Seems like we are ticking months by quickly anymore. Each month I gaze with absolute wonderment at how Carter has grown and changed. This last month was marked by some staggeringly quick developments and funny quirks. Enjoy the list!
- Within about a week, Carter started really connecting the dots when it came to speaking in sentences. Before we would get two to three words on about average that sort of communicated what he wanted/needed. Then all the sudden it was more like four to six words that he uses to describe what he wants/needs in more detail.
- His enunciation has gotten SO MUCH BETTER. He doesn’t shorten words anymore (even Motorcycle he will say in full) and we understand more than what we don’t now.
- Our favorite phrases recently, “Wait A Minute!”, “Enough, Daddy/Mommy/Grandma, Enough!” (he doesn’t like it when we sing specifically), “Carter do it!” “Thanks Mommy!” (we have really been working on manners and he will tell the person specifically thanks) and of course “Oh Crap!” in the right context. Yes, it is sad that he does this in the right context.
- Carter’s understanding of different emotions is starting to pick up as well – he will say, “Scary” and put his hands on either side of his cheeks. We are finding that he does it when he thinks something should be scary, not when it actually is and he is scared.
- We bought a Thomas early readers book that we use as a bedtime story book because the stories are nice and short with lots of pictures. In one of the stories, the two pages split a picture of Duck, the train, right down the middle of Ducks face. It freaks Carter out every time he sees it and he thinks Duck is hurt.
- We bought a new early reader book that has a Woody/Buzz story that uses only 2-3 words on each page – Carter has memorized the story “Buzz and Woody! Good Buddies!” so now every time we read it, he actually does the reading from memory.
- He can now count backwards from 10 to 1 because he has become obsessed with the Dora Rocket Ship episode. Oh, and he will randomly start counting in Spanish too (thanks Dora!).
- “XBOX! Kinect! Play Joy Ride!” Yes – he will go stand in front of the tv, wave his hand, and say this to get the video game to start. We are trying to get it on video so we can send it to the xbox guys. Who knows, he could be the next marketing campaign, haha.
- He has started to really test his boundaries a lot more. He knows when he isn’t supposed to do things and will look directly at you while he does them to see if gets the same reaction each time. The latest bad habit is hitting things (mainly poor Lucy) … and boy are we working on that one (mommy has a zero hitting tolerance policy) … I wouldn’t be surprised if he just starts putting himself in time outs.
- He FINALLY is choosing to sleep on his bed! Just happened a few nights ago for the first time in forever, but he has been consistently sleeping on it since. Lion is making a quiet exit now so that he doesn’t regress back to the floor.
- He has started to ask to go to the bathroom to pee – he knows what he is supposed to do and does it, now we are hoping for the muscle control to go with it.
- Carter answers much more abstract questions easily, like “What did you do today?” and “What do you want for dinner?” and has moved away from just the yes/no questions.
- He uses keys all over the house to pretend to unlock things. His favorite item for this is the elliptical – he will balance on one of the pedals and say, “Carter reach high!” while he pretends to unlock something over his head.
I can’t believe how much he has changed, it is so much fun to see him connect the dots and to see his personality really coming out. And it is just as challenging trying to deal with him pushing to see what he can get away with! At the end of each day, we tend to look on the moments and laugh more than anything!
Here is a funny photo of Carter when I asked him to smile for the camera tonight – Enjoy!
