24 Month Update

Believe it or not, we've survived two whole years of parenting a little boy.  Who knew it's be so wonderful?

Let's get right to the update.

STATS

He's now 30 lbs. and 36" tall.  Most importantly HEALTHY.

He's wearing size 24 month clothes and the pants are finally not falling off his hips.  He was so tall he outgrew his 18 months, but there for awhile 24 months were too big around and fell right off.  He's finally filled that out.  He's also in size 5 diapers now.  He still fits in size 4; however, size 5 seems to hold a little more so we bumped him up.

SLEEPING

Sleeping is going GREAT.  We introduced a pillow about a month ago and he does great with it.  He's still in his crib, which we will keep it that way as long as humanly possible.  He also goes down for naps and bedtime with a bottle.  This is something we will start working to remove this year.  The fact that he goes down easily, makes me not want to change a thing though.  Why ruin a good thing?  He naps and noon and goes to bed at 8pm.  Usually like clock work.

EATING

He's on the picky side of eating.  He loves fruit.  Fruit fruit fruit.  Other then that, he's pretty picky.  I can get a few bite of veggies in him each meal and he's not a huge meat fan, but again, I get a few bites in every change I can.  He's a green smoothie kid.  He loves them!!!  Our favorite: strawberry, banana, yogurt, kale, spinach, chia seeds, and ice.

POPSICLES.  His absolute favorite thing to eat right now.

POTTY TRAINING

Still the same here.  He has gone on potty strikes here and there and we aren't pushing it.  I asked a few times a day if he needs to go - and try to get him on at least once a day.  His doctor said no reason to push it just because he's two now.

PLAY

He's an outside kid!  Through and through.  He could be outside with no toys and be happy as a clam.  He loves bubbles and any kind of ride on bike or scooter.  He's got a good collection going now.  I just bought the kids a mini trampoline and that's a big favorite right now too.
Inside he likes to watch Bubble Guppies, Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood, and Blues Clues.

He still really likes his tools, trucks, and trains too.

SPEECH

He has a good vocabulary going now.  He can say 2 and 3 work phrases:
Where'd mommy go?

What's that?

Night Daddy (or Sissy or "Pombo" - Pongo our guinea pig)

Go outside

Etc.

He has his emotional days.  Usually after naps we have a 50/50 shot of getting a happy kid.  Tantrums are in full swing, but he's learned time out and now understands that counting "1,2,3" is an important message to listen to.

Carter is just a normal happy sweet emotional cute lovable kiddo!

Can't believe it's been 2 years that he's been with us.  Seems like he's just always been here :)

Planting flowers

Working on fine motor skills with a glue stick

Playing on his Kindle Fire

Helping me work on the porch

Cheering sissy on at her volleyball game

First tractor ride with Papa

Silly boy watching tv hanging off the couch

Balance beam we made for the kids

Our big 2 year old!

Carter's 2nd Birthday Video

This is our special little guy's full birthday video!

We celebrated with a call from the Bubble Guppies, green smoothies for breakfast, a trip to the Missouri Botanical Gardens with Aunt Shae, Birthday cards, and a family mini party back at home that evening.

We had a birthday party for Carter the weekend of his birthday which I'll share all the details on soon!

Happy Birthday to our Carter Lee!

Carter's 2nd Birthday Photos

Carter is officially a TWO YEAR OLD

We had his well visit today and he is 30 lbs and 36" tall

Here are some photos I took of him on our fun day out to the Missouri Botanical Gardens on his actual birthDAY (April 16, 2015)

It was a BEAUTIFUL day!  Carter's Aunt Shae joined us.

I'll do more of a milestone update in another post.  But I love these photos we captured of him on his special day.  Definitely memories to cherish.

21 Month Update

If I don't start writing some of this great stuff down I'll completely forget all about these precious times!

 

So yes, our "baby" is in the last quarter of being 1 year old.  It's an amazing time.

 

I'm sure I have lots of stories, good, bad, funny, scary I could share, but let's do the basics.

 

Eating:
He weaning about 4 months ago, so he's on whole milk, VERY watered down juice, and water for the most part.  He can be a good eater and he can be terrible eater.

He LOVES fruit.  He devours it.  He always eats that first on his plate and will let a whole plate of food plop on his face while he's trying to drink the fruit juice left behind.

He is a fast eater.  It's like he eats what he wants and he is done, time to throw the plate, fork, drink, rip off the bib and squeeze his scrawny little butt and legs out of the high chair.  That's all while there is still plenty of food on his plate.  A lot of times he gets out of his high chair, finds a seat next to one of us and starts begging for us to feed him off our plates.

He loves raisins, cereal, cheese, smoothies, peanut butter, and any kind of fruit.

As long as he has ranch dressing he'll about eat anything if there is a dip.

 

Sleeping:

We still go through our ups and downs with this.

He finally started sleeping through the night on a regular basis probably around 18 months.  He didn't really do much of that at all till 14 months.  And it's gotten better as we go along.  He had reflux so bad as a baby that I think that really messed things up for his sleeping habits.  Now usually sleeping gets messed up if he's teething, sick, or has a bad dream.  But for the most part down if he wakes in the middle of the night he can get himself back to sleep.

I updated on our new bedtime routine HERE

 

Communication:
He is such a babbler.  I know there are kids his age talking a lot better then he does.  He really tries to say a lot of words, but they just don't come out right at all.  I spoke with his dr. about it and he seems to not be concerned.  He is understanding what we are saying, follows directions (most of the time, he is a toddler), and signs words plenty.  Plus he IS babbling so he has something going on as far a speech goes. 
Words he says well: BYE, HI, baba, trash, booboo, truck, nigh-nigh, no no, bubbles, he says "mommy" now instead of calling me "meme" and calls Steve "daddy" instead of "dada",  "where'd it go?"  I'm sure I'm missing a bunch.
Then words he is signing regularly are:
light, night-night, more, eat, water, juice, please, thank you, poop, potty, open, he's always shook his head "no" but now he is shaking his head "yes" a lot.

