ava, carter and i are still recovering from our all day trip to plattsburgh on saturday. talk about exhausting. when you live in the tri-lakes area of the adirondacks, if you want supplies, you drive and hour and a half to plattsburgh where all of the big box stores are. so, we loaded up, and drove up there and spent the WHOLE DAY at sam's club, walmart (all of 5 minutes in there, just too much for me to take), old navy, and periodic refreshing stints at border's. oh, and petco for entertainment. it was so exhausting, but i did accomplish some necessary stocking-up. pretty depressing too. not for the kids--ava thought the display bike at k-bee toy and hobby was there just for her to tool around the mall, and peeling her off it took some doing. we finally changed into jammies in the petco parking lot and drove home, stopping at dunkin donuts for some ill-advised caffeine. i still am feeling the ache from carrying carter in the backpack all day. ugh.

carter is pulling up on everything that he can, and is thrilled with it. he also loves to loot the basket of board books, by throwing them over his shoulder. pretty cute.

he is supposed to be big, according to measurements, but to me he seems small. yes, he is in 18 month clothing, but there is something little about him. i felt this way when he was born--he was 8 lbs, not huge, but as many people said, 'healthy' -- or 'that's a good size baby' -- but his little legs were soooooooooo skinny, and his hands were so thin, all of his weight was in his torso and head i guess, and it still seems that way. he is tough as nails--today a little toy bounced right into his face and he crumpled up his lips, looked at me, i told him it was ok, and he just did the infant equivalent of shrugging his shoulders and went back to it, but he is still little to me. i don't know, it is weird. he is getting to be more little boy-ish, and i am starting to see the sibling connection and relationship emerging.

he is still scooting along on his tummy though! i am not sure if he will ever even bother with regular crawling. he can go so fast as it is, it might not be worth it to him. put rose's water bowl in his sights, and he is off lickety split for some more water play.

ava is sleeping very soundly these days--last night i looked over at her bed and she was not in it, and neither were her blankets--i had a brief moment of panic, though i am not sure what i thought might have happened--until i looked on the floor, and there she was in a little nest of blankets, sound asleep. the funny thing about this is that i had just walked into the room and gone over to the bed where carter was, and to do so, i would have had to have stepped over her. it was very disconcerting. i scooped her up and depositer her back in her bed, where she slept until 6 am. good girl.

if carter is small, she is getting tall-- rose actually looked small next to her the other day. ava was standing next to her and was towering over her--it seemed so dramatic. the only other time the dog has looked small is when she was very intimidated by a great dane with a functioning reproductive system.

and ava can pilfer the counter top these days. now everything goes on top of the fridge. (except for wine racks--wink wink nudge nudge mom).