2 months old

Dear Carter,
    Hey my little sweetie!  You are 2 months old today.  We're having so much fun getting to know you and seeing you develop your personality more and more everyday.  You have brought so much joy to us.  Each day is special because we get to spend it with you.  We can see many changes since you were born.  You wake up around 8 a.m. and start smiling and stretching right away.  Then you start making lots of new sounds.  You have the sweetest little voice, even when you cry.  You love to straighten your legs and try to stand up, but you're very wobbly.  It's hard to burp you, because you're always trying to stand up.  On your 2 month birthday, I decided to let you sleep as long as you could at night, and you slept 9 hours straight with no crying!  I was shocked, you're a very good sleeper at night and not so bad during the day.  Sometimes you wake up early from your afternoon naps or refuse to fall asleep for them, but that's not a big deal.  There are a few funny things about you, that I don't want to forget.  Your hands are always sticky, like a tree frog, so between your fingers you have tons of lint.  It cracks me up.  You've learned to grab things, like mommy's hair.  On two occasions, you figured out how to pinch me, because you were hungry.  It hurt, but it sure was cute.  You're getting better at entertaining yourself and learning how to calm yourself down when you wake up early.  Surprisingly, your love affair with the pacifier has seemed to come to an end.  Now, you only use it while we're out and at nap time you usually spit it out.  I spent so much time debating whether to let you use the paci, now I wish I would have relaxed a bit.  Bath time is so much fun, you really enjoy being in the water.  I can't wait to put you in the pool this summer.  You're gonna love the beach, too.  Next week, is your 2 month check-up and I think you might be 13 lbs. already.  You've become such a good eater this month and I'm really proud of you.  Mommy and Daddy are feeling much more confident being parents.  You make it easy!  We love taking care of you and can't imagine our life without you.
                                                                                                                 Love,
                                                                                                                 Mommy and Daddy

7 weeks old

My little monkey

I love to smile now!

My neck is getting a lot stronger.

My first big boy shirt, thanks Brittany!

Calling my girlfriend.

Getting to work.

Listening to dad pluck the ole guitar.

New Apartment

 

              We were planning to stay in our 2 bedroom flat for another year, but the plans have suddenly changed.  Just 5 weeks before we come home for the summer, our landlord tells us she's raising the rent significantly.  We were bummed, because we want to save money and didn't want to bother with moving.  Our friends were moving to a village house and they told us there were other units available.  We thought why not take a look.  A village house is a 3 story building in a neighborhood and it's more like living in a house.  You can just rent one floor and it's about 800 square feet.  The benefits of living in a village house, instead of a high-rise, is you save money and you get more space.  Typically I'm anti-village because when I first worked in Hong Kong I lived in a village.  Geckos were all over my walls and would watch me sleep.  They would even jump in the shower with me.  This village house is only 2 years old and neighbors have reported very low gecko sightings.  Now having Carter, I know he will need more space to move around and places to put all his stuff.  I'm actually thrilled because we'll have 3 bedrooms and I can decorate a room for Carter!!  Finally!  I have so many ideas.  Also the village house is very dog friendly.  It's about 10 minutes farther from work, but with all the money I save, I can take taxis more often :).  In August, we'll be getting a helper and she will be living with us also.  After lots of thinking and praying, we decided to become village people.  There were many variables that had to line up to make this work out and of course, God handled every detail.  We move in May 25th and fly home June 1st, therefore we'll be running around like crazy with a baby in tow.  I'll post pictures once we get in the place.  Hopefully we'll have time to paint the walls, too.  I want the living room and Carter's room to be robin's egg blue and maybe green apple in the master bedroom and the kitchen.  Trust me, it will be awesome, you'll see.  Oh and we have a family from school staying there this summer to watch Asia for us and hold the fort down.  Please pray that we have an efficient move before we come home June 1st and that there are no hiccups at the airport (tickets, visas, layovers, etc.).  I can't put into words how excited I am to bring Carter home for the summer to meet his family. 

Rub-A-Dub-Dub

    When we gave Carter sponge baths he hated them, probably because he would get too cold.  He didn't care for his bathtub that kept him from getting submersed either.  Way too drafty!  Once we put him in his real bathtub and actually got him in the water, he didn't cry at all.  Now he really enjoys getting clean.  The hard part is getting him out of the tub, because then he gets cold and starts crying.  We have bath time right before bedtime, as part of our routine, but I don't give him a real bath everyday.  He probably needs daily baths, due to the excessive amount of milk he spits all over his body everyday.

   

6 weeks old

    Carter is 6 weeks old and what a huge difference that makes!  He has started interacting with us so much.  For the past 4 mornings, he has made eye contact with me and smiled the biggest smile ever.  The first time he smiled, I was in shock and I couldn't help but get tears in my eyes.  It gives me the most amazing feeling to know that he is happy to see me.  It's like he's missed me during the night time and is relieved to see me again.  His first smile was at 4 weeks and that was for his daddy.  I included 2 videos showing his sweet smile.  Also, Carter has been cooing, ooing, and awwing a lot more.  I do my best to keep a conversation going with him throughout the day, so he'll keep chatting with me.  I'm happy to say since he's much more alert, he'll nurse for 15-20 minutes now, instead of only 7 minutes.  I'm so proud of him for stretching his little tummy out and getting enough to eat.  In fact, he now weighs in at 11.4 lbs. and he was 8.3 at birth!  WOW!  You go boy.  He can also lift his head really well and push up on his legs.  Carter, you're growing so fast!

   
     Now there is only one thing that I regret to tell you, Carter has a little piece of umbilical cord that will not fall off.  At first it looked liked a very tiny piece of ground beef or a little worm.  I know disgusting, right?  The end of it kept drying up and falling off, so the worm would get shorter.  I took him to the doctor 2 weeks ago and they put some chemical on it to make it fall off.  Well 5 appointments later, the worm is almost gone, but it still a tiny stump.  On Tuesday, they tied a string around the worm and lopped off most of it.  We're going again today to see what the ole doc wants to do about the tiny stump that's left behind.  The worst part is the nasty stuff that it leaves on all Carter's clothes.  I can't wait for him to have a normal belly button.