Finally!

After many, many, many months of searching and a couple months of negotiations, we are finally in our house!

The move went relatively smooth due in great part to family and some great friends. We are so grateful to be blessed with such selfless people in out lives.

Last night was our first night there. Carter seemed unaffected with the exception that he felt he had to eat every 2 hours throughout the night.

Athena still isn't quite sure despite all of her stuff being there and a big back yard to play in, but she is slowly warming up to the place.

Both Nichole & I can't believe we actually had that much...crap (okay, someone had to say it) in that apartment. Its gonna take a few days (snicker) but everything will be in its place.

It already feel like home.
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Thanksgiving 2009

Carter made it through his first Thanksgiving virtually unscathed (he has a few self-imposed scratches, but that will decrease as he gains more dexterity in the coming months).

His Holiday Marathon started last Sunday (as tradition holds on the paternal branch) at Namp & Nina's. Needless to say, neither Mom nor Dad held Carter for much of the time that we were there...only the occasional feeding and addressing the expected, ahem, wardrobe malfunctions.

Carter got to spend some QT with more of his Dad's side...reading time with Aunts, getting introduced to Cousins, hanging with Uncle Buck.

After a 3 day break, we headed down to Upstate New York (to spend time with Pepé & NaMé) and enjoyed the company of Mom's family. Again, we did not hold Carter that much as Uncles & Great Aunts monoplized "Carter Time" (much to his delight).

He did get to partake in some traditional Thanksgiving eats...his favorite was the squash.


Carter is turning out to be a party animal. If there is some socializing to do, then sleep can wait. This sounds like a solid plan on paper but things didn't quite work out to his liking. Fortunately, he did decide to eventually succumb to the nurturing arms of the Sandman. He also slept in a bit as well...

We hope all of our friends & family had a great Holiday filled with safe travels and warm companionship. As always, we are thinking of each and every one of you.

Timing (in regards to diaper changing)

Ideally, one would like to change a diaper after a transaction has occurred.

Occasionally, a subsequent transaction occurs immediately after the application of the fresh diaper.

A rarer incidence is a transaction occurring at the same time as the changing of the diaper.

It is at a time very much like this when one wishes they somewhat resembled the Hindu god Kali, (the wife of Shiva).

I guess I should have heeded the warning signs: a slight reddening of the face, crossing of the eyes, a few low grunts/growls.

It was at this moment that time slowed down. I knew what was about to happen, but felt like I was but a spectator. The transaction started to…well, transact I guess.

I remember thinking, “Wow, how much longer can this go on?”. Amusingly, with my technical background (I’m sure Old School has an opinion on that…) I quickly ran some ratios through my head…estimated length of “transaction” compared to length of subject’s leg…apply ratio to the average length of an adult leg…carry the 2….divide by Π…OH MY GOD!

Luckily the Haz-Mat team was quick to respond (Mom) and we had the situation well under control.

Hopefully, next time we will be better prepared.

Just trying to help out

Carter thought he would try and help out in the mornings by feeding himself. Or at least try to:

Oh, and by the way Auntie T, Carter loooooves his parsnip breakfast smoothie!

1st Halloween

It was Carter's first Halloween and he decided to go as Rocky the Flying Squirrel. He thought the blue cap and goggles would really bring the outfit together and hopefully make people ignore the hoodie.



Athena wasn't too enthused about her costume, but I explained to her it was a package deal. She agreed to the antlers but not to the white gloves. I guess you gotta pick your battles, eh?




Athena wasn't too keen on some of Aunt Ann's Halloween decorations...

Although he didn't get any candy per se, he had a great time hanging with his buds at Aunt Ann's house.

BPF & a Wedding

We finally got Carter started on BPF (Big People Food). Last week I had pureed some carrots & parsnips (don’t worry, I didn’t puree them together…that would just be gross) and froze them in ice cue trays to make individual servings.

So, this morning I popped out one of the carrot cubes, steamed it an added a little bit of his virgin White Russian cocktail (between you and me, its just formula, but he seems to like it better if I refer to it as this) to spice it up.

As you can see in the picture, I’ve created a make-shift high chair. Technically, it is a chair and it is high, so deal with it. Due to recent activities, most of the contents of our apartment are either in cardboard boxes or strewn out awaiting to be placed in cardboard boxes, so please excuse the most of the background images.



I started with a few tiny spoonfuls. He took them into his mouth and appeared to be planning on a quick exit strategy, but I played the part of the goalie and tried to keep the puck in play (there’s a mishmash of analogies, eh?).

I could also see that not only is it about time for him to start on solids, but to start to walk as he was looking to get out of that chair to avoid any more carrot contamination.

Instead of forcing the issue, I bottled up the leftovers and sent them with him to daycare. I called in around lunchtime to see how he was doing and one of his girlfriends was feeding him the carrots as we spoke!

Excellent! Next week…parsnips!

Seeing how I haven’t posted in awhile I thought I would throw up some pictures from this past weekend as well.

We attended a family friend’s wedding in Connecticut and Carter was the life of the party. Of course the Bride got a little attention, but Carter had his own receiving line forming soon into the event.

At first we were going to dress him in a black onesy with a tuxedo design screen printed on (only because his “You might be a redneck…” t-shirt was in the wash), but we relented and clad him in something a little more appropriate.

Here is a picture of my two favorite people:


And here is a picture that you could tell he was just tickled to be part of:


Now, I’ve heard of people wearing lampshades at some parties, but this is a little different:

Budding Artist

About a month ago, as I was picking Carter up from day care after work, Miss Kathy showed me some of the artwork that the kids had worked on that day. The day care providers erected a huge tree out of construction paper. The tree's limbs displayed it's fruit...plums. (Well, I assumed they were plums. I didn't want to ask and be corrected in front of the kids.)

When I lookd closer I saw that every plum had one of the children's names on it and when I looked even closer I could see that each child painted their own plum. Also, surrounding the tree were pictures of the children as they were painting.

I had almost forgotten about this until last week when I noticed that Carter's "parent information pocket" on the classroom door was stuffed. When I took out the contents, I found (to my pleasure), Carter's plum and pictures. I was so proud!

These will soon be framed and on semi-permenant display at the soon-to-be-open "CHS Art Studio". I anticipate more works of art soon.

Who knows, if the body of work grows considerably we may need to seek out a curator (hint, hint, Aunt Jules).