Oh What Fun! Carter is ONE!

Very hard to believe a year has gone by since our little man was born. This past week has been full of lots of "I can't believes" - I can't believe I have a one year old son, I can't believe his feet are so big, I can't believe he is eating real food, you get the picture. It has been a special time for Carter's mommy and daddy to reflect on this first year and a fun time for Carter to enjoy his first cake.

Looking back at our blog posts from a year ago I realized I didn't write too much about our delivery experience. I can't imagine why I didn't have the time to do that last year - but I don't want to forget it so I want to take a few minutes to share our experience...

I absolutely loved my labor and delivery experience. Call me crazy. Or call me forgetful. Maybe I am only saying this because one year later I have forgotten all of the pain and discomfort of the last weeks of my pregnancy and the first weeks after delivery. But overall it was the most amazing experience and I want to remember it for many years to come.

Carter was born on his due date – which I never expected. It seems it is so rare for babies to be born on their actual due date that I just assumed he would come early or late. But, the night before my 40 week check-up I started having contractions. Actually, I had contractions the night before the night before Carter was born for about an hour then they stopped. The next night they started again at the same time, lasted for a little over an hour then stopped again. We went to bed and the contractions woke me up around two in the morning. They lasted for another hour then I dozed back off. But not for too long. At five, I woke up again with strong contractions and this time they stuck around and came in 7-10 minute intervals. We called the doctor’s office when they opened and they encouraged us to come in early for our check-up.

Because we lived about an hour away from the hospital (we bought our first house and moved to a new city 6 weeks before my due date!) we decided to bring our hospital bag just in case. Leading up to my due date I had it all planned (of course – are you surprised?) I had decided that we would head for the hospital when my contractions were around ten minutes apart. I figured this would mean I would only have six contractions or so while we were en route to the hospital. I thought I could handle six contractions in the car – seemed like a good plan. But, by the time we were on the road the contractions were five to seven minutes apart almost doubling the number of contractions I had planned on having while stuck in a seat belt with my husband concentrating on driving.

We made it to the doctor’s office and learned that I was 3 cm along and definitely in labor. They called the hospital to tell them we would be checking in for labor and delivery. The doctor said we had a while and that we didn’t need to check in right away so we detoured to a nearby park where we used to exercise. I remember wanting to walk a bit but then deciding that was not such a good idea so we sat at a picnic table for awhile and called our family to tell them what we were up to. I think Adam did most of the talking and he was grinning from ear to ear. He was so excited but at the same time so supportive and concerned when I was in pain.

We didn’t stay at the park too long because I became increasingly uncomfortable as each contraction passed. The check-in progress was a good distraction. I remember Adam dropping me off at the entrance while he went to park the car. I waited for him in the lobby and a strong contraction hit me. I had to hold on to the furniture for support and several kind strangers offered to help and get me a wheelchair.

Once we were all checked in and settled in my room they hooked me up to a monitor so they could check our heart rates (Carter’s and mine.) From our birthing class we learned that it was standard procedure to be monitored periodically to make sure mom and baby were doing ok. The monitor was painless but did require that I be in the bed to be hooked up to the machines. From the beginning our wonderful nurse, Cynthia, was a little concerned with Carter’s heart rate – it would drop below the normal level with each contraction. They figured out that Carter did better when I was laying on my right side so that is what I did for several hours. Although I wanted to be moving around, this turned out to be a blessing because I actually dozed off in between contractions for a couple of hours which I am convinced gave me the energy I needed to get through the rest of the day. Finally I was given permission to move around some. Because I had decided to try to deliver without drugs, this was very important to me. I tried sitting in a chair, leaning on the bed, but the best was the Jacuzzi tub. My tummy felt very light for the first time in several months.

After another couple of hours I was very close to the magic 10 cm mark. The doctor came in for the first time to check on my progress. He said I was very close to being ready to push but he had a favor to ask. It turns out he had one more appointment at another facility which was 10 minutes away and that the patient had traveled from out of town for the appointment. Of the three doctors in the practice, he was the only doctor available that day for the appointment and for delivery. He asked me if it would be ok with me for him to run across town, keep the appointment, then zip back to the hospital to deliver my baby. Adam was taking this conversation in and was certain that I was about to snap at this doctor for suggesting something so absurd. But I think I said something like “if I had traveled so far for an appointment I would be very disappointed for it to be cancelled once I got there” so I told him that was ok and off he went. I am not sure that he would have stayed if I said no, but it was nice to feel like I had the choice. He told me he would be back in 45 minutes so I watched the clock and had a little victory party with each passing of five minutes. It’s the little things at this stage of the game. Surprisingly he made it back early and I hit the magic 10 mark and was ready to go.

