Not a Picture of Carter OR 2.0

Usually I save this blog for family related stories. But I have to stray a little today. Maybe because it is Friday. Maybe because I have not posted for so long, and now I have pent up post energy. Maybe because I have a bunch of unfinished business here at work, and 2.0 is flailing away.

A few months ago, my sister and I had a conversation about McDonalds and how it creeps into our psych-e, and how powerful the brand, and branding process is. Kirstin sited an example of a mom singing "I'm lovin' it!" to her under 3 year old child while feeding french fries to him. Our friend Sonya has sited their son, Jackson's attachment to Mc-y-D's fries after one taste (so much so, when we met at McDonalds at Christmas, as soon as Jackson saw the pictoral version of the fries on his plastic placemat, he wanted them right away). Now, don't get me wrong. Carter will likely spend A LOT of time in McDonalds, because in a twisted way, I love all that is pulp culture, and I have many fond Pembina Hwy caboose memories of my own.

Regardless. I have no words for this ad that is currently running in Europe:

Those Yuppie Moms

This is an edited excerpt from an email I sent Matt this morning. Some background information is that Ruth is hosting daycare today at her friend, Theresa's house (which is even CLOSER to our house) because they are getting new windows installed at home. Notes which will help the story are in italics.

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-Brice greeted us this morning. "Hi Caw-tow. That's Caw-tow. [pat, pat, pat]. Hi Caw-ter." This is terrible. Brice is a kid at daycare that has a speech impediment which does not allow him to say "R" very well. I sometimes call Carter, Caw-tow (no one is safe from my wrath, not even innocent 4 year old children) Brice also likes to greet Carter with a pat on the head or a poke in the tummy. Apparently this is an OK and welcome gesture in kid land?
-Carter, clinging to me for dear life. Thinking (I can only imagine, "Where on earth are WE?")
-Theresa, who is very nice, greets Carter "Hi, Carter!"
-Carter looks away.
-I go downstairs with Carter put him on the floor and he holds on to my finger and watches all the kids. The floor moving with kids (actually not that bad, but there are a lot of kids in a small space). I groan in my head because the TV is on.
-Ruth, "Hi Carter! Are you going to watch everyone from there?"
-I tell Ruth about the Y kids yesterday (yesterday I had a dream-which turned into reality, but ended not quite the way I envisioned- of walking to the park with Carter and playing on the play structure. Not only did it rain by the time we got there, but the structure was crawling with children-screaming, oh the screaming), the insanity, and how it transfixed Carter. He stood there for almost 5 minutes just watching them and drinking his water.
-Theresa and Ruth both comment to me about how they usually try to clear out of the Y and the Round Lake Park before the Y programs kids get there for that reason, "Those kids are CRAZY!" Ruth comments, "As soon as I see those busses, I get outa there!"
-Theresa then comments, "But, you know who is WORSE @ Round Lake? Those YUPPIE moms with their 1.5 kids! They drive me crazy! I go there with my kids and they all sit in a circle just yakking, while I end of taking care of my kids and pushing their kids on the swing. I just hate it!"
-I sit on the floor, with my 1.5 children (1 of them now backed right up to me and watching, but not moving) "Yeah, I can imagine that."
-"I think it is worse because I could never even imagine being one of those ladies. They are so snooty, you know?"
-Ruth, looking at me for a reaction-knowing full well our possible yuppie status & our 1.5 kid status.
-I get up from the floor (getting harder by the day for me) and Carter presses himself up to my legs, still watching the kids.
-Sophie comes up to Carter (Sophie is from Carter's daycare, and will often wave hello and goodbye to Carter. A cute little friend.), and I decide this is a good time to back away. Poor decision. Carter turns around, makes the Charlie Brown face, with no sound, followed by a siren cry. I kiss him on the head, tell him I love him, and Ruth swipes him away.
-Carter stops crying before I hit the door.
-I walk to my Jetta, with the ladybug seat cover, and think to myself..."Those Yuppie Moms." shaking my head.

Stripper-ella

The past few weeks Carter has learned a few new tricks. Let's start with the funny one, shall we?

Matt and I have heard many a horror story from friends, and family about babies reaching into their diapers in the wee am hours while the parents are just waking, taking out poop and doing misc. things with it. Ew. And lets just say I have had my fair share of cleaning up other people's poop. Still. Ew. In order to prevent sed poop painting etc. We figured a full length sleeper with the feet is just the trick. No hands going in the pants, everyone is happy, sleeping in their beds. Ah-ha. [next paragraph, please.]

