My dearest Carson… my second born… my son. I never dreamed I’d have a son. I just never pictured a boy… and now that you are a part of our lives, we can’t imagine it without you. You are such a sweet mellow spirited boy, but as you grow and figure out how to get around in your world… you are proving to mommy and daddy that we’re going to have our hands full with you.. You are 100% pure boy. You do so many things that we never knew about or thought about when we were parents of a little girl.
It’s true what they say – the second child is less photographed and their baby book is much more sparse of details… I haven’t set aside the time to keep up with the monthly updates (since you were 9 months old!) and I’m very sad about that, but life is so busy getting lived, that it doesn’t leave much time for documenting it.
You finally decided you liked solid foods at about 9.5 months old. You started chowing down on fruits and yogurt and cheeses. You pretty much skipped over baby mush and went right to small pieces of “real” food. You are now 15 months old and you want to do it all yourself. You really enjoy walking around the house with a slice of bread in your hand munching on that. Your favorite sandwich is whole wheat with roasted red pepper hummus! You can feed yourself with a fork, but you’d rather dig in with your hands and toss the fork on the floor. Currently, you enjoy fruits (watermelon is a favorite), bread, cheese, yogurt, and more cheese. Oh, and you’ve been known to eat 10 baby carrots in one sitting – you seem to never tire of those! You are not a fan of (most) vegetables or meats.
Up until you were a year old, you continued with your every 1.5-2 hour waking schedule overnight…every night. Mommy was exhausted. We decided to let you “Cry it out” shortly after you turned one…and you cried for a little while the first and second nights when you woke up, but then you figured out how to settle yourself back down. We’ve now settled into a pretty good schedule of you going to bed at around 7:30…up to eat around 10:30-11ish and then again around 4:30-4:50ish. If you wake in between those times, you fuss it out for a few minutes and put yourself back to sleep. You love your pacifier still, but rarely find it in the middle of the night. We got you a few different stuffed toys thinking you’d attach to a “lovey”…but your favorite bedtime items still seems to be a couple of prefold cloth diapers that you can hold and rub on your face.
You are very attached to breastfeeding, and I’m not sure when we’ll wean you. You are 15 months old, and you still nurse 5-6 times each day. … 5am(ish)…7am(ish)…after daycare… before bed (sometimes twice)… 10:30ish … I’m not in a rush to end our relationship…and obviously you aren’t either.
You never really actually liked taking a bottle at Lynne’s house. Two weeks before you were 1 year old, you totally refused to take anything else from a bottle. You weaned yourself cold turkey. Only problem was, you also refused a cup – any cup. It took a full month for us to figure out that you liked the cup Laura uses – and it took that long for you to figure out how to use a spill proof cup. Now, you take 1 full cup of milk each day at Lynne’s house. About a month ago, you figured out how to drink out of a straw. I stopped pumping for you when you stopped taking the bottle…but the freezer still had 150 ounces stashed for you. I went on a search and found a mama a few hours north of here who could use it. We met up at the parking lot of the Cortland Tim Horton’s and I gave her the last of the freezer stash for her 7 week old son Aaron.
At 12 months old, you didn’t have any words, but you loved to roll your tongue back and forth in your mouth making noise… you’d do it at dinner and we’d all do it back getting you to laugh at us. You currently say “mama”… mainly in the middle of the night or when you’re fussy. You started signing “all done” at around 13.5 months old and at around 14.5 months you started signing “more”. Now you nod your head in a very “I dream of Jeannie” way when we ask you “Do you want to go nite nite?”
You do not like being rocked to sleep. While that is nice in the evening because we can put you down and you put yourself to sleep, it makes it difficult to travel with you when it will overlap with a naptime or bedtime. Church was difficult last week because you didn’t get your nap before we left, you were telling me you were sleepy as we were worshiping, but you would not fall asleep. You ended up pushing yourself to stay awake until we got home at 2pm and then crashed the second you were in your crib.
Your 1 year stats: 32inches (above 95%!) 22 pounds 14 ounces (52%)
Your 15 month stats: 33 inches (94%) 23 pounds 14 ounces (~42%)
You and your sister are very close. You both love to scoot off to her room and bounce and giggle on her bed. She also quite often exerts her size over you by dragging around with her arm around your neck. We keep telling her that soon enough, you’ll be her size – and then bigger than her and pay her back for what she’s doing. I don’t think she understands or believes us, but it’ll be interesting to watch as you grow and the tables turn. You have already figured out how to make her mad too… you have been known to take a toy she’s playing with and run away from her giggling!
Toilet seat locks? I used to think they were a gimmick. Now I want to buy stock in them! Playdough… a sippy cup… lid to the humidifier… another container of playdough… a bathtub fishy toy… a piece of bread… just the start of things that have ended up in the toilet so far. We actually don’t have a toilet lock, although I love the idea of it… I think we’d have a lot of potty accidents with Laura if we did have one… so, we’ll try to remember to keep the bathroom door shut and the lid down…and when you get through those defenses and we hear the giggling and splashing water, we’ll strip you down and toss you in the tub, just as we’ve been doing.
More evidence you are all boy… You have figured out how to remove the child safety caps from the outlets. You think graham crackers were made to be dropped down the floor grates. You remove the coverplate to the thermostat in your bedroom. Oh, and just this evening, daddy found what looks like little beaver marks on 3 sides of your crib… looks like someone has been trying a new snack! You climb on everything. We’ve found you standing on the kitchen chairs, standing on the toy chest in front of the window, standing on Laura’s booster seat to make you a few inches taller so you can reach the table.
Your personality is mellow and sweet, but you can also be very demanding and whiney… there are days that your daddy or I carry you on a hip. A lot. My right arm muscles are very well defined! You just like being up and seeing what is happening at our level.
You are filling out your 18-24 month clothing very well now. You’re in medium fuzzibunz and size 4 pampers. Your shoe size is a 5.
You were cruising furniture at a little over 10 months old… and took a few steps the week you turned 11 months old. We haven’t been able to stop you since then! You walk with a very wide and sometimes sidestepping gait.
At around 13.5 months old, you discovered Toby and Miranda. Their personalities are the same as when Laura discovered them… Toby tolerates you hugging and squeezing and poking him. Miranda hides.
By 12 months, you had 8 teeth – 4 top and 4 bottom. Here at 15 months, you still have those same 8 and no more yet.
You still sit rear facing in both the truck and the van.
Last month, you helped set a Guinness World Record. We went to Jillian’s Drawers and participated in the Great Cloth Diaper Change. Babies all over the world were changed at the very same time into cloth diapers. They are still tallying the final numbers, but you will be getting a certificate of participation and we ended up on the front page of the local newspaper!
This is the best "before" picture I have - Rich had already taken off the actual door - the one that was painted in an awful turquoisey/seafoamy green color (on the outside). The trim and sidelights were the dark wood with stain on them.
The huge hole in the wall! 
Much nicer! The new door lets in so much daylight. A very welcomed change to the darkness that we've had. The doors and sidelights have the blinds inside of the glass, I highly recommend that option if anyone is thinking of it someday.
This was taken the weekend Richie put the door in - now the trim and siding are all back on - I really should go take another picture!
This is the picture taken the week we moved in!
