A Little Update on Us

Wow! Time really gets away from you, doesn't it? I can't believe that summer is ending and school has started back. Of course, the temperatures are still over 100 degrees here every day, but my poor sister who is due any day with baby number four, is holding out hope that this heat wave will end any moment now. I'm predicting that she'll have a girl on August 26th, so she'd better start having some contractions so she can have this baby tomorrow!

Maggie has decided that 5:45 is a wonderful time to wake in the mornings, no matter what time she goes to bed the night before. She and I are having some quality time watching the sunrise each morning these days. Personally, I'd rather sleep now and bond later, but hey, you take what you get. At least she sleeps all the way through the night.

Miss Maggie is crawling, quite speedily all over the house now. She'll be 8 months old on Tuesday, and she's already pulling up to stand on whatever she can get her hands on. She's so good natured, though. Sometimes I'll realize that she's crawled out of the room, and I'll go looking for her only to find her in another room playing quietly by herself. We've been working on table foods, and so far she really likes diced bananas, diced carrots, peas, refried beans, and mashed potatoes.

Carter has assigned himself as Maggie's personal mind reader. All day I hear, "No Momma! Maggie doesn't want to come in here! No! Maggie doesn't want my toy! No! Maggie doesn't want to be held!" Yes, I realize that Carter is not clairvoyant, that this is merely a grammatical snafu, but it's funny nevertheless.

And Carter, ahhh Carter. I am never bored. He definitely keeps us entertained. One day, he came up to me and said, "Hey Momma, Beethoven says, 'Da Da Da Daaaaaa!'" I laughed hysterically, so of course, we hear it all of the time now. His favorite activity (other than torturing his sister) is having us spell things. He'll bring me a notebook and crayon and list off word after word that he wants me to write for him. You'd think I'd get a break in the car. No. I was silly enough to ressurect a little game my mom played with us growing up. She sang 'Bingo' and used our names instead of Bingo. Now Mom didn't limit her spellings to five letter words that actually fit the song, so neither do I. I seem to remember only getting Mom to spell people's names when she sang the song, but Carter has taken it to a new extreme. Not only do we do every name he can think of, but we also do every inanimate object he spots as we drive along. Oh, the things I've spelled to the tune of 'Bingo' - Carter, Maggie, Mommy, Daddy, Van Goat (one of Carter's favorite Baby Einstein puppets), stop sign, garage, mailbox - you get the picture. Oh well, at least he's learning something.

Carter has started back to preschool, and he's loving every minute of it. The first day of school he insisted that we go to lunch at Chick-fil-A afterwards and that his teacher, Ms. Wendy, go with us. In his new minivan. Luckily, Miss Wendy and Sue-Suz obliged and went along with us to lunch. Then when we got there, his other teacher, Ms. Laura, was already there eating. He said, "Look who's here! It's Ms. Laura!" He was so excited!

One last funny Carter story, and I have to wrap this up. The men in the family have now woken and joined the early bird ladies. Anyway, we were at the grocery store the other day, and I was buying some little individual container of diced carrots for Maggie. I asked Carter if he was going to eat any carrots, and he said, "No, I not a baby." I told him that carrots are not just for babies, they're for big boys, too. I said, "Aren't you a big boy?" He looked at me and said, "No, I not a big boy. I'm just Carter." What can you say to that? Well, that's about it for us right now. We'll update again soon.