Birthday 1.0

Although there will be more pictures & videos posted by the weekend, here's a little to whet your appetite.

The Birthday Boy.

His Partner in Crime.



Of course, Big Sister had to get in on the fun.

Out of all the toys, both of them just had to have the green ring!

A Dainty Little Eater

After not having much of an appetite last week, Carter certainly is making up for it this week.

Maybe its the goulash. I remember growing up, that was one dish in particular that got better as the week went on. I don't know...I guess the pasta soaked up the tomatoey flavor...who knows.

He somehow managed to get some on his eyelid and much more in his lap. Athena eagerly volunteered for cleanup duty tonight.

I just had to post this last video. Something about it reminded me of that scene from The Naked Gun. You gotta be quick to catch it though.

The Super Powers!

In a precursor to what I can only assume to be many diabolical collaborations to come, Carter & Liam got the chance to meet up last weekend and raise some havoc.

Actually, it was a fairly calm day (despite the chin bop on the book shelf).

After the initial shyness, the dynamic duo attacked the legendary foe of many a young'uns from our family...the evil bookshelf.

Only a young child is aware that the evil bookshelf derives all of its evil powers from the amount of books that it stores (somewhat similar to the mighty Samson). Our heroes quickly cornered the bookshelf and quickly began to dismantle its weapons of mass distraction.

















After they prevailed in battle, the two decided to execute a victory dance, but they couldn;t decide who who lead.

A Good Little Sleeper

Carter's a pretty good sleeper for the most part.

Ever since he's learned to pull himself up (which he now does at any given opportunity) he has decided to do this in his crib. We have a video monitor in his room so we can quickly check in on him without disturbing his slumber.

Lately, his routine has been the following:

- we lay him down, usually on his back
- he quickly rolls over
- from this position he scootches up his legs and props himself into a sitting position
- he grabs on the slats of his crib and pulls himself up into a standing position
- he proceeds to cry (wail, really but let's not split hairs here)

We can easily hear him so we turn the monitor on and watch him for a few minutes. Occasionally, we realize that a nap is not in anyone's near future so we bring him back downstairs for some cuddling. Other times we ride out the storm and let him tire himself out.

So, whe gets tired enough, we lets go of the slats and plops down onto the matress and falls asleep within minutes.

Today this is how he fell asleep:





This is how much he has moved after about an hour:

We've been trying to transition Carter from soft, "mushy" foods to foods with a little more geometrical stability as of late.

The transition is slow.

To help stimulate his interest in eating more solid foods, we've decided to bump up our dinner time to coincide with his. This may prove to be the positive stimuli that he needs...or it could backfire dramatically (the latter might be the choice of those who have had the pleasure of dining with us).

Carter does show a great interest in operating his own spoon as can be seen here:







This last picture only needs this caption: "Boy-yo-yo-yo-yoing!!!"

Another positive note is The Puffs.

A little over a year ago, a dear friend referred to this product as "Baby Crack". For some reason, this description did not hold any meaning until about 2 weeks ago...when our son started to show a slight dependency on this substance.

All kidding aside, these are helping a great deal in getting Carter used to more substantial food stuffs.

The following video may shed some light on just how much Carter enjoys his Puffs:

Crash!

Carter is getting more & more active in his crib.

At first (months ago) we would place him on his back and he would stay in the same position all night.

Then, after a few months, he began to spin (typically clockwise).

Once he was able to roll over, we would find him wedged in a corner as he would usually roll only to one direction.

Lately he has been posturing up onto his elbows & knees and skootching around the crib.

Just this past weekend, he had managed to maneuver himself to a sitting position, which prompted us to lower the mattress as much as possible (I had a dream before he was born that we would have a boy & he catapulted himself out of the crib...half of that dream has come true...so far).

Well, during on of his stints in the crib, he must have worn himself out getting into this position as this is how we found him:

Happy Valentine's Day!

Carter got up extra early to whip up something special for Mommy: