Meals are no longer very pleasant in our house. For breakfast, we usually give Carter a Nutrigrain bar, but often he prefers to eat our breakfast too.



Yes, he is spoiled rotten!

Carter marched his way into our closet, pointed at his dog costume hanging on the top shelf, and said,"woof woof" until we took it down and put it on him. I'm glad to know he shouldn't mind wearing it for Halloween.

Carter's No-Fail Method to Getting Comfortable:

1. Collect as many blankets and pillows as you can find
2. Place everything on the sofa where you want to sit
3. Try out your spot
4. If it isn't good enough, look for another pillow

5. Snuggle up next to Dada

We are learning early to not let Carter make too many choices when getting dressed.



Yes, those are socks with his sandals!

Carter has a funny obsession with laundry baskets. If he sees one, he has to get in it.
If we are carrying one, we have to put it down, so he can get in it and ride.

Carter thinks my large LL Bean bag is just awesome.
He can load it with the toys he wants to play with, and drag it to any location in the house. When he gets there, he can sit in and play.
It also make a great seat for a snack.

Check out flickr on the right hand side. I just added pictures from July until now.

This is my big boy who turned 18 months old last week! If there are tears, it's no big deal. He is learning to throw some wonderful tantrums. These tantrums include rolling around on the ground, getting on his hands and feet and banging his head into the floor, and rolling around more to get to wall to bang his head. I just like to tell myself this is a sign of his being highly gifted, and he is just frustrated from not being able to communicate.

We took pictures today. It was crazy. Carter did not want to sit still, and when he did, he looked serious while he inspected the photographer's camera.

We did get a few with him smiling.


After, we changed him into his Halloween costume. He thought it was more fun to slide down the back drop repeatedly. After, he would say, "uh-oh!"

(We did edit Kevin's hand out of the picture)

We switched back drops thinking this would help, but Carter was just not interested. I don't blame him. I didn't like the columns either.

Our trip to Camp Greenville ended up being very nice. The weather was cool up in the mountains, and it was nice to be away from school. We did different group activities. My favorite were a hike to Showerbath Falls. The kids walked behind the waterfall.

On our same hike, they slid down a large rock.
It was cold that night (lower forties), but I loved it. After some chaos, an extremely sick student, our electricity going out, and twice as many girls on my side of the cabin than I should have had, we were able to get up and get ready early enough to hike to Pretty Place to see the sunrise.
It was definitely worth it!

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: