Is January over yet?

We apologize for the radio silence these past few weeks. We are all finally over our colds (for now) and Carter seems to have accepted his first teeth as a normal part of his mouth now. This month has been a challenge! It seems to be taking forever to reach the end of January, perhaps because we had all that time off over the holiday. The next holiday seems a long ways off.

We've enjoyed having lots of visitors this month. Mike's parents came last weekend and my mom and Ed are coming tomorrow. It's nice to have company over...for me anyway, gives me a chance to re-enter the adult world.

Let's see...what has Carter been doing with all our time together?
- He's an expert at rolling over. It's practically automatic if you set him down on his back somewhere. But he still can't crawl so tummy time gets frustrating for him quickly.
- He's become really good at grabbing things...toys, bottle, my hair, my face, my clothes, blankets, you name it...and nearly all of it makes its way to his mouth whenever possible.
- Whenever the weather is warm enough, we snap into the stroller for a walk around the neighborhood. Our neighbor Carol has been joining us lately and Carter seems to get a kick out of her.
- I think we may be attempting solid food this week. He's extremely interested in my food when I eat, sometimes trying to grab it. He seems to need a bottle ALL the time, hardly ever satisfied and frustrated when the bottle is empty. It's a little earlier than we expected him to be ready but we'll give it a try.
- His new favorite thing is to play with this little toy piano thing. We put him in a bouncy chair and hold the piano at his feet. He plays the keys by kicking, watching them light up and listening to the "music". Every few kicks, he looks up at us in wonder as if to say "Look what I can do!" See the video on Flickr.

Miss you all!

Happy 2009!

Wow! I can't believe it's 2009 already. It seems like much has happened since my last post. Mike had some time off of work which allowed us to all hang out at home and relax for the holidays. We had some playtime with Carter. He's getting so strong! If we lay him on the floor on his back and pull him up to a sitting positions by his hands, he will plant his feet and push himself up to a standing position and hold it there. Of course he has no balance but as long as we hold his hands, he'll stay standing.

The fun didn't last long though. Carter's got his first cold and we are all miserable because of it. Poor guy can hardly breathe through his nose and he's coughing his voice away. We've spent a lot of time sitting in the bathroom with the hot shower running and tormenting him with nasal drops to help clear things out. He's sleeping a lot today so maybe he's over the hump. Initially we thought he was teething, and he does have some sharp ridges coming up through the gum line. So maybe he's teething and has a cold simultaneously?

I've got some great photos and videos for Flickr. I'll try to get them posted soon.