Last day of soccer

Yesterday was the last soccer game of the winter season and Carter's team finished in third place.

He was the goalie for a while, which he really liked. He asked me to film him, but I forgot. I did take pictures though.

He also got a medal at the end of the game for being most improved over the season and for stopping a few goals.

Here he is receiving the medal:

And finally with his medal and third-place trophy:

Sword talk

Carter is learning how to use a sword in karate. It's just a wooden sword, but it's full sized. The other day he said he wanted to ask his teacher: "Under which circumstances would I be walking around carrying a giant sword?"

I thought it was hilarious that he said "under which circumstances." Not bad for a second grader!

Family pictures

And then some other ones:

Happy Halloween!

Carter has graduated to scary costumes for Halloween.

All of our costumes looked similar this year, actually. We didn't plan it that way!

Soccer

Carter started a soccer league yesterday and he loved it! I'm so relieved. I honestly thought he would hate it. I told him the team was named "Power Shots" and he said it should be named "I don't want to be here I want to play video games."

So we weren't going into this one with good feelings. And I messed up several times -- I forgot his ball, I forgot his shorts, I didn't buy the right socks, etc. -- but somehow Carter ended up having a great time.

He'll play a game every Saturday at the ungodly hour of 8:30 a.m.

Fall break: Bisbee

We went to southern Arizona for fall break, to the old mining towns of Bisbee and Tombstone.

The best part was taking a tour of an old mine. The tour guide gave Carter two sticks of dynamite to hold, which caused all of us to freak out silently. Carter was kind of whimpering a little.

 

 Bisbee wasn't our first choice. We had booked a fun trip to Cabo san Lucas, but Hurricane Odile destroyed the region and the airline canceled our trip. But we still had fun.

 

s

Food swings

When Carter is low on food, he turns into a maniac. He's a completely different person -- angry, throwing things, trying to provoke us and not listening or obeying. This almost always happens around 4 p.m.

The problem is that when he gets to that point, he will not eat. He knows we want him to eat, but he won't because he is now a demon child. I call it his food swings.

We normally try to head this problem off by giving him a snack around 3 p.m. But sometimes I forget. Such was the case recently when we went to visit Grant and Ava in the afternoon. Things were OK until it was time to leave, and Carter refused to get in the car or listen or do anything. He screamed "No!" to me and ran away. It got to the point where I picked him up and shoved him in the car -- and then he opened the opposite door and ran out again.

For the first time ever, I wanted to spank him. Smack him hard. Instead I left him there, went to Trader Joe's and thought it all over. When I came back to get him, he got into the car with no drama. I think he knew he was busted. Then I laid down his punishment: No YouTube, Xbox, computer or any other electronics for three days.

Well, it was like his whole world collapsed. He was crying, saying how mean I was, how no one cares about him and how he wants to die. Begging me to let him earn back his electronics. I told him he could get back one day and only be grounded for two days if he wrote apology letters to me, his dad and his auntie. He thought about it overnight, then woke up early and wrote all three letters.

He was hoping to earn back the other two days, but that didn't happen. And he handled his time off from electronics remarkably well. I'm so glad today is the last day of fall break!

New Orleans - Swamp tour

I had a conference in New Orleans last week and the two boys tagged along to see the sights and escape the heat. It was Carter's first time in the city, and he was pretty blown away by it all. The first night, he cried and said he was homesick. By the third night, he was asking if we could extend our stay.

The conference arranged for a bus pickup at our hotel for a swamp tour. I was speaking on a panel and couldn't go, but Carter and dad had a very fun time.

 

Carter got to hold a baby alligator!

Carter is a porpoise

Carter has been back in swimming lessons for a few months now after taking the winter off. He just graduated to the porpoise level after spending a long, looooonnng time in the sea lion class. This means that he will now start to learn more advanced strokes, like the backstroke, and will learn to freestyle swim while moving his head to the side for breaths.

It was really cool to see him work hard toward a goal and achieve it. He was so happy. Here he is with his teacher Emily.

He also got to ring the graduation bell:

First day of second grade!

Carter was slightly excited for second grade to start today. I say "slightly" because he was doing his best to hide it. His class this year is mostly girls, and he was horrified to see that his desk is in a little pod of four desks -- with three other girls sitting nearby.

Poor Carter!

Space pirate adventure

Here's a stop motion movie Carter made almost all on his own. (I helped a little.)

Zombie movie

This has been the summer of moviemaking for Carter. We enrolled him in a few movie camps, and he learned to do stop motion animation. His favorite camp was one where they made a live-action zombie movie. Here he is in character:

And here's the movie. Click on the square full screen button in the lower-right corner to see it better:

Carter and Zooey

We let Carter sleep in our bed last night (a decision we usually regret in the morning after he has kicked us for hours) and Zooey couldn't resist the chance to snuggle.

Carter in the morning

Here's Carter in the morning. He sits in a daze on the stairs, trying to wake up. This is, of course, after keeping us awake until 11 p.m. because he won't go to sleep!

He has his laptop in hand because he wants to go downstairs and watch Pokemon on Netflix.

Disneyland for Easter

We spent Easter weekend at Disneyland! It was just a last-minute trip because Carter had a four-day weekend. Carter's cousins came along too.

We haven't been there for a couple of years, and this was really the trip where Disneyland became super fun for Carter. The last trip he was a little scared. Not so this time. His favorite rides were the Matterhorn and Space Mountain. My favorite ride was the newest one, called Radiator Springs Racers.

Setting up a donut stand in the driveway

Riding the Caltrain

Carter was a little scared riding the train from San Francisco to San Jose!

A few more beach photos