Smiling Pretty!

Today was fairly uneventful, with the exception of one exciting milestone for Charlie (I'll get to that later). We got up and Carter got ready for school, all the while insisting on playing with his Polly Pocket set (complete with ring, purse, and doll) that he got from a Happy Meal. I just let it happen - I don't think we have to worry about Carter being girlie, and I didn't really feel like creating an issue!

When we got to school, I learned that all his friends had moved up to the 3-year-old class. He has been with this group of friends for almost his entire daycare career and he loves playing with them. However, you have to be potty trained completely to move to the 3-year-old class, so he wasn't able to go there yet. Looking at his little solemn face while he sat at a table full of much younger kids (moving up from the 1 year old class), while seeing his friends all sitting together in another class, was enough to make me cry all the way home :( I almost went back and got him! I'm glad I didn't though, because his friends came back into his class later in the day - they were only in gone a short time in preparation for the official move on August 1.

I haven't been very ambitious about potty training yet for a couple of reasons. One, I wasn't sure he was ready. While I think he has the ability, he cries and screams every time we try to get him to go potty and he insists on having his diaper back. Two, I just had a baby! I'm afraid that potty training will be a big task that I'm not ready for yet, even though I am soooo over changing his diapers. However, the fact that he can now change his own diaper should probably tell me that he's more ready than I think... He did go potty twice yesterday, so I think we're getting close. I'm going to devote a weekend very soon to potty training - a weekend when we don't have anywhere to go and can stay in and work on it. Stay tuned...

Ok, onto the milestone I mentioned earlier. I'm sure you guessed by the title that Charlie started smiling today! He has smiled a few times here and there, but today I was able to consistently make him smile (and smile big - open mouthed at times) whenever I said something to him in a fun voice or smiled at him. Woo-hoo! Toothless grins are the best! I tried to catch some on "film," but I wasn't using my fancy camera and I couldn't take pictures fast enough. Below are my best shots... I look forward to many more to come and I'm sure we will get plenty of pictures soon!

One last closing story about Carter... Yesterday I told him to do something (or not do something, I can't remember). He looked at me very seriously and said, "Mommy, don't you worry about me!" Ha!