I don’t remember too much of the pushing part – but Adam does and apparently there was some concern. Carter’s heart rate continued to drop with each contraction and it got worse as I tried to push. The nurses joked that Carter was going to come out jumping rope with the umbilical cord but Adam could see the concern in their faces. While he was trying to keep me cool with cold washcloths on my forehead and giving me reassuring words he was also preparing for an emergency c-section. But, miraculously, Carter decided to show that umbilical cord who was boss and our precious baby boy was born at 6:10 pm. I didn’t get to hold him right away as I had hoped because I think they wanted to check him right away due to the heart rate concerns. But, he checked out just fine and was in my arms soon enough. It was amazing. Truly amazing.

Well, there you have it. I can't imagine many of you are still reading. But if you are, you get a prize - here is a slideshow of Carter's first birthday. We had a small balloon birthday party and Carter had a blast.

Sneak Peak

This last week has been extremely busy but full of fun. Here is a sneak peak of what's to come (starting at the top left and snaking down to bottom right):

Carter's cousins came for a visit
the orange wall has been painted
Mimi came for a visit
dining room chairs painted and upholstered
Carter is clapping
new artwork for new green dining room
Carter turned ONE!
sprinkler time at the botanical garden
ottoman slipcovered

And those are just a few of the things I decided were blogworthy (assumed you weren't interested in all of the cleaning, clothes washing, cooking, teething pain and late nights, etc. that took place last week too.) So, stay tuned. I am resting today but will be back tomorrow with updates and more pictures.
Happy Monday.

A Good Day

I think Adam had a good first father's day. Carter gave him a few new tools (one of them a day late - he needed it Saturday) plus this adorable card.



We spent the day working on some house projects, enjoying lunch at Chipotle, then strolling through the botanical gardens for some good music. We must have had "First Father's Day" written all over us because a local reported stopped us to ask a few questions. Here is a link to the article in today's paper.


Happy Father's Day to all - especially to Carter's Daddy, Granddaddy, and Poppa!

Guess what we're up to...

...painting. Again. We have a fresh pot of coffee, the furniture is covered in plastic, and we just cracked open a gallon of new paint. We are keeping our fingers crossed this attempt turns out better.

I told Adam there was no one else I'd rather paint a room twice in one week with.

He replied that there was no one else he'd paint a room twice in one week for.

Awww. Must be love.

Here is a shot of the new contenders. We are going for the shade on top - just trying to tone down the first color a bit (ok a lot).

Last & Next Thursday

This time last Thursday we were sitting on the lawn of our local botanical garden enjoying an Indigo Girls concert. Our sweet neighbor from across the street came over to watch Carter while we enjoyed our first show in over a year. It was a great night for an outdoor concert and they did not disappoint.

Do you remember that amazing dinner Adam prepared for us for our five year anniversary? Not only was the food delicious and thoughtfully prepared, but he also took the time to pick out a cd that reminded us of the past years. Of the five cds we had seen four artists - guess who we lacked? You got it - the Indigo Girls. Now we are five for five.

My gift to Adam for our anniversary was a ticket stub diary/album. We have saved most of the concerts, sporting events, etc. stubs from the past several years and they carry a lot of memories for us. As I neared the end of the collection I realized there was quite a void from June 2008 until now. Hmmmm. I wonder why that could be. Although we have been up late many a nights "enjoying" our little man's vocal chords we have missed going to shows and really enjoyed last Thursday. In fact we both commented almost simultaneously that enjoying a show in our new hometown made it feel a little more like home. (sorry grandparents)

So, that was last Thursday. Guess what next Thursday is?

This big boy's first birthday. Isn't this picture adorable? I could just eat him up - actually I do multiple times every day. Even though we have missed a few shows over the past year this little guy is totally worth it.

