March 23rd....

The first time I have ever heard Carter laugh! It was the cutest thing I have ever seen! I was changing Carter's diaper in his room on his changing pad, and I had this little Duck that his Grandmother bought him sitting on the table. It's almost like a little hand puppet where you can put your fingers in it's legs and make them move around...well I did just that and started talking to him and making the duck give him kisses and he thought it was hysterical! I was laughing so hard that Chad came running in the room. He said he thought I was crying and came to see what was the matter...I said "nothing, look he's laughing for the first time"! It was great.

I figured he probably wouldn't do it again for another couple of days, but I was sitting in the recliner with him propped up on my legs and Chad came by; he just happened to still have on his work clothes and he started putting his tie over Carter's face and saying "where's Carter"?!...well he thought this was funny too and started laughing!
I will have to get a video of it if I can catch it because it is the cutest thing! Of course, I'm sure that every Mom thinks their child laughing is the cutest thing ever, but it was the first time and I was so excited!!

In other news, I believe the Lord has answered our prayers and the Zantac seems to be working. It's not full-proof, because he will fuss some if it has worn off and it's time for his next dosage...but it is SOOOOO much better. Praise the Lord! Unfortunately, we did have to take him off the cereal because he was getting extremely constipated. Even with Karo! And his constipated scream is 10 times worse than his reflux scream. It just stinks that you can't fix one end without ruining the other! But all the cereal was doing was helping with spit-up, so now we just have to wash lots of clothes, but the Zantac takes care of the pain of the reflux, so basically, we just deal with spit-up. I can deal with that!

Also, we have figured out that Carter despises huge crowds...in particular, noisy ones. Basically he hates cookouts where there are a lot of people talking/kid's screaming, Sunday School parties, large family get-togethers, etc. And he hates anywhere in which he cannot get down on the floor and kick around. We went to a cook out this past weekend and there were 4 dogs running around and we couldn't put him down on the floor, so he was held for 3-4 hours and he SCREAMED. There was way to much noise and on top of that he couldn't play, so he was not happy. We have a Sunday School party this Saturday and we have already called on the Grandparents to keep him so we can enjoy ourselves and he doesn't have to suffer. My baby book calls it over stimulation...he should eventually grow out of it, but right now it's just too much for him.

So, it looks like so far we have figured out the cause of the fussiness the past few months. Now that we know what is causing it, we can prevent it or nip it in the bud quickly when it starts. I never knew that parenting was such a guessing game! It is crazy! I seriously feel like Chad and I are part of this big game where we have to figure out what this baby is thinking.