15 Months

Weight: 24 lbs. (50th percentile)

Height: 32.5 inches (90th percentile)

Head: 19 inches (90th percentile)

Today we had our 15-month well-check with the pediatrician, and we heard both great news (you are developing perfectly with weight/height, language, motor skills, social skills, etc) and some scary news (you need surgery to repair a hydrocoele). Let's address the bad stuff first...without being too graphic, apparently one of your very important man parts (ahem, starts with "t" and rhymes with schmesticle) is full of fluid due to a leak in your abdomen which could cause a hernia and land us in the ER, so we are hopefully going to get this taken care of surgically before this happens. Buddy, you just can't catch a break! This will be your second surgery...and we hear you might need a third if you are really sick this winter again because one of your tubes is on its way out of your ear. Lovely. Enough bad stuff, let's talk about all the WONDERFUL things you are doing right now!

Over the summer, you cut yourself down to one GLORIOUSLY LONG nap each day from about 11:30/12 to 2ish. YOU are happier, MAMA is happier, and LIFE IS GOOD. :) You are still super picky when you eat - if you could live on fruit, yogurt, and lil' crunchies alone, you'd be happy as a clam. Getting you to eat any sort of meat or bread is a huge challenge; I have to be super sneaky to get any protein in you! You also don't really care for your milk anymore...we weaned you from bottles about a month ago, and ever since, you really prefer juice or water. The past few weeks, you've really decided you want to eat using utensils, so meal time lately has been a disaster interesting...

You are just a GOOFBALL lately and love to do anything you can to get us to laugh. You love to play with balls, water, push toys, bubbles, and anything you're not supposed to have. You love to play with cups, ice, and straws and sneak sips out of our drinks all the time. (This morning, you tasted Diet Cherry Limeade...oops.) Your other favorite game is Peekaboo...see below. 

You are understanding almost everything we say to you and are starting to grow your vocabulary...it's slow (you are a boy after all!), but the pediatrician says you're right on track. Your current words are: mama, dada, ball (bah), bubble (bubb), diaper (dye-pah), more (mah), and all done (ah-dah). You are GREAT at sign language and we make you say "please" by patting your chest before we give you something you want. This has majorly cut down on your screaming...my ears thank you!

The "terrible two's" seem to have started early in this house...boy, can you throw a fit! When the fruit snacks run out or I won't let you play with a sharp cooking knife or won't let you touch the candle, you get MAD. Red-faced, screaming, lip stuck out, major tantrum mad.  I actually find it funny sometimes and laugh at you...you don't seem amused by it though. One day you'll see the humor in it...but for now, we let you have your fit and then move on to something else. :) 

Well, I guess that about sums up your 15-month mark! You are crazy, stubborn, demanding, hilarious, sweet, loving, and crazy little one...but we LOVE you more than words can say, Cartman!

Remembering Milestones

The last two weeks have been BIG in the milestones department for you, Cart.

As of Friday, June 8, you have become a (very hesitant) WALKER! Over the past two weeks, you have gotten more and more confident and are up to 6-8 steps consistently without hesitation today. We are so proud (and secretly scared) of our little man growing up!

As of Tuesday, June 19 (our 2-year anniversary!), you have also become a one-nap child and are slowly but surely working up to that one nap starting at 11 or 11:30 in preparation for our new daycare schedule.

You are also communicating so much, buddy! You now routinely say mama, dada, bye-bye, Emma, ma (more), and baba (blankie), and you FINALLY starting waving this week. (A little late to the game on that one, big guy.) The cutest thing you do right now is go over to your walker, start walking down the hall, turn around and wave while saying "bye bye" and then continue walking. We LOVE it, and have GOT to capture this precious move on film! You are also getting SO GOOD at signing more, all done, and please and you love giving slobbery, open-mouth kisses. (Mommy's favorite!)

I can hardly believe my bottle-drinking, crawling, two-nap BABY has become my sippy-drinking, walking, one-nap TODDLER so quickly! Slow down time!

One Year Check-Up

1 Year Weigh-In:

Height: 31 inches (90th percentile)

Weight: 22 pounds, 15 ounces (50th percentile)

Head: 18.8 inches (95th percentile - lots of smarts!)

We got a great report at the pediatrician yesterday! Ears and tubes look great, and little man is growing perfectly. We need to work on losing the bottles sometime between now and 18 months, but we'll take that one slowly and one day at a time. Dr. Newton showed us some molars coming in on the bottom (yikes!) which explains some evening crabbiness and fussiness when you wake up from naps, so hopefully that will subside as those break through. We got 3 shots (yuck!) and were a little fussy last night, but overall, it was a great visit! Great job, Cartman!!

Choo Choo: 1st Birthday Party!

Yesterday, we hosted about 35 of our friends and family in our little house to celebrate Cartman's first birthday. It was exhausting and took a LOT of work, but we had a blast with everyone and had so much fun celebrating the first year! And now, a LOT of pictures. :) We had a great day and are so appreciative of everyone driving out to the burbs to spend it with us!

