Halloween

I'm pretty excited about Halloween. I just love the fall and Halloween is just one of those fun things that happens in the fall. It started on Wednesday night when we had some friends over to carve pumpkins, a long standing tradition since we moved to Columbia.

Carter hopefully is going to be a beagle for Halloween. I got his costume out last night, and I think it scared him. He cried and cried when I tried to put it on him. He was supposed to take his costume to school today for the Halloween party, so I sent it thinking "good luck!". About 10 this morning the day care called and said he had a fever, so I had to go pick him up. He didn't get to wear his costume at school, but since we've been home, I've been loving and kissing and playing with the beagle costume in an effort to get Carter comfortable with it. I guess we'll see how it goes tomorrow. Carter may be dressed up as a cranky little boy for Halloween. Some costume, huh!? Oh well, it is what it is!

Tonight we have supper club, which is actually a costume party too. I'm going as Octo-mom! It should be pretty funny. I'll have to post pictures in my costume.

Tomorrow, we have trick or treating with Carter which should be an experience, since he doesn't really understand any of this. But it will be fun regardless. I'll be sure to let everyone know how the costume situation ends up. Wish us luck!

Boys will be Boys

Carter has officially been inducted into the "I'm a rough and tumble boy" club. Several weeks ago, we got a call from the day care saying that Carter has fallen on the playground, has a pretty good gash on his forehead, and needs us to come take him to the doctor. Unfortunately since I was at a company training thing that day, I didn't get the call right away. When I realized I had missed calls, there were 2 from the day care and 1 most recently from Scott. Figuring Scott knew what was going on, I immediately called him first. He explained what happened and let me know that he had already picked him up from day care and was taking him to Dr. Castles office. Scott also said that Carter was acting fine and there was really no reason for me to come if I needed to stay at work. I thought about it for about 2 seconds and was like nope, I'm outta here! I drove as fast as I could to the doctor all the while working myself up to the verge of tears in case I got stopped by the police.

It was going to go something like this:
sob...son hurt, daycare....sob sob, sniff....busted forehead....sob, gasp of air....lots of bleeding....sob sob, wail...doctor, now, so sorry....sob sob!

Fortunately, I arrived without incident or having to test my acting abilities. When I walked into the exam room, they had just finished putting in his stitches, 3 total. He immediately reached for mommy and was not interested in letting go anytime soon. Everyone said he did GREAT getting his stitches.

We we arrived home, he acted completely normal. He's a tough kid, that's for sure. Six days later, we went back to the doctor to remove his stitches. He cried while Dr. Castles was removing the first stitch and then quit crying suddenly when he realized "hey, this doesn't hurt!" I guess now he'll have a little scar on his forehead to match Mommy's and Granny's. I guess it was inevitable....how else would we mark him?

In more recent news, Carter has another ear infection that won't go away. Here's how one doctors visit went:

Doctor - (looking in Carter's ear) wow! that ear is full of puss!
Me - really?
Doctor - Has he been sleeping?
Me - oh, yea no problem
Doctor - You have a good baby, I can't believe he's been sleeping with this ear the way it looks

After 1 round of oral antibiotics and 2 shots of antibiotics, it's looking better. We go back next week to see if the second round of antibiotics he's currently on will knock it out completely. We've literally been to the doctor 4 times with a 5 on the books in about a 4 week time period. I see tubes in our future.

Vacation - It's a Family Affair

A couple of weeks ago, we had the annual Rankin family vacation. (not to be confused with the Griswold's family vacation!) This year we were off to Hilton Head for the week. After attending Smith and Addison's birthday party on Saturday, we got on the road in what we were hoping would be an enjoyable car ride. After several shoulder tightening, stress inducing, solo car rides with Carter, I decided to borrow a DVD player from a friend in hopes that it would keep him entertained and perhaps he would choose not to scream/cry at mommy the whole time and mommy wouldn't have to sing for 2 hours straight to keep her head from exploding. It didn't work. BUT, Scott was with us, so at least we had one parent to drive and one to constantly feed new toys to the back seat to shush the whining.

We finally arrived and enjoyed some awesome family time. I don't get to see Scott's family very often, so it's always fun catching up and seeing how all the kiddos have grown. I really think I'm building up a tolerance for all the noise that comes with a family that large. I'm not sure if having a child has anything to do with that, but I'm sure it does.

We went to the beach every day that I was there. Carter loved the water and the sand, although after about an hour he was ready to go inside for some snoozing. It was definitely a little bit different than my typical vacationing where I take a book and my Ipod and lay out on the beach all day. We also took a brief outing to the outlet stores which is always fun. We had wonderful dinners every night, because each couple was responsible for a different night of dinner. We also got some amazing family pictures, because Sean has taken up photography as a hobby! YAY! For a novice, he really has a amazing eye for pictures.

We normally vacation during the first week of August every year which happens to include Ardy's (my mother-in-law) and my birthday. So on Monday night, we shared a birthday dinner, had two cakes, and received lots of sweet cards from the family. Scott's mom even made me an Ardy Rankin original bracelet for my birthday! I love her jewelry making hobby too! (Such a talented family!) Then on Tuesday morning, Ardy took all of the girls out for coffee and pastries at a local bakery to celebrate my birthday.