 

Which brings me to Potty Training:
We've been putting in on the potty for months now.  And he has been going.  But he's never been much for telling us to go.  He does sometimes but usually it's me asking and he will say yes or no.  Usually he say yes, but then he won't go.  He's said he needed to poop on the potty 2 times and both times has.  So that's awesome!!  I think he goes pee on the potty at least once a day.  Usually after a diaper change or before a bath. 
We haven't used cloth diapers for months now.  They all need a very deep cleaning with stuff I need to order and haven't done it.  I went ahead and put some on his one week just to save money and he hated them.  He has been out of them for so long now, he just doesn't get it anymore.  He just says "MY BUTT!"  :( 

 

Health update:
He had blood work done about 2 weeks ago to check his anemia.  It has greatly improved to the point where we don't need to give him meds every morning.  He was taking a iron supplement first thing everyday, and did that for 3 months.  But other then that he is in great shape.  He has a cold that has him congested right now, but nothing to be concerned about. 

I need to weigh and measure his height to see just how big he really is.  I know we just had a growth spurt, he's pretty well pushing the limits of his 18 month footed sleepers.  Problem is 24 months pants do not fit him around the waist and nearly fall right off.  Weird stage in size right now.

 

He has 11 teeth now.  4 molars, 4 front on the top, and 3 front on the bottom.  Pretty sure he's trying to get more right now.

 

He is a CLIMBER.  Wow, boys are much different then girls in that area.  He has hacked some of the baby proofing.  He's tried climbing over gates.  He can climb INTO his crib, I'm trying to deter that so he won't climb OUT of his crib anytime soon.  Lord help me when it's toddler bed time.... ugh... just the thought makes me loose sleep.

 

He's such a funny little guy.  His baby voice and his silly faces.  The way he plays pretend.  The belly laughs.  The way him and his big sister play together and laugh and laugh.  The kisses he's always blowing.  Bringing up blankets and then climbing into our laps to snuggle.  The fact that he already thinks it's funny when he toots.  And a million other things.

 

We just love our Little Man

 

Not feeling well eating some strawberries

Morning bedhead

He climbed up on the couch with a blanket all on his own with the pillow

Wanted to wear his backpack like sissy one morning while taking her to school

Morning breakfast smoothie



Betime Routine Update - 21 Months

 

Little man is 21 MONTHS OLD.

 

What.  In.  The. World.

 

 

We have a new bedtime routine!

 

 

 

Carter is finally FINALLY going down, by himself, in his crib.  BOOM.

Back story, he nursed till he was almost 18 months old (that's a whole different story).  So he had just ALWAYS been held to go to sleep.  Nurse and he was out.  Naps and betimes, were all on my (the mom's) shoulders.  Till one day, he decided that nursing wasn't good enough anymore.  But he still was wanting to suckle to go to sleep, but didn't want a paci.  Sooooo... we introduced a bottle, yes, we did, at 18 months old. 

That leads us to the part where, now mom is no longer the sole provider, yay!  Dad's turn!  Night time was now daddy/Carter time and I still had him for his 1 nap during the day.  We split it equally.  Steve loved it.  He finally got that time with Carter after all these months.  Then came the trouble.  He was starting to wake up as soon as he'd lay him down in his crib.  It got to the point where he would be in such a panic even after we were well out of his room.

 

Onto the solution.  He's got his bottle, why not lay him IN the crib WITH the bottle.  It eliminated the transfer from lap to crib.  Should work right?  His first day of this was a little rough.  He wanted to be held (of course) to go to sleep.  But I really took it slow and got him comfortable with the idea after a couple days he was running for the crib asking for his "baba" and ready to go to sleep. 

 

The catch here, I was sitting - on a stool - next to his bed - waiting for him to fall asleep.  I did that for a couple weeks, and after the first week I sat on the stool next to the door where he wasn't able to see me, and then by the 3rd week, we were out the door. 

 

So now we are finally, after 21 months, able to put our little guy down and walk away during nap and bedtimes.  Shewww... Long haul there.  Our daughter had no trouble with sleep or us not being in the room.  Carter is very much a momma's boy. 

 

So now onto the next task... weaning from the bottle.

He will be 2 in less then 3 months and I think that will be a good time to kick it out the door.  I mean, he's only had it a total of 3 months period of his entire life.  So yeah, some might think he's too old for a bottle, but he'll be on it much shorter amount of time then the average baby anyhow.  So it is working for us right now, and for that I'm grateful.

Fall Sesnory Play for 17 Month Old

FALL IS HERE!

My little guy is 17 months old now and is such an explorer.  He picks up on things pretty quickly now too, so it's time to start some fun learning type activities that are age appropriate for him.

Day #1:
Fall Sensory Play

I got this idea from THIS PIN ON PINTEREST

 

I found things from around the house that I already had: fall leaves, pine cones, acorns, burlap, a sunflower

and bought styrofoam pumpkins from the dollar tree.  Four in a bag for $1

The pumpkins were by far his favorite.  I think because they are most like balls.  He threw them, kicked them, scattered them.  We used them to count.

Fun play for a beautiful fall day outside.

Mother/Son Outing to The Magic House

We took advantage of a Magic House Groupon that happen to pop up in our area.  HALF PRICE!  We had a membership with our daughter when she was younger and it was great!

We've already been 4 times in a month with friends, our family, and me and my little guy have gone once on our own.  Here's video of our day together...