four months

September 23, 2013

Weight: 18 pounds 5.5 ounces (91^st percentile)

Length: 27 ¾ inches (100^th percentile)

Head circumference: 17 ½ inches (100^th percentile)

Dear Charlie,

It’s hard to believe you’re already four months old. Your newborn days passed too quickly! We try to savor every moment with you realizing how fast you’re growing and changing. You wear size 3 diapers and are already wearing 6-9 month clothes.

You are such a sweet boy! Your sweet smile lights up the room. You love hugs and kisses and enjoy being with people. You like to be held, but have become quite the wiggle worm. You’ve started laughing some this month and we love it! What a joy it is to hear you enjoy life! You like to sit or stand up while being held or sit in the bumbo so that you can be in on the action! You like lying on the play mat and sitting in the bouncy seat for short periods of time and have started hitting, grabbing toys, and even holding onto toys, but if you hear talking in another room, you much prefer to leave the toys behind and see what everyone else is doing. We all love spending time with you! Carson talks to you, sings to you, and gives you lots of hugs and kisses. You love to play with your hands! You look at them, hold them together, and chew on them a lot. You have lots of slobber!

You eat every 2-4 hours during the day. You’ve started spitting up quite a bit this month, but thankfully it doesn’t seem to bother you too much. You still take several naps each day, one between each feeding. At the beginning of this month, you outgrew your beloved rock ‘n play. You weren’t sleeping as well, looked cramped, your feet were hanging off, and you were getting so strong, I was afraid you might push yourself out into the floor! So, now you sleep in your crib. You have not slept as well at night this month. I joke that you were easing me into mothering two by sleeping so well at night the first three months. You’ve been waking up every 2-3 hours at night, which is quite a change from all of those eight hour stretches last month. I don’t think the crib is as cozy as the rock ‘n play. You’re lying flat on your back surrounded by open space instead of lying at incline with a bed hugging you on both sides. You’ll adjust before long, I’m sure. In the mean time, I’ll do my best to savor this middle-of-the-night time with you and bring you to my bed from time to time so I can rest while I feed you.

You are still a good sport about going out and about, but don’t sleep in your carseat as much as you used to. We’ve been going to the park a lot this month. You like to be outside and enjoy the fresh air both while riding in the stroller beside Carson and sitting with me while we watch him play.

We had more company this month. Bobel and Reenie came over Labor Day weekend and our friends, Kaye and Lindsey from Hohenwald came the next week. They all enjoyed playing and snuggling with you.

You had your first plane ride this month! We flew to Texas. You did great on the air plane. Daddy went to Summit at ACU and we got to see Pops and Granny. You got to meet Aunt Misty and Uncle Matt as well as other friends, including Judy Siburt, whose husband Charlie you were named after and James and Carolyn Thompson, one of the men who inspired your middle name. What a special time it was!

We love you so much and are thankful you are ours!

Mama, Daddy, and Carson

three months

August 23, 2013

Weight: 17.4 pounds

Length: 26 inches

Head circumference: 17 inches

Sweet Charlie Boy!

We love you so very much! You are the perfect addition to our family. Living life with you is an honor and a joy. You’re a growing boy and wear size 3 diapers and 3-6 month clothes.

You’re still a happy boy and are quite generous with your sweet smiles! Your whole little face lights up when we make eye contact and talk to you. You coo and make the sweetest sounds as you look back into our eyes.

You like to be held and are still pretty snuggly. You enjoy lying down for short periods of time, but really prefer sitting up or standing up and seeing what is going on around you. The bumbo is your favorite place to be. We usually keep it in the kitchen, and you like to watch us prepare meals and wash dishes. It’s also your favorite place to poop! You’ve blown out several diapers in the bumbo. You like to sit in your high chair during meals and smile at us while we eat. When we’re holding you, you use your strong legs to push to a standing position. You love to watch Carson. He’s almost always moving and talking or singing, so he’s quite entertaining. He loves to talk to you and you smile sweetly at him. We love watching you two love each other.