Fan Heaven

Over the past couple of weeks Carter has developed an infatuation with fans. We have 3 ceiling fans in our house and Carter loves to crawl towards them, look up, and watch them spin. Really he likes watching them when they are still too. One day as he was looking up I told him it was a fan and I pointed my finger towards the fan and moved my hand around in a circle. Ever since then Carter has imitated my "sign" for fans. It may not be approved by the ASL but it works.

Today I took him to fan heaven (aka Lowes).

In addition to fans, Carter is fascinated with lights. He will point out every light in every room we enter. I spend a lot of time each day turning the lights on and off and on again for my little man. He loves it.

I think we might have a little engineer on our hands.

What have we done?

What a day. It is too late to give you all the details, but here are the highlights plus a few pictures.

First, it was the most dramatic paint reveal ever. (I admit, I have been watching too much HGTV and the Bachelorette.)


This color was so bright I had to paint with my shades on.
Seriously, it started bright and in my opinion ended even brighter. It is really hard to imagine the color on a tiny paint swatch in your entire room. We need to work on that. A tiny splash of Benjamin Moore's grape green is nice and matches our chairs perfectly. Let's just say that an entire room of grape green will definitely keep you awake.

Ok - enough chit chat. Here is the before:

And here is the after:

We still have work to do. For starters we need to upholster the remaining five chairs. Then I need to work on turning the shower curtains into full length window curtains. We also have some ideas for some neat artwork/photography over the buffet.

Not sure if we will keep this color (it looks more yellow in this picture - but it does have a green tint to it) but it will have to do for now.

Good night.

Sneak Peak & Question

We have a lot of projects planned for this weekend - thanks to a special visitor who wants to play with Carter all weekend. Mimi arrives tomorrow and we are really looking forward to her visit.

We have saved a few time consuming projects for her visit because we knew she would take care of Carter while we worked. As she likes to put it whenever we ask her to take care of Carter - "please don't throw me in the briar patch!"

One of the items on the list is painting - actually it could be three of the items on the list because there are three rooms I want to paint. But we are starting with just one room and will see how fast or slow we move. Before we get started, I was hoping to get your opinion.

For the living room we are planning to paint one wall a burnt orange and the other three walls a warm khaki. I don't want the room to get too dark with lots of burnt orange but like the idea of one wall popping with color. Here are a couple of pictures of the current living room...

I am standing in the playroom looking toward the foyer in the first picture. I think both of these walls will be painted the khaki color.

In this picture I am standing in the foyer looking toward the playroom (blue wall) and dining room (brown wall). This is the view you get when you walk in our house. So the question is do we paint the fire place wall or the dining room wall? I like the dining room wall because it feels very symmetrical to me. The wall space on either side of the walk through is pretty even. On the other hand, the fireplace wall would add a lot of punch. We are planning on painting the blank canvas that is sitting on the mantle and it could really stand out against an orange wall. I am also going to slip cover the ottoman with a pretty bold orange and cream fabric. I go back and forth, but if I were to paint the room today I would go for the dining room wall. What do you think? Please let me know by leaving a comment. Pretty please!

Here is a picture of the colors we were deciding between for the dining room. We decided on the second from the left of the bottom swatch which matches the fabric on the dining room chairs. (or so we hope.)

Stay tuned for "after" pictures (hopefully on Monday). Until then - happy Friday and have a great weekend.

Cantaloupe & Clock

Over the past few days Carter has started pointing at things and communicating with lots of "ehhh" or "ohhh". I have started saying the words of whatever I think he is pointing at. And he seems to study the object and me as we play this new game. Yesterday we had the first of many moments where Carter points but I just don't know what he is pointing at. He was in his high chair for lunch and his eyes and pointer were both aiming pretty high toward the ceiling. So I knelt beside him and tried to look up from his view to see what he was looking at. Aha! We have a clock on the wall above our kitchen cabinets. It has been there since we moved in and we haven't even adjusted the time. I think it is an hour off from daylight savings time. We don't really use it that often - but Carter does! I think he likes the tick tock of the second hand moving around. Once I figured it out I told Carter it was a clock and he seemed satisfied with that.

At dinner time last night the pointing returned and I again told him it was a clock. Well guess what - Carter said "clock" right back. That's right - we have our first word! (we have had lots of da da and ba ba and even ma ma but this is the first word he has imitated and associated with an object.) He said it several more times and again this morning. Although really it was more like "ock" - but it was a new noise for sure and he was imitating my noise. Pretty cool.

