Early Steps

Then and now ...

My, my how time flies ... I can hardly believe how quickly Carter has grown up. It seems like yesterday that I peed on a stick, saw two lines, took this ultrasound, and couldn't stop smiling. In fact, I doubt that I've stopped smiling since.
Carter is now 8 mos old now and had decided that crawling is "so yesterday"! He's decided that he wants to walk and/or cruise everywhere. We spend most of our day exploring every nook and cranny this house has to offer. And when he gets bored we explore the great outdoors. Even our cranky neighbor 'oohs and ahs' at him.

Speaking of oohing and ahhing - Andy and I came across the strangest character last night while grocery shopping. An older lady approached me while I was holding Carter and started complimenting me on how cute he was. OF course this makes ALL moms melt, but it's her appearance that really got my attention. Let me elaborate ... She wore an all silk and sequence gown that was a deep deep crimson and eggplant purple color with black details. She had on a pair of diamond earrings and a a ruby necklace. Her very thick white hair was pinned up using crystal encrusted combs. And she wore Fire engine red lipstick and dark eyeshadow. If I didn't know any better I would have thought we were on a movie set that was shooting a period piece. The nice old lady also referred to herself as 'Madam'. I can't make this stuff up - it was all I could do to keep from laughing and looking for the hidden cameras. She was the epitome of glamorous! As out of place that whole scene seemed - it really brought a smile to my face that this older lady took time out to congratulate and compliment a complete stranger. It's these little things that make you appreciate the big picture and also take time to look back and reflect on all that has come to pass.

Running with Carter

Carter shows of his fancy footwork. He's still working on the balance, but he sure knows where he wants to go... and that he wants to go fast!

And he's off ...

So Carter is crawling now. In fact, he may be on the verge of walking. He crawls to something that he can pull himself up on and then proceeds to "cruise". Of course he can not cruise from one object to the next so he's been experimenting with letting go and standing there and then diving to the next object.
AND he has upper teeth now!! He cut one yesterday and now the second one is visible! This might explain his need to eat every 2-3 hours (even at night) and his unusual fussiness. I came across these teeth accidentally. It hadn't registered with me that he might be teething again so soon. I was holding him upside down and giving him razzberries when I noticed the pearly white on his upper gum! I am amazed at how quickly things develop. I couldn't imagine being at work and missing all of these milestones.

Home Again

We recently returned from vacation in Ontario, Canada. Carter was a great traveler. In fact, he rarely complained and never once asked "are we there yet"! Within the first week at the family cabin, Carter got his first two teeth, learned to clap, and began to crawl. He had his 7-month birthday, and we celebrated our 4-year anniversary during the trip too. We had fun introducing Carter to the chilly waters of Lake Manitou and he even went on his first canoe ride.

May had a blast as usual, spending more than half of her time in the water. It was a great trip and a wonderful break. We'll get to see most of the family again in October for Dana and Steph's wedding. Who knows maybe Carter will be walking by then ;-)

Of course now that we are back we are both as busy as ever with work, etc. There are a few projects that I am currently working on as well as taking care of Carter. And Andy is busy working towards the end of his graduate program. Oh, and so far Cat-Cat seems to be doing better now that he's on meds. We'll get blood results back on Monday.

Stay tuned to Flickr ... we've posted new pics from the Canada trip. Enjoy!
Glad to be back!

More laughing

We continue to find things that are hilarious to Carter. This is a little Wimbledon-inspired tennis match with a wooden spoon and one of his knit toys. Even the dog gets in on the game.

Standing up

Carter demonstrating his newest skill of pulling himself up to stand.

Carter Laughing at May

Carter finds it hilarious when we feed may at the table. Hope you all get a kick out of this one.

Overdue update

We've been slacking a little on the posts but hopefully you have seen the latest pictures. We'll try to keep them up to date especially now that Leslie has her new computer (20" iMac woohoo). Carter continues to amaze everyone by growing at an astonishing rate. He is wearing 9-12 mo. clothing (at least if he's in a cloth diaper). The occasional disposable diaper is very slimming on him but he says that even though disposables are recommended by NASA scientists he prefers cloth!

At his two month well-baby exam he weighed 16 lbs which means he stayed on the 97% weight curve. This came as no surprise to those of us who carry around those 16 pounds on a regular basis ;-)

We had a fun visit from my parents over their spring break so check out the pictures from that. They were happy to finally meet, hold and tickle their first grandson. My sister and brother-in-law also drove up for the weekend so we all went to Elmo's and the Duke Gardens among other classic Durham sites.

Leslie, Carter, and I went to Atlanta for the Big South Volleyball National Qualifier tournament over easter weekend. Aside from being a Chicago-style cold and windy the trip was great fun. The team stayed in the Omni Hotel at the CNN center but there were no confirmed sightings of Anderson Cooper.

