At a baseball game

We all went to a baseball game today but only stayed for about four innings. Then it was time for all babies to go home, get a bath and a bottle and hit the crib.

Carter in Arizona

Some pictures from our first couple of days here.

Off to Arizona - again

We're going to Arizona tomorrow, this time for Carter's grandpa's 60th birthday party. There may not be many postings for a while, so I leave you, Carter's devoted fans, with a couple of photos from San Diego.

Carter and his dad's aunt (would that be his great aunt?) Jo:


A rare picture of Carter and his mom. They look so much alike.

We're all sick

Carter first showed a runny nose on Thursday night. He got his parents sick by Saturday night. We're using that bulbous rubbery nosesucker thing to pull out gooey stuff from his nose every day. He HATES it!

So we pretty much spent Sunday hanging out at home in our pajamas. And Carter somehow scratched up his nose, which is why it looks red. I keep his nails cut short, I swear.




I read that babies average five to 10 colds a year because their immune systems are still immature. I think this is Carter's first one.

Here's what we've been doing to help him feel better:

-Run the humidifier
-Put saline drops in his nose before the dreaded suckage
-Rubbed Vaseline under his nose to keep it from getting irritated
-Put a pillow under one end of his crib mattress to get him inclined
-Given him lots of water to prevent dehydration
-Rubbed Vicks BabyRub on his chest and back after his bath at night

Carter and Grant in the tub

Ten years from now, they're going to kill me for posting this picture.

A Little Denver Nugget

There are rumors spreading about Carter's room decor. No, he doesn't have a 40 on the shelf. That's a lava lamp! And in this picture, the blue thing behind him is an air purifier.

Here are some videos of he-who-would-not-sleep:

Eight months old today.

I don't have a picture from today. Carter celebrated his birthday by going to the apartment downstairs and playing with 11-month-old Rhea. And he graduated from three naps a day to two. This is mainly because he was so excited by standing up in his crib that he wouldn't sleep much at all.

This picture is from yesterday, when we tried to take Carter swimming for the first time. The water in the pool was too cold, so we took him out after about three minutes.

A new era

That cute little baby we knew as Carter has turned into a madman. Over the course of the weekend, Carter learned to pull himself up to a standing position. Now, he stands whenever he can -- when he's by the sofa or his piano or near one of us with a pants leg he can pull.

That's all fine. The real problem is that now he can stand up in his crib. So the process of putting him to sleep -- which we had fine-tuned to be about a five to ten-minute process -- is now an hour-long ordeal that consists of him standing up in bed and crying and one of us walking in to put him down and shushing and pat-patting him into a semi-sleep state. And we walk out and he promptly gets up and stands in his crib again.

What kind of craziness is this? It's after 10 p.m. and he's just now fallen asleep. We're wiped out.

Did you know...

That there's a machine at the mall that will paint anyone's picture on your fingernail? I realize that my thumb below looks abnormally large. I'm just pressing against the railing, OK? No giant thumb jokes!

Finally, the crossover event of the summer PART TWO!

We went over to Nina and Clayton's house in San Diego to say hello and to meet Aria, born July 2. Carter adores other kids, but what would he think of someone even littler than he? We would soon find out.


He definitely liked crawling on Nina's nice new carpet.


And he liked chewing on Aria's toys.


Um, Carter, there's a little baby to your right.


Aaah, I should have known. Next he would have tried to bite her ear. I think all in all it was a nice introduction. We'll try it again next summer.

Carter and Rachel

Carter at the Fairmont

Carter's mom had a mojito and his aunt Rachel had a spicy bloody Mary at the Fairmont in downtown San Jose today. Carter got a bottle. Oh, and my camera arrived in the mail today good as new. Yay!

Another first

Carter was crawling on the floor today and he turned around into a sitting position. Yay! Another plus: he put himself to sleep without crying. It's a good day.

What Carter is eating

Here's a quick update on what Carter can eat these days.


Every morning he has rice cereal for breakfast. Pretty soon I'm going to get some other grains, like oatmeal.



He usually goes through about one and a half tubs of Gerber 2nd Stage baby food a day. His favorites are peas and sweet potatoes.



We've been trying out more human food. He really likes cottage cheese.



He likes his butter beans. I haven't tried any other beans yet because they're too hard. The butter beans are soft and easy for a baby to chew.



Carter really isn't a fan of ripe avocados. That's weird, because I ate a lot of these while pregnant.



He loves these Puffs but he gags and throws up when he eats them. So they're on the shelf for another month or so.

New weight: 18.5 pounds

Carter weighs 18.5 pounds now. That's up from 16 pounds on June 8. He should be gaining more than a pound a month, shouldn't he? We feed him and feed him, but it doesn't look like he's going to get fatter.

Roseola Blues

Carter tries to tap a barrel of wine at Testarossa Winery.

Alas, the happiest baby in the world is no more. Carter has come down with a mild case of roseola, also known as baby measles or three-day fever. He probably picked up the virus in San Diego or Santa Cruz. It's very common in babies, and starts off with three days of very high fever, followed by several more days of a disturbing pink spotted rash along the back and tummy.

We thought it was teething at first, but there were too many odd things going on so I took him to the doctor yesterday. It took the doctor about 15 seconds to figure it out. Carter has been fussy and cranky, and wasn't sleeping or eating well for a while. Now he's just about over it and is back to sleeping through the night. But it's been a very rough few days for the whole family.

The good news is that it's very rare for babies to get this a second time.

On the patio in San Diego

Carter loves to model for the camera. Any camera. He just turns it on...

I love this one, I don't know why

Thanks to all the family photographers who are sending in pictures while my camera goes in for surgery. This one is Carter in the (empty) swimming pool. All he needs is a pair of glowsticks...

Carter and his grandpa

Let's go swimming!

Dead camera

My camera just died and needs to be sent in for repairs. Luckily it was still under warranty. So there won't be any new pictures for a while.

Amuse yourself in the meantime with some beach movies.

Kids at the beach

Trying to get three babies to look at the camera at the same time on the beach is impossible. Carter and Grant are still obsessed with the sand.

Carter discovers sand

We took Carter to Mission Beach and he paid no attention to the vast expanse of water before him. Instead he was shocked to discover the sand at his feet. He wasn't sure what to make of it for a while.

It's been a long time!

Sorry for the total lack of communication. We all went to San Diego two weeks ago for a family reunion, and we all had so much fun we continued the party in Santa Cruz this past week. Over the next few days I'll have lots of pictures and movies of our adventures.