Carter: 28 Months

Here is a little of what our sweet boy is up to these days:

-Carter is absolutely obsessed with animals... live animals, pictures of animals, animal figurines, etc. He can name just about any animal you show him including different types of insects such as daddy-longlegs, centipedes, dragonflies... you get the idea. Jeremy found a couple of apps for our Ipod Touch that have really encouraged his learning in this area. They show pictures of different animals along with the name and sound that they make. Carter is so crazy about the apps that we have to strongly limit the time he can play with them.

-Carter can name all the letters of the alphabet. He also knows the sounds for all of the letters.

-He has started spelling out different words. I looked on our refrigerator the other day and he had spelled out the words "CAT" and "YES" with his magnetic letters. He has also memorized how to spell the words YES, NO, STOP, GO, DOG, MAMA, and CARTER.

-He can identify numbers 1-11 and sometimes a few numbers between 12 and 20.

-His favorite TV show is still Little Einsteins, though he also enjoys Super Why, Max & Ruby, and sometimes Sesame Street.

-Carter continues to LOVE books. We make weekly trips to the library, which he really looks forward to.

-He can identify all his colors and really likes to color. He once adamantly corrected my mom when she noted that he was using an orange crayon. "No, Ba {Bella}... it's PEACH". Oh... excuse me, Mr. Particular :)

-Carter is still a very good eater. His favorite foods are fruit (especially blueberries & strawberries), chicken, milk, (especially vanilla soy milk and chocolate milk), goldfish, and cookies.

-He still LOVES Chick-fil-A, but also really enjoys eating at Chipotle.

-I have decided that my trade-off for him being such a good eater is the fact that he is a TERRIBLE sleeper. We've had sleep issues with Carter pretty much since he was born. I'm absolutely positive this is God's way of playing a practical joke on me since I LOVE to sleep and require a lot of it. Some months are better than others and the past 3 months or so have been going really well, but something changed on Easter and we are back to the sleep battle. He struggles to take naps (unless in the car) and really struggles to go to sleep at night. Many times over the past week, it has taken us 2++ hours to get him to sleep and even then sometimes it doesn't work. This is EXHAUSTING for Jeremy and I and we are really praying it's just a phase. Carter is currently "sleeping" in his toddler bed (though he usually ends up in our bed at some point during the night) and we need to transition him to a big-boy bed at some point before August.

-I'll end on a more positive note :) Carter's language is continuing to develop rapidly. He talks allll the time and is discovering new words every day. A few days ago, we were reading a book and I pointed to an animal and asked him to identify it. He confidently said, "It's an antelope!" ... and it was perfectly clear! This is HUGE progress for a boy who started saying "mama" consistently just 6 months ago!

I'll try to be back soon with a pregnancy update. Our other little guy is getting big inside his mama!