Carter is learning about zippers and all the fun that goes along with zippers, like how to undo them. He can sometimes undo his jacket zipper and take off his jacket. What a big boy! This skill also seems to have transposed itself to other zipper-able things-like sleepers. Full length sleepers. For the past few weeks, on and off, Matt has discovered Carter in his crib looking a lot like Larry (this picture does not do the full Larry look justice!)[next paragraph please]

Carter also has learned how his diapers work. When once it was good enough to let him toddle around just wearing a diaper, now it is not. That is unless you want a naked loaded boy running around your house. Good thing those things come with a handy Velcro tab so you can hear it being unfastened. There has been very little incident with this, other then chasing the boy to get them done back up.

[back to this morning] Carter got up at 5:30, I think (too early for me to haul my butt out of bed, I know that). We cannot complain, and certainly we would never dream of complaining about this fact-we love it. Carter is more then content to sit in his crib for an hour talking and chatting to himself. I hear this is not common, and we are loving this while we can still keep him penned up in a crib. When we did decide it was time to rise, Matt went into Carter's room to get him, only to discover Carter had unzipped, and stepped out of his sleeper, in addition to having one tab of his diaper pulled off. It looked as if we had interrupted him in the middle of a burlesque show. This was not a messy experience, for all the poop foreshadowing I did! Normally, the drill is that Carter gets a hug after being pulled out of his crib-but now he has a diaper clinging to his butt for dear life. Neither Matt nor I are all that eager to take the chance of getting peed on. BUT-since we have both been peed on, me WAY more then Matt (I think he has pretty much dodged that yellow bullet) we both gave Herr C a big good morning hug, which was reciprocated with a nice kiss to Matt from Carter.

Who could have ever envisioned this would be so fun?

Other new tricks:
*my sister warned us to get on film Carter sliding down the stairs, and I think our time is limited (if not over). Carter is now learning to hold on to the railing and go down the stairs all by himself. We don't love this, as sliding is so much safer (who'd have thunk we'd have said this a few months ago!), but we cannot blockade progress.
*getting on to chairs and sitting on his bum
*listening, and hearing what has been told to him (e.g. "Time to take off your jacket", "Time to get your shoes?", "Bring Mummy her beer!" [kidding-it's O'Douls people, what do you take us for?!"]) but not always following through with the requested action.

Carter still has only 8 teeth, and his peers at daycare are starting to take notice. They have started calling him "No teeth". I am kidding. It seems his gums on the bottom are constantly swollen, and he is always shoving something in his mouth and chewing away, but to no avail. Alas.

Are You Sleeping, Brother John?

Take your right index finger.
Sloppily press it vertically on your lips.
Make a "ssssss" noise.

You have now participated in one of Carter's cool new games. After reading a baby sign book a few weeks ago, Carter has been obsessed with this "Shhhh" action. It is in response to a very cute sleeping baby, curled up with a blanket. Often Carter will pull a blanket down on the ground with him, make the "ssss" noise and pretend to sleep-with his eyes open of course.

Another cool new game is dancing. He has been known to put the stereo on to get some music. After getting music, Carter will spin around in a circle a few times, get dizzy and laugh hysterically. Do not be fooled. Music is not required for this activity. Only the need to spin baby, spin.

Other updates:
-Carter still only has 8 teeth. 4 on the top shelf, and 4 on the bottom
-Face plant: Carter drew his first bloody mouth today after face planting into the couch while trying to look out the window. Oddly, he did not cry much, but the blood took quite a while to stop. No loose teeth (the afore mentioned tooth count stays the same)
-Carter can show you his belly on request. He also likes to point to Mum's belly (growing daily) and then point to his own proudly.
-Growing vocabulary of words we don't really understand, but suspect we have heard in the last little while:
>kiss
>ba ba black sheep (this could be a stretch)
>nose
>Carter
>Ruthie (daycare provider)
>Oftentimes we get words that sound like Ladka speaking his home language on taxi.

I am sure interesting stories will follow this post. They always seem to. I am still hearing about the control paste (and can't help thinking of it daily-the finger mark is gone, only a small crater like crevace remains)