Carter - 7 months

Carter James, you are seven months old! I’ve been trying to write your heartfelt post all morning but you keep crawling into my lap and trying to play with the computer, pull on my hair, and give me hugs and “kisses” (you open your mouth and move towards my cheek or nose with your drooly smile) - all which make it very difficult to type. But this is typical of life lately! You crawl all over the place and are into everything - you barely sit still! We had to baby proof this month and even switched our living room and family room spaces in order to give you a larger, safer place to play and explore. You seem to love to have the freedom to roam around and play with your toys and we love having the room to get on the floor and play with you (and let you crawl all over us).

You are getting better and better at eating solid foods and we can already start to see which foods you do and do not like. You LOVE oatmeal, rice cereal, and your veggies (peas, green beans, broccoli, pumpkin, and sweet potatoes) but you are not a fan of bananas, unless they are mixed with something else. Go figure. We’re excited to continue to introduce new things and see your reaction!

You still like going to Carrie’s house and reach out to her when we drop you off in the morning and even when you see her at church. It breaks my heart a little to see you so comfortable with someone else, but I’m glad that you are so comfortable with your caregiver when I have to work.  I’d much rather have you reach out to her than cry! Carrie takes very good care of you and we are so lucky that we have her!

Carter, you are so amazing to us with everything you are learning and doing. To think that this time last year you were just a little guy inside my tummy blows our minds. You have won over our hearts and we can’t imagine life without you! We love you, Bug!

Weight: 20 pounds, 4 ounces

Length: 28 1/2 inches

Clothes size: You just barely still fit in size 9 month or 6-12 month clothes and I’m sure we’ll have to move you to your 12 month clothes in a couple of weeks or less.

Diaper size: Size 3

Sleep: At night you go to bed between 8:00 and 9:00 p.m. You sleep in no consistent pattern but can usually be resettled easily without having to nurse. I usually end up nursing at your first wakeup between 1:00-3:00 a.m. and then again around 5:30-6:00 a.m., but that is it. If you wake up at any other point then we snuggle, rock and sing you back to sleep. Some nights you are a rock star sleeper and other nights you wake up frequently - and I’m sure teething isn’t helping you. You still end up in bed with us by the end of the night because nursing is easier that way, but I also love snuggling with you and waking up next to your sweet, smiling face.

Eating: You are still a distracted nurser and breastfeed for 5-15 minutes on each side… unless you are really hungry, then you get to business right away. You have 3 100mL bottles of expressed milk along with 2 oz of solid food at Carrie's house and we still breastfeed any time Mama is not working. You have gotten the hang of eating solid foods and very much enjoy meal time! So far you have had rice cereal, oatmeal, puffs, pumpkin, avocado, sweet potato, green beans, broccoli, peas, peaches, pears, and bananas. We are still introducing a new food every 4 days to make sure you aren’t allergic to anything we are giving you and we’re still making all of your food with organic produce.

Likes: Playing with your toys (favorites are your remote, helicopter, musical monkey, and giraffe), sucking on your binky, being held, army crawling, watching Gromit, listening to music, trying to play with our cell phones and TV remotes, going to public places and taking in all of your surroundings, and playing in your Baby Einstein Activity Jumper. Favorite songs right now are Going to the Zoo, Wheels on the Bus, Jesus Loves Me, You are My Sunshine, the theme song to “Jake and the Never Land Pirates”, and the special song Grammy made up for you.

Dislikes: Being hungry, being bored, having a dirty diaper, and being overly hot.

Milestones this month: Still army crawling, crawling to us when you want to play or be picked up, crawling to chase Gromit, going from the crawl position into a sitting position, grabbing things with your thumb and pointer-finger, getting your first tooth, ever-improving motor skills, and “talking” more and more.

Memorable moments: Going to the farm and doing the corn maze and taking pictures in the pumpkin patch, meeting the Upsilon ZTA girls, riding in the shopping cart at the grocery store, and Grammy visiting and watching you for a few days.

First tooth

It has been a big week at our house. Dave has been off and on with work on account of the government shutdown, but I am happy to report that he is back to work on his regular schedule! He only lost two 2014 holidays as a result of the shutdown but we will gladly take that over losing his pay. Let's just hope this fiasco doesn't repeat itself in January/February.

But in bigger news this week, Carter got his first tooth!

His gums have been swollen for a while but that first tooth (his bottom left) finally popped through. It been a rough week of being fussy and presumably some mouth pain but we got through it.

It looks like the other bottom front tooth may poke through soon and then I think the top ones may be next. The next few weeks and month will be interesting!

Furloughed

Happy Easter!

OK, that might confuse you, but today Dave was granted his (2014) Easter holiday from work because otherwise he wouldn’t be getting paid. Let me explain…

Dave works for a research lab that is mostly funded by the government, and the government is currently shut down, so funding for the lab has stopped. The lab has worked hard to make sure its 6,000+ employees can continue to be paid for as long as possible so they have been using reserve funds to pay their employees through this past Friday. Now, they are in their last bit of reserve funding and have pulled out a few last tricks to keep everyone paid while the government sorts out their problems. Today the employees were given their 2014 Easter Holiday early, they will be able to work to wrap up current projects on Tuesday and Wednesday and then on Thursday and Friday they get two more of their 2014 holidays (President’s Day and New Year’s Eve, if you were curious).

While we’re super grateful that the lab has worked it out to keep paying Dave, they cannot pay anyone starting Monday, October 21. If the government is still shut down on Monday then Dave and everyone else at the lab will be furloughed without pay. And because he works for a lab funded by the government but is not a federal employee then even if the bill passes to back pay federal workers, he won’t be included.

So if the government doesn’t get their act together soon we will join the ranks of the thousands of furloughed workers in this country. It’s a shame that the leaders of this nation seem to be too stubborn to really see how their decisions, or lack thereof, are impacting real people. And I’m not just talking about closing some national parks and memorials.

Our local economy will take a hit. With 6,000+ local workers in a smaller community losing their pay even for a short time, local businesses will see reduced spending and reduced revenue. Some families we know will lose their only source of income (and we would lose 2/3 of ours). And it’s not like these furloughed workers can apply for unemployment or just go get a new job. Technically they all still have jobs, they just can’t work at them.  And as soon as the government gets going again they will all go back to work. It’s just this crummy time of unknowns that is causing a lot of worry and frustration. And the worst part is there is (almost) nothing that we as individuals can do to make any difference or move things along faster.

Please pray for our leaders to come to an agreement on our national budget and get all of the furloughed workers back to work ASAP. Regardless what your political beliefs are, I think we can all agree that keeping hard-working people from their paychecks isn’t a good thing.