Tuesday night I had to leave to return to Columbia for work. Since I've only been in my position since January, I don't have a lot of time off saved up yet, and I didn't want to use everything I had in one shot. You never know when you'll have a sick child and have to stay home, so I wanted to keep a few days in reserve. I had been dreading this since the plans for the vacation had been finalized. I was going to come home, and Carter was going to stay on vacation with daddy. Up until this point, I hadn't even spent one night away from Carter. And here I am going to be without him for FOUR nights. Needless to say, I was a little bit of a mess when I was telling them both goodbye. But I got got on the road, called a friend and dried up the tears.

I had something planned for every night, so I wasn't just sitting at home missing my baby. I actually did pretty well I think. Scott and Carter came home on Saturday morning. I smiled a little on the inside when Scott was recounting the remaining days of vacation and telling me how difficult it was by himself because Carter didn't want anything to do with anyone else (I've definitely been there on more than one occasion). He also thought that Carter was missing his mommy and boy I can relate because I was missing that little guy too.

But all in all, they survived, I survived, and it was a great vacation. Next year though, I'm staying the whole time, even if I have to take unpaid leave. We'll just have to deal!

Carter's First Haircut

I HAD to do it. I didn't want to cut his cute little curly hair, but it was getting in his eyes. Who wants hair in their eyes all day? Scott and I took Carter to get his first haircut Thursday after work. He was really unsure about the lady touching his hair and got a big frownie face and started whimpering a little. But for the most part, he did pretty well. There were no tears, no tantrums, no hits....pretty good if you ask me.

Here he is getting the first few snips.

This was after he'd been sitting for a little while and was getting increasingly freaked out with the woman messing with his hair. It was like "help me, mommy!"And here is my little baby with his little boy haircut, still a little sad about the whole ordeal.

I was putting off getting it cut, but I'm really happy with it. I think it turned out pretty cute, and he looks like such a little boy now!

Summer Fun

We've been doing a lot since my last post. Here are a few pics from our summer fun. Sorry about the funky layout, apparantly it's been a little too long since my last picture post!

Carter took his first ride on the boat Papa gave him. He loved the boat - hated the life jacket. I'm sure he'll get used to it.

My sister Holly and her children came up and we met Krissee and the twins at the zoo for the day. It was soooo hot, I'm really not sure what we were thinking. Everybody had fun though. Smith and Carter wanted to ride beside each other and play and nap. What buddies! Here are all of our babies at the gorilla exhibit.

Carter went to his first wedding (I think). He loved listening and dancing to the band. This little girl was dying to dance with him, but Carter was having none of that.

He had so much fun dancing to the music!




















We've had some fun in the sun at the pool this summer. Here are Carter and daddy just floating their cares aways. (I wish I could say Carter just relaxed and enjoyed floating, but that was not the case.)
















Scott and I took Carter to a nearby park that had these baby swings. Carter had never swung before, so I was interested to see if he would like it. He loved it, as you can see!

Finally, this past weekend Carter and I went home to see everybody. I was sitting in Papa's chair with Auntie Holly and everybody wanted to join us. I know it doesn't look like Carter wanted to be up there, but trust me, he had a fit to get up there. He was a little jealous someone else was snuggling with his mommy!

Amen, I mean excuse me!

So we're in church on Sunday and Carter is sitting on Scott's lap. The priest just gets done saying a prayer and it's really quite...until Carter farts really loud! The people two pews in front and behind us were cracking up and we were about half way through the next hymn before I got it together again. It was hysterical!

I know My Husband Loves Me

I know this because he tries to make me happy even when it doesn’t make him happy. Let me explain. We’ve had a leaky toilet problem in my bathroom for several months now. After draining, drying, replacing bolts and caulking SEVERAL times over the last couple of months, it still leaks. Scott even got a friend to come look at it to see if he could do anything for the sick potty. To no avail, the potty was dying and was going to have to be replaced by a younger non-leaky model.

If you’ve ever seen my bathroom, you would know it’s about the size of a shoebox, for a pair of flats at best. I can stand on the rug and touch every wall, you get the idea? Being that I have such limited space, I’ve commandeered the potty as my vanity stool. I sit on it in the mornings as I put on my make-up and dry my hair. It’s taller than a regular toilet, so it’s the perfect height for me to see everything in the mirror. You can probably see where I’m going with this.

Scott makes a trip to Lowe’s and I think to myself that I should ask him to get a tall one, just like the one that was in there. I call him, but it’s too late. He’s already purchased the potty and is heading home and it’s not tall. It can’t be that bad; I’ll just have to live it, right? So, our friend comes to install the toilet the next day. I get home from work and seriously it’s like I’m sitting at the kids table. I can’t see the mirror anymore, and my morning getting ready routine is just going to be miserable like this.

You know how you feel utterly ridiculous when you you’re trying to ride a bike that you’re too big for? That’s how I felt trying to get ready on this toilet. Needless to say, I hate it! I know Scott loves me; because even though this is going to cost more money, eat up of more of his time and be just a pain in general, he’s fixing it, for me. He’s not happy about it, but he IS fixing it. And that says a lot. How did I get such a loving, caring husband?