Carter's Top 10 List at 2 Years Old

As the time approaches (3 days) that Carter turns 2 years old, we are trying to document his life now so we can always come back to this and get a clear picture of what Carter's life was all about at this exact age. So here it is.... as David Letterman would say, drum roll please....

CARTER'S TOP 10 LIST (RIGHT NOW)

# 10 - J.D.

His friend that used to go to school with him. I would have never thought that a 2 year old really cares about specific friends... many books say kids don't truly start playing together until 3-4 years old... but I would challenge that thought process. Carter, unfortunately, doesn't get to see J.D. everyday and has only seen him once in the last month. However, we can be doing the most mundane of things... like taking a bath or just playing in the living room and Carter will bring up "J.D." Just precious. Carter will be so happy because J.D.'s mom and I have set up a play date next Monday for the boys to see each other again! By the way, J.D.'s parents have similar stories of J.D. talking about "Carter Brown" all the time at home.

# 9. Addie

Just in the last several days, he amazes us with how tender and loving he is with her, surprisingly, mostly at the times when she is the loudest and crying. For example, this afternoon, I got Addison out the car first and put her car seat with her safely in it inside her room so that I could then return to get him out of the car. I was then loading up all the enormous amount of "stuff" in my car to bring inside and was making the rounds room to room quickly putting things away and I hear her start to fuss. I am talking to her as I get closer to her room and make the corner to find that Carter had come inside from the garage and immediately gone to her room when he heard her crying and was literally rocking her car seat with one hand and had his other hand on the top of her head patting her. I almost cried.

# 8. MILK

We are blessed to have such a good and healthy eater. Partly it is because of the way Blake and I don't allow him to snack alot in between meals or eat too much "junk food," although that is getting harder as he gets older and Uncle Mike and Ella keep giving us yummy cookies! However, one area we have been strict since day 1 (per our doctor's advice) is that he only gets water and milk. EVER. Well, daycare is another story, but we try to limit it. As a result. he has never asked for "juice" or anything else to Blake and I, instead, he asks for MILK about 25 times a day. Last week, we witnessed him go through a gallon of WHOLE MILK in way less than a week! That is a LOT of milk! But NO COMPLAINTS. He will be sad that the gallon of whole milk in our refrigerator will be the LAST one EVER for him... we are moving to 2% later this week (again... per his doctor!) ;)



7. "SKIP," "BEAR" and having a "PACI PARTY!"


Hands down, this boy is THE BEST SLEEPER in the entire world. We now, after 2 years & having payback with a daughter that is much more of a normal baby around going to sleep, can brag. 80% of it was the luck of the draw with Carter himself, the other was religiously following The Baby Whisper, as all my close friend know... thanks Aunt Alli for that random purchase and gift nearly 3 years ago! Getting him to go down since day 1 is a 10 second process of laying him down wide awake in his crib and saying, "I love you," as you walk out of the dark room and shut the door for 12 hours. We can count on one hand the number of nights we have had to go in to his room in the middle of the night. Probably out of guilt of the process being so easy, at around a year, we started giving him "SKIP," "BEAR," and/or "BLANKIE." I had heard some nightmare stories of the one lost item where only it could soothe the child, so therefore decided in our home, there wouldn't be that one item. It's paid off! Now, he does still use a pacifier a.k.a. "paci" to sleep only at night. We just found out last week daycare hadn't used it in several months for nap time. Who knew?!?! So the plan is this week, what we have called the "Paci Party," which is code for "We are going to sleep," is changing to "Party with Skip and Bear!" Yes, we are going to try to get rid of the pacifier all together!

Yes, he is still in his crib and I dare not fix what is not yet broken. He hasn't had any interest in throwing a leg over to escape. I am very aware that our lives will significantly change once he learns he can wake up and instead of go back to sleep, he can now get out of bed and maybe his room... ugh.... let's not even think about it right now!

"Paci, Bear & Skip" all made a rare appearance in this pic!

Tomorrow, I will continue with the countdown! Leave comments with your guesses if you feel like you know Carter well enough!!! ;)