First, the decorations and FOOD!

This was a banner of all Carter's monthly pictures! Loved this idea from a blog!

Sweet boy swinging before the party and showing off his precious birthday train tee!

Sweet Cousin Liam

Carter and his future wifey, Madelyn in her precious shades!

Sweet friends

Strawberry break!

Love these girls!

Matching grandmas and sweet KK

Cupcake time! He LOVED being the center of all the attention!

Play time!

Loved this!!

Are all these presents for me?!?

Older cousins showing C how it's done.

Sweet personalized gifts from Gammy and Doc!

Dede and Poppy got me my first tricycle!

Gammy (and balloon) love.

Happy 1st Birthday, Cartman!

Well, Cartman, we made it! One year down! I have to admit, I was super emotional on your actual birthday (Thursday) because I couldn't spend the day with you and was so sad that you are growing up so fast. I seriously am in shock that I have a TODDLER on my hands! But baby boy, you are just one big GOOFBALL and crack me up every day, so I have no doubt that the good times will continue long past that first crazy year. Before we get to the actual birthday rundown, let's talk about you at 12 months.

Believe it or not, I have NO SICKNESS to report this month (other than a minor cold that required no meds)! Hallelujah! You cut two new teeth this month and now have a total of 8 - 4 top and 4 bottom. Your smile just gets more and more precious every day!

You are still a stud at eating and are on total table food - you love yogurt, oatmeal, bananas, deli turkey, any veggie (No seriously, if it's green, orange, or yellow, you down it. Love that!), graham crackers, yogurt melts, ravioli, and meatballs. You decided this month that you HATE chicken...like, chew it up, make a face, and spit it back out, hate it...so getting any protein in you is quite a challenge since chicken is our primary meat. Luckily, you LOVE your whole milk (no more formula!) and drink about 20 ounces of it a day, so I don't worry about the protein too much. The one challenge we have on our hands with you in the nutrition department is getting you to give up those bottles. We've tried and tried and tried, but stubborn bug, you will just NOT drink milk from a sippy cup. We've tried straw cups, warming the milk, putting chocolate syrup in the milk, rocking you while giving you the cup, everything (!!) and you will have NONE of it. I've just decided you're not ready, so we'll work more on this over the summer. For now, I'm just letting it go. It's just not worth the fight!

As far as sleep goes, you ROCK baby boy. You are down from 7/7:30pm until 6:30/7am every night. Over the past two months, I think we've seriously heard you peep once. Maybe. And it was a short peep while teething. We LOVE YOU for this!! As far as naps go, we think you'll be ready to drop down to one nap a day over the summer. We do this occasionally on weekends when we are out and about, and you're fine with it. On an every day basis though, you typically take 2 naps still - one from 9:30-11am and a second from 2-3pm.    

No walking yet. We think you are very close but just don't seem interested, honestly. You've gotten much more confident this month walking behind your push walker, let go and stand for a few seconds more, and are cruising more one-handed, so who knows. Could be tomorrow, could be two months - I honestly have no idea!

Ok, so let's talk about the birthday celebration! We woke you up on your birthday morning by singing you "Happy Birthday" which you loved and then spent some snuggle time in our bed. After a bottle and getting you dressed, you discovered your birthday present - a new climber for the backyard! You LOVED it and I think will like it even more once you start walking.

You then had a great day at school and we came home early to take you for a walk and to the park. Then, we made you your favorite dinner (lasagna) and it was a hit!

Since it was your actual birthday, we decided you had to have dessert even though we wanted to save the cupcake for your birthday party, so we let you "practice" eating dessert with an iced sugar cookie. No trouble there - you dug right in and ate the whole thing!

We had such a great day with you and even better birthday party today! Post on that coming tomorrow...this momma is wiped OUT! Love you, buddy!

First Easter

We had a great day celebrating Carter's first Easter! We got up early this morning to open his Easter basket. He got a new truck, V-tech ball, 2 books, a stuffed dinosaur and sported some awesome new PJ's too! :)

We then headed on to church at Hope Fellowship where he again sported some amazing duds! He was in a great mood before church and even let us take a few pics! (Although it appears that Mommy may have needed another cup of coffee at this point...)

After church, we came home to rest and recharge for a family-packed afternoon. After a nap followed by a walk, we headed over to Blake's parents' house for lunch with Nick, KK, Gramma Pat, and my parents. We had a blast and you were SUCH a little party boy the whole time!

Last stop of the day was back to my parents' house for one last Easter surprise. We had hoped the little man would also nap there (they have an old crib set up), but apparently he had just had too much fun and refused it. :) Can't say we didn't try, right?

Carter was spoiled yet again with a Build-a-Bear stuffed bunny, Sing-a-majig, and two new books! We had such a blast celebrating today and look forward to our first Easter egg hunt next year! God is good! :)