Sunday, October 24, 2010

On the Road...

We have been visiting family and travelling for the last 10 days, but will be home soon and hope to get pictures and updates posted before too long....

Saturday, October 2, 2010

Oudoor Fun and Nighttime Stress

What fun to have reached the time of year when temperatures are just right. Not too hot or cold, and babies can enjoy the best of life outdoors. Our whole family made a trip to Freedom Park for the Festival in the Park. Carter sat on my shoulders so he could see a children's dance troupe.

See dad? This is the kind of caution flag we need around our porch stairs! Aww, forget it, bright colors would just make me want to climb them more.
Carter had lots of fun watching other kids run up a nearby hill and then roll all the way down.

We've started making daily excursions to a nearby playground. Carter doesn't like the swings yet, but he really loves the slide. He's gotten good at going down both on his back and his belly. Most of the time we're the only ones there, but once or twice he's gotten to make a new friend at the same time.

Total comfort. That's what you get with a mommy hug. Ahhh.

Carter also continues his love of books. Here he is climbing into his book basket after he's emptied it out most of the way. Each day he has a new favorite book that we read over and over again.

Baby mohawk! I am totally rockin' this look. Don't you agree?
So we've been having really fun days, but our nights haven't been all that great this week. Our doctor told us that it's time to get Carter off his bottle and on to drinking all his milk out of sippy cups. But he's very picky about his milk consumption... it has to be at the right temperature and in the right bottle with the right nipple. The first night we went cold turkey... well, nobody got much sleep around here. It was like trying to get a junkie off of heroin or something. Lots of screaming and breaking stuff and tears. And Carter was nearly as bad. Ha ha. But seriously, don't use a bottle warmer with your baby. They do not require warm milk! But they will get hooked on it and then you will have to wait 5 minutes for the milk to warm up every night when you would rather be asleep... and you will have to bring the stupid warmer to everywhere you'd like to go for more than 4 hours. And finally, you will have an epic struggle when it comes time to change something about your baby's nighttime habits.
The first night was by far the worst. Now he's going right back to sleep after waking up once and taking a little water. But the one thing that's upsetting is that his milk intake is down to near zero! And he's a growing boy who could really use it. But he won't take it from the sippy cups warm or cold. But this morning during breakfast he took three seperate sips of cool milk from a cup so I have hope that he'll make the transition eventually. And I'd rather he just start liking cool milk now so we don't have another fight in a couple months to wean him off of that.
So in summary, bottle warmers are evil. Ta ta!