I tried to catch it on camera this morning - but mainly I just got lots of video of him stuffing his mouth with cantaloupe. But, if you watch until the end, there is one "ock" sound. So proud. :)

Comedy of Errors

What started as a simple diaper change yesterday ended in a mid-day bath and renewed appreciation for Daddy.

Carter has been a little wiggle worm on the changing table lately. He rolls over. He fusses. He kicks (so hard that the lamp that used to be on the changing table is now sitting in hallway). Yesterday I was so focused on keeping him from rolling over that I didn’t notice the fountain. When I looked up at Carter’s face he was blinking his eyes and his hair looked like I had just poured a cup of water on him. I scooped him up and rushed down the hall for a quick bath and that is when I remembered that our only bathtub was still in the drying process from a new caulk job the night before. Also, as Adam was caulking he gave the tub and grout a really good scrub down of Tilex. Before I put Carter in the tub I rinsed the tub really well while he scooted around the floor. At one point Carter pulled up on the tub to see what I was doing. I looked down at him, smiled, and then realized that he was standing in a puddle of the remnants of another Carter fountain. He looked so proud. This was the first test of Adam’s caulking.

I cleaned up the new fountain mess and then it was bath time. Carter is just as adventurous in the tub as he is on the changing table. He crawls from front to back. He pulls up on the faucet. He tries to turn the water on. A mess he is for sure. And I learned for the first time in a while just how difficult it is to clean this little mess. Bath time is usually a Daddy job – which I have been taking for granted. I come in every once in awhile to play but Adam usually takes care of the scrubbing and hair washing. And I am VERY thankful that Daddy takes care of this job.

Monday Again?

How did it get to be Monday again? I feel like it was Friday afternoon just a couple of hours ago. Sigh. We worked so hard this weekend that I forgot to stop and enjoy it. But the work was good. It makes me happy to make progress on our projects. Every weekend we get closer to the end goal, but never close enough! I am ready to be done. But we are getting there. Here is a quick update of our progress this weekend. I wasn't as good as taking pictures of what we worked on so you will have to settle on some new pictures of Carter (I know you must be terribly disappointed.) On Saturday Adam finished mulching. Here is a picture of Carter inspecting his work. I think he approved and I do too. It looks great.

We also painted our living room bookshelf and media center. We used a can of paint we found in our basement. I think it is the lighter color of the stripes in our foyer. I started off spray painting the furniture the same color we painted the dining room chairs but it was going to take too long and too many cans of spray paint so we used what we had. I wasn't thrilled with the finished result. The color just wasn't what I had in mind - but it was too much work to do it over again so the furniture is back in place and the living room is back in order. We are going to live with this color for 6 months or so then reevaluate if we want to repaint.

.

On Saturday night we decided to start upholstering the seats of our dining room chairs. Hancocks had a great sale on their foam and batting last week so I gathered our materials and we worked in our backyard under the alley street light until 10:00 or so. The finished product (of one chair) looks good and I think we have figured out a couple of things to do differently on the remaining 5 chairs to make it work even better.

Time for another picture...

On Sunday morning we planned to go to church - but Carter's morning nap changed our plans. Adam stayed home with sleeping Carter while I went to church. While I was gone Adam took down the sliding glass doors on our bathroom shower. Our guest bath only has a stand up shower so we always bathe Carter in our bathtub. But, the rail of the sliding doors is very uncomfortable to lean over and the doors get in the way of trying to reach to the back of the tub when Carter goes crawling around - which he loves to do. Plus, the handle to slide the doors back and forth broke a few weeks ago so it was definitely time for it to go.

Yesterday afternoon was spent cleaning up all of our in progress work and getting ready for another week. I snagged this ball for Carter at Target yesterday thinking it would be a good toy to help him practice balancing. He loved it. And we loved watching him play with it.

That is all I have for now. Even though the weekend is behind us it is a brand new week so I am going to do my best to make the most of it. Hope you have a great week too.

Our Lil' Omnivore

Adam again with an update from the food front. You may recall the reports of our fickle little eater. Well, it would seem that those days have passed. At least for now.

Carter is now reaching for any and all food within sight.
Fruit? Mmmhmmm.
Cheese toast? Yes, please.
Beans at Chipotle? Sure (mommy's gonna love that one).
Arby's Roast? Bring it on.