Hope you are all well, and we promise to post at least once a month :-)

Weigh in (and bet)

We had a pediatrician appt today - one month well-baby check up. We decided to bet on his weight... my guess was 13 lbs 2 oz and Andy's was 13 lbs 9 oz, either way we were pretty sure he was over 13 based on the clothes he has recently outgrown. The final answer was 13 lbs 2.8 oz so I won! The prize: dinner at Elmo's, me being right: priceless. Carter's overall statistics are as follows:
Weight: 13 lbs 2 oz (97th percentile)
Height: 23 inches (95th percentile)
Head Circ: 75-90 percentile

As always they were happy with how he is doing. Carter even gave the doctor a big smile which she got a real kick out of. Speaking of smiles make sure to check out the razzberries video we posted earlier.

Love to all

Online photo gallery change

Since Google's Picasa Web albums have a limited amount of free storage space we've posted all of his current pictures at Flickr as well. Sorry to change things around on all you Carter fans but we will try to post new pictures to both places for a bit just to keep them up to date. To make sure you have the latest and greatest pictures go to the Flickr gallery instead of the Picasa one. Let us know if you have trouble seeing any of the pictures, we'd hate for you to miss out. We've added a Flickr Photos link to the left of this page for your convenience.

-Carter's official web team

Razzberries

Carter enjoys some tickling and gives us a bunch of good smiles.

Into the swing of things

Carter really enjoys his swing, here is a short clip shot from the food tray of the swing. It is intentionally short to keep viewer spitup to a minimum.

Carter Video

Birth Story

We've put together as many details as we can remember, it's written from my perspective primarily because Leslie was so much in the zone for the entire labor that many of the details are only now coming back to her. I'm still reminding her of some things that happened :-)

Leslie's first official day of maternity leave saw quite of bit of excitement. She spent the day at home taking care of things around the house, getting laundry ready and napping when she felt tired. That evening we both went to Leslie's volleyball practice and she was feeling great, even able to demonstrate passing and digging techniques. We ate dinner after practice and Leslie started feeling wavy contractions around 9:30 pm. Noticing that they were more even and regular than her practice contractions, we started to time them. The first two were 20 minutes apart, then one after ten minutes and another one after 8 minutes. By 11 pm, with contractions about 5 minutes apart, we were starting to realize that maybe this could be real labor. Our thoughts were confirmed by Leslie's water breaking at 11:30 pm. When we called the birth center, they said to call back after Leslie's contractions got to three minutes apart for 45 minutes. Surprisingly we reached that point only slightly more than 45 minutes later. At 12:40 am, after 45 minutes of contractions spaced out by 3 minutes, and increasing in intensity, we called the midwives again. Maureen, the midwife, told us that we should give her a ten minute head start and then leave for the birth center, but made no guarantees as she was skeptical of things keeping up this pace.

After only one wrong turn--it was our first trip to the birth center in the dark--we arrived just after 1:30 am January 17th. Maureen found that Leslie was 4 cm dilated which meant we'd gotten there right when they wanted us to (and after only 4 hours of labor). We still expected a long night but were hopeful we'd meet our baby sometime in the mid morning. Leslie's laboring at home had been eased by spending some time in the tub and also leaning forward against the birth ball or the bed while I applied counterpressure to her lower back. This continued at the birth center in their larger and more comfortable tub. Trying other positions just confirmed that she had naturally found the best one already. After an hour in the tub it was time to try the bed again and another exam revealed 6 cm dilation and still going well.

Another hour of counterpressure from me and excellent relaxation and breathing on Leslie's part brought her, to everyone's surprise, to 8 cm with more intense contractions coming every 2 minutes but occasionally double-peaking. At 4 am we heard from Maureen that we should start to figure out which position would be most comfortable for pushing. This came as a bit of a shock to Leslie who was still thinking she had a ways to go. When Maureen said that we'd have the baby by 5 am Leslie was pretty confused since she was sure it was at least 8 or 9 am already.

During Leslie's next internal exam Maureen was able to slide the cervix over the baby's head which meant it was now time to push. It was most comfortable for Leslie to push while lying on one side and holding her top leg. Regular monitoring of the baby's heartbeat showed everything was going smoothly. Leslie was convinced she needed to take a bathroom break but was assured the feeling was simply the baby's head in the birth canal. The ability to push came naturally and was very satisfying because Leslie could now be an active participant in the labor. After a few pushes the baby's head full of dark hair began to crown and on the next contraction Leslie pushed hard, and was told to push again quickly. After doing so she heard Maureen tell her to reach down at take her baby. She brought a squirming wide-eyed baby up to her chest and we both hugged and kissed it ecstatically. The nurse asked Leslie, "Well what is it?" To which she naturally replied, "A baby!" Not being completely satisfied with this answer the nurse helped Leslie hold him up to reveal that we had a son. He quickly climbed up Leslie's chest only to find that his umbilical cord wasn't quite long enough for him to nurse. Andy remedied this with some careful snips and Carter Gates Dawes was officially brought into the world.

