Monday, August 18, 2008

Carson, age 6 months

Its hard to believe that we've had the joy of having Carson in our lives for six months now. But then again, its hard to believe its only been six months since I don't remember life before his arrival. :) Each day seems to bring something new, it is just so fun to watch him develop right before our eyes. He is getting so big and strong, he'll be crawling and walking before we know it, I'm sure. Right now, we're good with just the independent sitting, for I'm afraid he's going to be quite the energetic little handful once he gets completely mobile. He does roll all over the floor to get where he wants to go, but that is tame compared to how it'll be once he's crawling, I'm sure. :)

Carson is loving his solid foods. He is so funny. He definitely has inherited his Mama's impatience. :) He gets very impatient if you're not feeding him quick enough and demands you to hurry it up. We're still taking it very slow with introducing the solids. So far he has had rice cereal which we switched over to oatmeal, which seems to help with the constipation. He's had organic prunes, sweet potatoes, pears, green beans, carrots, and now peaches. He doesn't care for green beans much, but I mix them with sweet potatoes and he'll eat them. He needs the green beans to keep his system moving. :) His favorites right now are probably carrots and pears. We'll probably try applesauce next, but I'm a little cautious about apples and bananas, too, since they cause constipation. So we'll definitely limit those two fruits.

Carson's language is growing everyday. He tries out all kinds of new sounds and it is so cool to listen to him. My favorite thing is probably listening to him in his crib when he wakes up cooing and babbling, or when he's playing and "talking" to his toys or to Jet. It is just so cute. Speaking of Jet, I think Carson and Jet are going to be best buds. Carson just adores Jet and Jet is quite fond of Carson, too. Carson will giggle and laugh and talk to Jet all the time. He thinks its hysterical when Jet just looks at him or yawns or sneezes. Jet tolerates Carson very well and I hope that continues to go over so well once Carson is mobile. Carson has surprised Jet a few times, tugging and yanking on his lip or on his hair, which has startled Jet, but he's not shown a hint of animosity towards Carson for it, which is very good. Jet loves to give Carson "kisses" - or rather probably just licking up his spit and food leftovers he may have on him. Carson loves it, too, even though Kevin and I try to keep Jet from licking him so much.

The strength that Carson has just amazes us, too. You can tell he wants to walk so badly. If you hold his fingers, he will take steps with you to get where he wants to go, its so cute. He loves his exersaucer because he can stand on his own, too. He just has the best time in that thing. Carson still loves anything musical and is very curious to check everything out, touching it and putting it in his mouth if he can get it there. I don't think it'll be too long before he learns to crawl, either. He'll get his knees fully underneath him now, but won't take his fist out of his mouth, so hasn't realized he should put his arms out and push up with his knees under him. Instead, he'll push off as hard as he can with his feet and flop across the floor. He also scoots himself backwards quite often now, too. And he's rough, totally all boy, and looks like he'll definitely be his father's son from what I've heard of Kevin's energy levels as a child. :)

Friday, August 15, 2008

6-Month Check-up

Carson went for his 6-month well-baby check-up this afternoon. He's meeting and surpassing all of his milestones and Dr. Akrawi said he is a very healthy boy. He weighed in at 16 pounds, 13 ounces, which put him in the 25th percentile for weight. He is 27 inches tall, which puts him in the 75th percentile for height. And his head was 17.5 inches in circumference, which I think they said was between the 50th and 75th percentiles. Carson got his third round of all the shots and he hated it again. We'll have to see how he deals with them this time. I hope he does even better than he did at four months. I'll post more later on what he's been up to and some pictures.

Monday, August 4, 2008

Meeting More Family

Sara's Uncle Mike, Aunt Mary Ann, and cousins Shannon and Shane came to visit this past weekend, so Carson got to meet even more family! They live in Collierville (near Memphis), Tennessee and it had been quite a while since any of us had seen them. 8 years since we've seen Aunt Mary Ann and Shannon, probably 4 years since we'd seen Shane, and 2 years since we'd seen Uncle Mike. So it was great to see them and spend some time with them. Shannon and Shane have grown up so much since we've seen them last. Shannon is just such a beautiful woman now - she graduated from the University of Tennessee last year and is working at International Paper in Memphis in the logistics field. Shane is still as sweet as can be and you can't help but love him to pieces. He just loved Carson so much, well I think they all did, but Shane was just so sweet with Carson. I wish Carson wouldn't have been so over-stimulated and would have enjoyed Shane a little more.

So we had a weekend filled with family get togethers at my parents house mostly. Its always good to see family and it was a lot of fun. We finally got a picture with Sara's Grandma and all of her grandchildren (minus Carson since he was napping). I don't even know when the last time we were all together was... probably at least 16 years. Once Carson woke from his nap, we got a quick picture of all the grandkids and great-grandkids (there are two, Macie and Carson). These will be great pictures to have and I'm glad we were able to all get-together to take them.


I wish we'd have had more time with them all, but Uncle Mike and Shannon had to get back to work this week. Hopefully we'll be seeing a little more of them now that Sara's Grandma Moore lives up in Michigan and hopefully we'll be able to make a family trip down to Tennessee in the next year or two. The last time we were there was in 2000 and we had such a great time and have wanted to go back ever since.

There are lots of pictures from the time with our family in our albums (link at the right), as well as the July photos. Enjoy!