Along with this new found love of food is a new found trick. Call it "the chipmunk." Ten or fifteen minutes after a meal Carter is still munching on some little morsel that he's stored away. Just last night we were playing on the bed twenty minutes after dinner. With every laugh, Carter left a small chunk of watermelon on the bed. Lovely, I know.

The 'Hood

Adam here. Tracy is busy with Little Bittle, so you're stuck with me.

It's hard to know much about your neighbors when you move to a new city. You can drive around and you can compare home values and you can get a general feel of an areas, but it's the luck of the draw for neighbors. For whatever reason, we pulled a pretty good hand.

We recently met a young family at the other end of our street. This past weekend they had us over for a cookout, and we had a great time chatting about the city and music and jobs . . . and recounting the trials, tribulations, and triumphs of new parents.

As we strolled back down the street toward home, we saw our neighbors from across the street. They'd just returned from a week in Chicago and brought back a Cubs hat for Carter. As a bit of background, I grew up as a Cubs fan watching Ryne Sandberg, Mark Grace, and Andre Dawson on WGN (Holy Cow! Cubs win! Cubs win!). Thanks to our generous neighbors, we're starting Carter off right.

While we stood and chatted, more neighbors walked up and we had quite the gathering in the street. It was splendid.

Now don't get me wrong. The neighborhood is not perfect. Like, for instance, the folks that left oil soaked dirt and random car parts in our trash can. That was not so splendid. Still, we're glad for the hand we've drawn.

Weekend Update - Part 2

Although I helped Adam with mulching on Saturday, the rest of my free time was spent working with my embroidery machine. I had a class on Saturday morning at the store where I bought the machine. I learned a few new tricks that will improve my work and save time. I was also enticed by some software that would make the design process pretty cool. Eventually (in a couple of years) I would love to be able to digitize my own designs (and Adam's too) but for now I am content with stitching the designs I am able to find on the internet.


I completed several of the "giveaway" orders and put them in the mail Monday morning. Yippee! I still have a few more to finish up - but they are on hold because the a/c installation is currently taking place in the craft room where I sew. During this sewing down time I have been working on starting my small business/hobby. I appreciate very much all of the wonderful name suggestions you guys came up with. There were some really fun ones - I never knew "T" could be used in so many different ways. In the end I went with name that seemed to be the favorite - Little Bittle. With the help of my artistic husband we have come up with a simple logo and have set up a shop on Etsy. I just have a couple of items listed right now but hope to increase that number over the next few weeks. You can check out my store here or click on the logo link in the sidebar.

Keeping my fingers crossed for my first sale! If you guys have any ideas for items that would be good sellers please leave me a comment and let me know.

Weekend Update - Part 1

We have definitely embraced all that is home ownership. We have a patch of green test paint on our brown dining room walls. We have a leaking pipe in the basement. And we are in the process of installing a new a/c unit for the downstairs. Those are just a few of the ongoing projects that pop into my head. There are many more in progress and many more in my head for when we complete the ones in progress. But you know what? I love it. Sure, if you live in an apartment you can call your landlord when the pipes start leaking. But you can’t drill holes in your hardwoods for new a/c vents or dig up the bushes in the yard that don’t’ suit you. We are really enjoying making our first home ours – here’s hoping there will be a buyer several years down the road that appreciates our efforts. Until then – we plan to enjoy it!

This weekend was busy with house projects as well as embroidery projects. A big pile of mulch showed up Saturday morning and we got right to work spreading it throughout our back yard. I love the look of fresh mulch against the lime green nandinas. Too bad the dark color doesn’t last all year. The mulch worked great in our garden paths too. Speaking of our garden – several of our seeds have started to sprout. Check out these okra sprouts…And what about these beans? Now we have the hard part of cutting some of the growth back so the survivors can get the nutrients they need to bear fruit. A few other landscaping notes from the weekend that I failed to take pictures of…
- a couple of our tomato plants have flowers – yippee!!
- we have two hydrangea bushes with flowers – surprisingly one is blue and one is pink
- we will not be growing any corn this year thanks to the birds who ate our seeds
- our blueberry bush is oh so close to bearing fruit (too bad we couldn’t pick them yesterday morning to go with our pancakes)

I’ll save the embroidery projects for another post as Carter is starting to stir from a nap.
Happy Monday!