"I amn't"

Since Carter just turned four, I thought I should do an update on him! There's a lot to say about this boy. He's a complicated one. He's very high-emotion and hits both extremes of the spectrum multiple times in one day. When he's happy, he's the happiest. When he's sweet, he's the sweetest. But when he's angry... Well, you can guess.

Anyway, here are some more fun facts about Mr. Carter:

• He says funny things!
• "Harbert" for "harbor"
• "Mom, is the Earth spinning?" (asked randomly and often)
• "I amn't" instead of "I am not"
• "Holy moly fock-a-foly!"
• "I don't want to bother anyone. I just want to scream!" (said happily while driving)

• When he eats something like a fruit cup, he likes to put his spoon in one hand and the plastic cup in the other hand and say, "Watch, Mommy!" He then stretches both arms all the way out and drops the spoon in the sink and throws the cup in the trash at the same time. He's always so proud of himself.
• We got Aubrey a wooden rainbow stacking puzzle for her birthday, and for awhile there Carter was obsessed with using the red arch, the largest arch, as a jet pack. It's particularly funny because I don't know that he really knows what that is. He would take the arch, put it over his stomach, and "blast off" by running around and making a "pshoooo" sound.

• He was also obsessed with bows and arrows for awhile, and he used to pretend clothes hangers were bows. He would shoot pretend arrows with them and tuck them into the back of his shirt, in the neck hole behind his head. I love the creativity!
• We went to Matthew and Sharon's house for lunch one day, and they have goats. William wanted to show Carter and Aubrey the goats, so they went out while the rest of us stayed at the kitchen table playing a game. Just beyond the table at their house is a set of French doors leading to the back yard, where the goats are kept. So a few minutes after the kids went out to see the goats, we heard Carter yelling and looked towards the back yard just in time to see him run to the door with a panic-stricken look on his face. He grabbed both handles of the French doors, shook them but couldn't get them open, and then kept running away while screaming in terror. A few seconds later, we saw a goat saunter lazily past the doors. Naturally, we all cracked up. Then we went to help poor, traumatized Carter. Hahaha.

• When I put him to bed, I always tell him to choose two books for me to read to him. He went through a phase in which he would walk over to the bookshelf, pretend to grab a book, and then "hand it" to me. I would then pretend to grab it, open it, and begin reading. Then I'd say, "Once upon a time, there was a boy named Carter who liked to read invisible books!" or something like that. He always cracked up with his adorable laugh.
• Unfortunately, he likes to shake his naked butt at people. After using the bathroom, he used to run out with his pants and underwear off and shake his butt at Aubrey. The more she said, "Ew!", the more he laughed.
• One day, when I took a walk through our neighborhood with Aubrey and Carter, we walked by one of those pad-mounted transformers that look like this:

I think one of the kids asked me what the sign meant... the one that looks like this:

So I told them that these boxes had a lot of electricity and could shock people if they weren't careful. I don't remember if one of the kids asked me if it could kill someone or if I just told them, but either way they found that out. Then, a few days later, Carter pointed out the window as we were driving and said, "Look, it's a death box!" He was pointing at one of those transformers. Once I realized that was what he meant, I almost died laughing.

• He has an imaginary friend! His name is Caymer. Carter always talks about him as having done something, like winning a race or telling Carter something. Sometimes Caymer is out somewhere, like the store or something. I think it's SO cute!
• He still always says, "I love you" to me randomly. I will never not love this.

• He is a bit whimpy about hiking and tends to complain about being tired towards the end of each hike. One time, after he had done a great job on a pretty long (for him) hike, we told him hiking would make him strong. He responded, "Yeah, I'll be strong like Daddy and Mr. Incredible!" Daddy in particular liked that cute comment. :)
• Speaking of hiking, Carter has a tendency to lag behind, and not just when he's tired. He is always preoccupied with finding sticks and dragging them (or sometimes his hands) through the dirt. There was one hike when he got down on his hands and knees and crawled along the trail so he could push dirt around with his hands. Boy loves dirt.

• When he and Aubrey play superheroes (which happens a lot), his character is Brick Man. Not sure what his powers are, but I feel like it's a fitting name for him.
• His favorite number is 126. Whenever he says a number for anything, it's always 126.
• When we went to Utah to have a little family gathering at Colt's cabin, we got to ride in their offroading Razor car thing. During the ride Carter shouted, "I don't like this at all! Wait a minute; yes I do!"

• He likes to wrap a paper towel around his forearm at dinner and then say, "Mommy, I broke my arm!" It actually does look like a cast...
• Ever since Carter got stitches, we've been adamant about him wearing a hat when he goes outside. But for some reason, he wears his baseball hat so far forward that he has to tip his head back really far to see anything. If we fix the hat for him, he just puts it back. 

• He's so sweet with Clara! She gets excited when he pays attention to her, and that makes him just beam. He likes to grab her face and baby talk to her. He is also very attentive when it comes to keeping her safe from objects she shouldn't have. We don't like her to chew on the Nerf gun bullets, because the tips can break off. So he always takes it upon himself to get them (and other potentially dangerous items) from her or move them to where she can't reach. He also got super excited when she first learned how to crawl. He still says, "Baby's crawling!" whenever she does it.