Attacked...again

Tomorrow, I'll be calling the program that we use for Carter's daycare. Remember the biter from last year? He's on the attack again. The other day Carter came home with a bite on his arm and I asked who did it and he said the kid's name. And kept saying, "(name of kid) bite, (name of kid) bite." I talked to Shaista about it and she said she'd keep an eye out. Okay, no big deal. I was just bringing it to her attention so she can look out for this kid biting again.

But today, my baby came home with bite marks all over his arm. At least SIX of them! One of them is pretty bad, but thankfully none of them broke the skin. Chris picked him up and talked to Shaista and she said the kids were playing out back and one of the older kids (about 10 years old) caught the kid biting Carter and tried to stop him but the kid turned on him and started attacking him too! So at least we have it confirmed by a third party who the biter is, and not just relying on the testimony of a one-year-old.

Since this is AT LEAST the 3rd time this has happened, I feel it's time to get the program director involved. I'll be calling tomorrow, you can count on that.

(Click on the pics to make them bigger. You can really see the bite marks in the full size version.)

Puzzles, and other miscellaneous stuff

Carter has several Melissa and Doug wood puzzles that his grandma and grandpa got him for Christmas. He's always enjoyed telling us what the animals are and what noises they make, but he didn't grasp the concept of putting the pieces where they belong. Yesterday, however, we discovered that he can do it now! He picks up the pig, says "pig" and then points out the pig on the puzzle. He has some trouble getting it to fit perfectly and gets frustrated, but he at least understands the concept. So cool!

But what's not cool is that he knows how to curl his little hands into fists and make contact with another person. He does it and then says, "hit" so he knows what he's doing and is doing it on purpose. Not very nice.

Oh,and one more thing. He has a serious OBSESSION with the Horton Hears a Who movie. It's insane. He's constantly asking to watch it and if you try to put it on in the middle, he throws a fit until you start it from the beginning. He won't even watch Yo Gabba Gabba anymore! All he wants is his "Who" movie. Good thing it's a good movie so I don't totally hate it yet. I just wish Horton would sing the alphabet or count to ten or something so I can at least call it educational.

Speaking of counting, Carter has a pretty good grasp on counting. He can count to five pretty much without mistake, if he's really trying. Otherwise, he says, "1,2,5,10!" But he knows the numbers and when you get to 10, he says 11 and 12. So I guess you can say he can count to 12? His favorite is saying, "8,9,10!"

New job

My new job started this past Thursday. I left my old job on Wednesday and started my new one the next day. It would have been nice to have had a day or two to myself, but my old job needed me as long as I could stay and the new job wanted me as quickly as I could. So, that was my compromise.

The first day I spent training on their computer system (it's a different program than the one I used at my old job) and I think I picked it up fairly quickly. It's not really an intuitive program, but I took a lot of notes and screenshots and by Friday I was left to myself to grind out some commitments (I'm a title insurance underwriter) and see how it went. I got a bunch of them back today for edits, but it was stuff that was just related to weird kinks in the program that I need to learn to work around, not underwriting issues, for the most part. So that was good.

The first day has some good stuff and some bad stuff, but it seems to be getting better each day. Right now my desk is right out in the open, no walls or anything. I'm told my cubicle has been ordered but it takes a while for delivery. It'll be nice to have a tiny bit of privacy again. I'm used to having my own office, so the open work environment is taking a little bit of getting used to. The other thing that I didn't like was that on my first day, no one offered to go out to lunch, or sit with me at lunch, or anything. I sat outside on a bench and ate a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. It was lonely and embarrassing, to be honest. Now, I just bring my Kindle and eat in the lunchroom, and chat with whoever's in there. It seems that most of my coworkers eat at their desks, but I don't want to get into that habit. I did that for too many years.

My coworkers are nice for the most part. I'm still getting to know them but we seem to work pretty well together. As with anywhere, there are those I click with more than others, but so far no big conflicts of personality. Ask me again in a few months and I'm sure I'll have more colorful things to say. :-)

So, that's what's new with me. As for Chris, his last day of work is this Wednesday, and then he starts school on Monday. He's very excited!

And little Carter...well, he's just a hilarious dude. He imitates EVERYTHING. We were at Dick's the other day and there was a man bent over, looking at the bottom shelf of one of those glass displays. Carter stood right next to him, leaned over just like the guy was, and smiled at him. The guy was like, "He's imitating me, isn't he?" We said yes and we all laughed and laughed. And then we ate bologna sandwiches. (Only Heather will understand that last line, so the rest of you can ignore it.)

And since I haven't posted any new pictures in forever, here's a pic of Carter after we went blackberry picking a few weekends ago. He tasted some of the merchandise, as you can tell.

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Everything now needs a name. I hear "Wut dis?" a hundred times a day and I never tire of it. First of all, I love the way he says it, but second, I love that he's curious about his world and wants to know what things are. And when I tell him, he repeats the word and moves on with what he was doing.

And there's a new body part that he knows. Armpits! I didn't teach him that; Shaista must have. I was just going through his body parts with him the other day and just decided to ask where his armpits are, thinking he'd say he didn't know. But he reached his arms up so his pits were showing and said "armpits." Love it.

Other than that, we've just been busy wrapping things up at our respective jobs and looking forward to all the changes that are coming. Chris' textbooks came yesterday along with his new graphing calculator (1. damn, those are expensive and, 2. they're just as big as they were in 1993 when I had to use one in high school...isn't technology supposed to be getting smaller???). My job has hired my replacement and she's learning quickly and doing well, and my boss is comfortable with how things are going to end up there. She sort of panicked when I gave my notice because it's hard to find someone who does every aspect of what I do, but thankfully this woman came along and she's going to work out great. It's all going to be good. I feel it.