First of all, I have to say ‘thank you’ to all of you who helped me realize I need to calm down about Carter’s progress and understand that every child really IS different. It’s still hard for me to watch other 10 month old babies walking around with ease and signing to their parents frequently, but now I can think to myself that it’s okay. Because Carter will get there eventually. And while he may not excel at walking or signing just yet, I’m confident that he will in his own time. So, I’ve been focusing on just enjoying him again and not worrying so much about how quickly he’s progressing.
This week kind of crept by since Carter was sick for the first couple of days, and then on Thursday I started to get sick. I ended up staying home on Friday, getting some rest in the morning and then working from home for the afternoon. By the time Matt got home from work on Friday, he said he was feeling pretty crummy as well. So, we have had a fairly laid back weekend which turned out to be one of those where I looked at Matt this evening and said, “this has been a great weekend”. I had the time and energy to make all fresh meals – normally we end up with leftovers or eating out for at least one meal. Chicken stroganoff, steak diane, baked salmon, and country fried deer tenderloin all made my weekend menu and now we have plenty of leftovers for our week’s lunches. Yay! I also got the house cleaned up on Saturday and even took about an hour out of my Sunday morning to get our computer room organized…which is a pretty big accomplishment since it’s been a mess for about 6 months. I can finally stop thinking about how it needs to be done. In between cleaning and making meals, I still found plenty of time to hang out on the floor with Carter since I didn’t feel like doing much more. He was so pleasant this weekend. I’m very happy I took the time to play and cuddle with our little guy.
Speaking of Carter, a few things changed in his world this week. Aside from getting his first ear infection, I finally decided that it was time to take the bumper out of his crib. I probably should have taken it out a couple of months ago, but what can I say? I’m lazy. Matt and I also decided that it was finally time to see how Carter would do without a morning nap. On Saturday, Carter and I went shopping, so he only got about a 10 minute nap on our way home at 11am and then he only slept for about an hour and a half that afternoon. So, today we decided that we’d skip the morning nap and see how it went. To our surprise, it was totally succesful – yay!! Carter was in a fabulous mood this morning through 12:30pm, went down at 12:45pm for his nap, and woke up in another fabulous mood at 3:00pm. That great mood lasted until bedtime tonight at 7:30. To say the least, I hope this trend continues. 
The last and least important change is that Carter got new shoes this weekend. Up until now, I’ve felt that our little man didn’t really need shoes because “experts” say it’s best to let children learn to walk without shoes. However, Carter’s little snow suit which is the only truly warm coat he has for Winter is much too snug because I have his feet tucked in. So, the new shoes will allow me to untuck his feet which will help his suit fit longer (hopefully until Winter is over) and hopefully he’ll be more comfortable (no squashed toes). In the process of getting him new shoes, I learned a little lesson…shoe shopping with a 10 month old is a miserable task. Trying to get shoe after shoe onto a wiggly foot of a little boy only to find out that they look ridiculous or they are too small or too big, is just exhausting. I think I went through about 8 different pairs which doesn’t sound like much, but it felt like 20 pairs. All the while, Carter is ooing and ahing over the shiny red shoes from the girls selection that happen to be just within his reach. Honestly, I couldn’t blame him. They were adorable!! We ended up settling on a pair of squeaky sneakers that Carter fit the best and even enjoyed wearing. Once he figured out that he was making them squeak, he was doing his best to squeak as many times as he could before I got them off of him. It was cute, but the squeaker is removable, so I think we might have to take advantage of that little feature when we don’t “need” it. I’m very happy that the shoe shopping experience is over though and now I have a size to go off of for future shopping without him. I’d rather return something that doesn’t fit than have to go shopping with him again. I-yi-yi!!
Carter got another tooth in this week, one of his top front ones. And it looks like there is at least one more coming in next to it. He’s taken to teething rings in the last few days where he normally didn’t want too much to do with them. He hasn’t really been fussy that we’ve noticed, so the new teeth must not bother him much…which is good for us! Our little munchkin has been standing up on his own several times this weekend, and will stand alone for about a minute and a half if he feels like it. He’s even attempting to take a step or two here and there and each time he does it Matt and I give each other that “did you see that” look. The poor guy just doesn’t have the best balance (must take after his dad, according to our Wii Fit balance test), so he falls down every time. But we’re very happy to see him trying.
It’s not really a milestone, but Carter has developed quite the personality these days and is enjoying interaction a lot more (rather than preferring to just play with his toys). We were told a couple of weeks ago that Carter was really interacting with the other kids at daycare, but it wasn’t until this weekend that I really noticed it. Both yesterday and today he was so chatty, smiley, and giggly with us and even though he still played with his toys, it seemed that he enjoyed hanging out with us more than normal. And we enjoyed it too. He’d start giggling, I’d start giggling, Matt would laugh, and we’d all just laugh together – over nothing. Connecting with our little man is fun and I think both Matt and I are looking forward to a lot more of it in the months and years ahead.
Only one week of January left…hopefully that means only one week of possible super cold weather as well. I can only hope.