You eat every 2-3 hours during the day, and have even had a few four hour stretches when we’re out and about. You sleep in the rock ‘n play for naps when we’re home and at night. You switched from the swaddle me blanket to the woombie this month. You like that it allows you to move your arms, and you always put your hands beside your face to sleep. You’ve still been sleeping really well and have become quite consistent in sleeping eight hour stretches at night time.

You continue to do well while we’re out and about at the grocery store, restaurants, and at church. You are happy to be passed from one person to another at church. The teenage girls especially love to hold you.

Just a few days after Daddy got home and Pops and Granny left, our sweet friends, the Riches came to visit. We stayed busy and had lots of fun with Mark, Tara, Jaxon, and Madelyn. Daddy took off work and we had a staycation. We went to the Children’s Museum, the Aquarium, Monkey Joes, Chick-fil-A, and an outlet mall. We even took a day trip to Savannah and Tybee Island. We were thankful that you were flexible and went with the flow.

Thank you for being our sweet baby boy!

We love you so much!

Mama, Daddy, and Carson

happy three years from daddy

Dear Carson,

You’re 3 years old! Where has the time gone? It seems like yesterday we were waiting on your arrival. Now you’re such a big boy! Watching you grow over the last year has been so much fun!

It’s been neat to see you become so comfortable in our new home, in our new city, and with our new church family. What a fun treat it is to live in such a fun place and have such a loving church family. We’ve had fun going and enjoying many of the perks of living in the Atlanta area: the zoo, the aquarium, the children’s museum, and Braves games. Your excitement at experiencing these fun places and events makes the experience even more fun for me and for your mama!

As I think back over the last year we’ve begun doing lots of fun things together. We check the mail together each evening after I come home from the office. You help me when I cook food on the grill. We watch basketball together. We listen to music together. You sit in my lap and watch concerts with me (your favorite is Trombone Shorty). We read books together.  We make music together with your harmonica, your pitchpipe, your xylophone, and your drums. I love for you to be my helper to go shopping; we go to Kroger and Sam’s most of all. You especially like the car shopping carts at Kroger!

It’s amazing how much you’ve changed. You’ve slimmed up and grown taller. Your vocabulary has expanded exponentially. You know so many songs (your mama and I estimate you probably know significant portions of a couple hundred songs). Your imagination has continued to become more and more vivid. Your creativity has developed a lot, too.

My favorite thing about you is how much you love people. You care for everybody you know. If friends are sick, you want to check on them and help them. If people are sad, you want to cheer them up. When I come home each day, you always ask me about my day and tell me about yours. But perhaps the greatest example of your love for people is the way you’ve welcomed Charlie to our family. You have been so sweet and loving to him, and he loves you so much.

Carson, I am so thankful for you! I love you so, so much!

Love,

Daddy

three years old!

August 2, 2013

42 pounds (99^th percentile)

40 inches tall (91^st percentile)

Dearest Carson,

It’s difficult to find the words to express just how much I love you, my sweet boy. I am so very thankful that I get to live life with you. You are an absolute joy. Watching you grow and learn is such an honor. In some ways, it’s hard to believe you’re already three, but in other ways you seem much older and it’s hard to remember my life without you.

This year has been extra special because I’ve gotten to see you become a big brother! Not long after your second birthday, we found out I was pregnant and Daddy and I decided to tell you right away. We knew it was a lot for you to process and would be a long time to wait, but you did great! You watched my belly grow as Charlie grew inside me and loved to talk to him, sing to him, and give him kisses before he was even born. You were patient with me while I was pregnant, sleepy, and unable to carry you. You went with us to my doctor’s appointments and loved getting to hear your baby brother’s heart beat.

