even abandoned his toast (yes, that's my old blanket)
to help me unload the dishwasher

Watching the Real Housewive of Atlanta. Oh, it that not appropriate family entertainment?

At least he had a math book next to him to distract him.

Do you think this little stinker could have done it?

I spy something that doesn't quite belong. You may also find it in the warming drawer or the wooden spoon drawer.

Playing with Da Da

Sitting in the rocker like a big boy. (This was probably after he tried to dump one of us out of it.)

Stirring Kix with wooden spoons:

Mmmmmm, guacamole. Who knew a 1 year old would like it so much that he would lick it off of crackers and rub it on his face and in his hair?