Two-week checkup

Hard to believe but it has been two weeks already. We went in to the birth center for our two-week checkup to make sure Leslie and Carter are still doing well. The big surprise (and good news) is that Carter has packed on a whopping 1 pound 8 ounces making him 10 pounds 4 ounces. The main concern for newborns is that they return to birth weight by two weeks... so he's cleared that mark with flying colors. Leslie got two thumbs up as well and surprised the staff by wearing pre-pregnancy jeans--and needing a belt. She's within 7 pounds of pre-pregnancy which means she really was all baby :-)

Everyone was pleased with how well we've settled in to parenthood and glad that it is going well for us. The same goes for us, we feel like we've found our calling. We know what we want to be when we grow up: parents!

Yesterday we were also glad to be able to go out to dinner with friends, and introduce Carter to Elmo's Diner (a Durham staple). He was very happy to meet everyone and had a good time checking out all the sights and sounds of the big world. More pictures will be posted soon, and we continue to enjoy all our new experiences.

Happy One-Week Birthday

Carter is officially a week old today although it seems like we've been gone from work for more than a week. Everything continues to go well at home and we're now enjoying a visit from Leslie's parents. Breastfeeding has been a pleasant surprise and is going very well for us. Engorgement was a little uncomfortable but only lasted 36 hours or so. We also washed our first load of cloth diapers which was a rewarding experience knowing how much better they are for Carter and the world in general. They are much easier than we expected thanks mostly to a generous donation of diapering supplies from our good friends Lucas and Andrea. Even our sleep schedule gets better every day with Carter now sleeping in three-hour chunks between 10 pm and 6 am. He even slept through his first state of the union address, although we did hear diaper noises, maybe he's forming his first political opinions?

On this day... (January 17th)

We've found some general statistics for January 17th:

Loaf of Bread: $1.98
Gallon of Milk: $2.98
First Class Stamp: $0.39
Gallon of gasoline: $2.38
New Car: $21750.00
Average New Home: $192,000.00
U.S. Population: 300531759
Dow Jones: 12582.5900

Other Interesting People Born on this Date:
1706 - Benjamin Franklin - One of the world's most amazing people - author, inventor, scientist, businessman, statesman, contributor to the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution and much more.
1880 - Mack Sennett - Pioneer movie maker and creator of the Keystone Kops who produced more than 1,000 short films during his career.
1931 - James Earl Jones - American actor who starred in scores of movies, who made some of his most memorable performances as the voice of Darth Vader in the "Star Wars" movies.
1942 - Muhammad Ali - Three time World Heavyweight Boxing Champion and probably the most recognizable person in the world during the height of his career.
Al Capone, the notorious crime/mob boss who would later be sent to prison for tax evasion, was born in 1899.
Jim Carrey, famed comedian and star of the films “Dumb and Dumber”, “The Truman Show” and “Me, Myself and Irene” was born in 1962.
Andy Kaufman, the comedian and actor, was born in 1949.
1809 - Edgar Allan Poe, Boston, author (Pit and the Pendulum)
1943 - Janis Joplin, Port Arthur Tx, bluesy rock singer (Down on Me)

Other Notable Events on this Day in History:
1806 - The White House hosted a special delivery this day, the birth of Thomas Jefferson's grandson, James Madison Randolph. James was the first baby born in the nation's presidential home.
1871 - Andrew S. Hallidie received a patent for the cable car. Not only are they still a part of the public transit system in San Francisco, they also hold the distinction of being America's only mobile National Monument.
1917 - Denmark sold the Virgin Islands to the United States for $25 million.

Home visit

Today we had our home visit from the birth center Nurse who gave us all a checkup (mostly mom and baby of course). Everything looks good, Carter only lost 69 grams which means he is feeding and growing very well. Leslie is also healing and recovering well. We go back to the birth center for a 2-week checkup on the 30th. On Monday, Leslie's parents arrive which will be wonderful. This is their second grandchild born within two months so they are still in newborn mode and we're looking forward to introducing them to the latest member of the family.

We'll keep on posting pictures to the photo gallery and update this as much as we can. Love Leslie, Andy, and Carter

Birthday!

Well to start this off right, we got back from the birth center at 1:30 today (Wednesday January 17th) with little baby Carter. At birth he weighed 8 pounds 12 ounces which was a far cry from the "small baby" everyone expected after Leslies more recent exams. At 21 inches long he's tall and skinny and quite a cutie pie. We're getting pretty comfortable with our duties around the house and settling in very quickly.

Here is our online photo album, we'll be adding pictures to it every day just let everyone see what we're up to (and what we get to enjoy). We miss you all and hope to see you soon.

Carter Gates Dawes