My very favorite moment of being a mama so far is seeing you and Charlie meet for the first time. I will never forget the excitement and love in your eyes as you came into the room and crawled into the bed with me to see your brand new baby brother. You talked, sang, and kissed just as sweetly as you had when he was still inside of me and over the next few weeks you kept saying, “Mama, can you believe Charlie is really here?!” Since then, you’ve continued to show him love, care, and patience. I am so thankful Charlie gets to learn from you!

I love to hear your sweet voice call for me in the mornings. “Mama, I’m awake!” What a joy it is to be greeted with such love each day! Some days, we snuggle for a little while when you wake up, and other days you’re ready to play. You like to know what day it is, and have been working to better understand time, so several months ago we put a calendar in your room, and you’ve enjoyed learning with it in the mornings. You can sing both the days of the week and months of the year. A couple months after that, we added a United States map. You’ve really enjoyed learning where various states are on the map. You can already locate and name 12 different states.

Your favorite toys are Fisher Price Little People and plastic animals. You use your imagination and play for hours with them. You also like to build with blocks and legos. You’ve started watching TV some and your favorite shows are Little Bear and Clifford. We still love reading books together, especially snuggling and reading one after another. You also like to play and explore outside. Rocks and sticks are some of your favorite toys. You like to call your grandparents on Facetime. You love your stuffed animals. Sometimes you try to put all thirty in bed with you at once, but you normally sleep with about 10 each night. You especially love Tiny, Teddy, and Pooh.

You don’t always nap anymore. Some days you will nap for three hours and other days, not at all, but you always stay in bed and rest for at least an hour and play with your stuffed animals and sing.

One of the highlights of our year was potty training! Just two months after your second birthday you started using the potty and wearing big boy underwear during the day. It’s been challenging at times, but you’re doing really well! You are 42 pounds and 40 inches tall. You wear size 4T-5T shirts and 3T-4T pants.

Daily tasks are fun with you. You help me with cleaning, laundry, trash, and mail, but our favorite task is cooking. I love spending time with you in the kitchen and teaching you as we prepare dinner and make yummy breads and cookies. One of your favorite parts of cooking is sharing with friends and neighbors. Your loving and generous spirit challenges me almost every day.

You really like to go out and about and I enjoy running errands with you. We go to the post office, Kroger, Sam’s, Target, and Hobby Lobby. You help me find the things on our list and we enjoy chatting while we shop. We also go fun places like library story time and the park together. We’ve made sweet friends this year so sometimes we invite them over or meet them at the park, library, and Chick-Fil-A. At least once a week during the day we spend time with Shannon, Laura Beth, and Caroline; Kristen, Colin, and Owen; or Keely and Addison. In the evenings or on the weekends, we have lots of fun with Brian, Kathy, Graeme, and Miles.

You love people and are thoughtful and compassionate beyond your years. You’re outgoing and friendly and remember everyone you meet. You have friends of all ages including our neighbors and church family. You love going to church to see people you love and sing. Singing, oh how you can sing, my sweet boy. You’re almost always singing! It is such a joy to both listen to you sing softly as you play and to see you grab anything you can find to use as a microphone and sing loudly and with great passion. You still love Thank You Lord and The Doxology, but a new favorite this year is 10,000 Reasons. You love to sing at church and at Southland, the nursing home we visit once a month, and you’ve even gotten to help lead songs a couple of times. Your worship is not only a blessing to God, but also to everyone around you.

As is our tradition, you woke up to balloons in your room on your birthday and we had pancakes for breakfast. You also got to open gifts and go to Loco FroYo. We made chocolate cake and shared it with friends at church. I had a lot of fun planning your birthday party with you! It was fun to share ideas and see you get excited. We ended up finding inspiration from one of your favorite books and had a bear hunt party. Everyone brought their teddy bear to hunt and we ate milk and cookies. A lot of friends came to celebrate with you.

Carson, I pray that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ-to the glory and praise of God!

Thank you for being my boy! I love you so much.

Mama