2008: the condensed version

So many things have happened this year, it's hard for me to recall... Here's a bulleted list of highlights, in no particular order

• I earned my Master's degree in Education
  
• I left my teaching post of 6 years to stay home with my little ones
  
• Bella turned 1
• Carter turned 4
• We took a trip to Georgia to visit Dave's family
• Dave an I celebrated our 6th anniversary by taking a long weekend in Napa
• I started blogging (You're welcome.)
• Dave and I both hit the big 3-0. (although, let's be fair - he hit it waaaaay before I did.) HA
  
• We saw Brandi Carlisle in concert 4 times in 12 months (0k, one of those was in 2007)
• We drank a lot of wine
• I helped run a day camp for the fifth consecutive summer
• I started selling Pampered Chef
• Carter played his first season of soccer

There were many other things that I'm forgetting right now, I'm sure. Overall, it has been a pretty big year for us. I wish I knew what to expect in the coming year, but I guess that would take all the fun out of it, wouldn't it? I hope that all of you, my faithful, devoted readers (hahaha) :) have had a wonderful 2008 and will enjoy ringing in 2009.

Lots of love,
Carrie

Message received, loud and clear

A few nights ago, Carter and I were going through our usual nighttime routine and curling up in his bed with a book. His latest books of choice have been the I Spy books. I can honestly say that I was mildly entertained for the first few consecutive nights of reading these books. (that was back in September/October). A few months later, and I'm a bit tired of them now. But I digress...(as usual)

We finished our book and he crawled under the covers and said "uh oh, I think I wet the bed." I pulled the sheets back and sure enough, there was a smallish wet spot in the middle of his bed. After taking a quick inventory of the situation, I realized that he was not the culprit, but in fact, one of the cats had defaced his bedsheets. I had noticed while we were in the bathroom that their litter box was a mess, so I said "well, it looks like one of the cats was sending me a message. They want me to clean out their litter box." We stripped the bed, cleaned it up, threw his soiled sheets in the wash and settled back down for bed. Just then, Dave got home and went in to tuck Carter in and talk about his day. I walked by a few minutes later just in time to hear Carter telling Dave, "Daddy, the cats sent me a message." Dave: "oh yeah, what message was that?" Carter: "I have no idea." I laughed and stepped in, trying to explain.

Flash forward to yesterday (today, I guess, technically)

It was 1 AM and I was still awake and reading in my room, when Carter pops his head in, rubbing his eyes, and whimpering every so slightly. "Mommy, I had an accident." I took my wet, groggy little boy to his bathroom and began helping him get cleaned up. All of the sudden, he starts to giggle. The giggle slowly evolves into a full-blown belly laugh. Remember, it's 1:00 in the morning. I'm thinking he must be delirious. So I ask him, what's so funny???

"I must have sent myself a message!!!" He falls on the floor laughing.

Oh my.

My little comedian.

I like coffee

A friend of mine posted this on her myspace recently and it has been stuck in my head ever since. Especially after I roll out of bed and stumble groggily downstairs in the morning.

I thought you all might want it stuck in your head as well.

Enjoy :)

Our Plump and Perky Turkey

This year we spent Thanksgiving at my parents' house. It seems like we've hosted quite a few holidays at our house lately (because it seems like when you have kids it's so much easier for people to come to you) :) But this year, my parents very graciously had us over instead, which was nice also. (Hooray for not having to frantically clean the house!!!)

Carter and I did some planning together to figure out what to make to share with everyone. We decided on sweet potato casserole, cranberry sauce, banana pudding, green bean casserole and then some fudge and truffles for desert and snacking. He helped with almost every recipe we made. In fact, he made the cranberry sauce almost completely by himself. I measured the ingredients and he did the rest - right down to juicing the oranges and stirring the boiling pot of cranberries (heavily supervised, of course).

The problem is, with the exception of the sweets, I knew there was very little my super picky eater would touch. With Bella, it's never really a problem. As I've mentioned before, we call her our little garbage disposal. She'll finish all of her food and then clean our plates as well. But with Carter, it's always been a different story. So I found a fun centerpiece that we could make together right before dinner that I knew he would have no problem eating afterward. So here's Carter with his plump and perky Thanksgiving Day Turkey. Enjoy!

If my kids ruled the world...

What's up, Doc?

If my kids ruled the world, they would want nothing but lima beans and carrots for lunch. Weird, I know...

Don't get me wrong, my kids aren't typically health food nuts. This morning while I was making breakfast, Bella got into the leftover Halloween candy and started chomping away at a lollipop. She screamed when I took it away and gave her a banana instead. So you can imagine my surprise when Carter wanted stringy carrots for lunch (using a julienne peeler) and while I was peeling the carrot onto Bella's plate, she reached up and grabbed the carrot out of my hand and started chowing down. Of course, to be equitable, I had to then give Carter his own carrot (that was as big as he was). I asked him what else he wanted. Just lima beans. Nothing else. I even tried to be sneaky and put some noodles on their plates.

Nope. Not havin it.

Who's kids are these anyway???


And yes, for the record, we were still in our pajamas at lunch time. There, I said it. As Carter would say, it happens.

Have a Ball!

Carter wrapped up his first ever soccer season this weekend. I was a little unsure of how things would turn out when we first started. There were tears (mostly his) and a whole lot of running around screaming and flailing (again, mostly his). By the end of the last game, he seemed to understand what the point of the game was and had a better grasp on the only two rules a 4 year old needs to know in soccer: keep your hands off the ball, and kick it toward the OTHER team's goal. Of course knowing those rules and actually following them are, of course, two different things...

Here's a video of Carter in action at his last practice: (if you're reading this on facebook, you may or may not be able to see this...try going to www.carrieann123.blogspot.com)



And of course, you can see that Carter took this whole soccer business *very* seriously...



He did, of course have a strong support system from his family. This is Bella cheering for him (kinda) from the sidelines of his last game...



The next soccer season starts up in January. Now what in the world am I going to do with my Saturday mornings in the meantime??? :)

My Civic Duty

Like so many other Americans today, I readied myself to join the huddled masses waiting to sound off at the polls. I told Carter I was going to vote and he was curious what this whole "voting" thing was all about. I tried my best to explain it to him in my best four-year-old-friendly terms, but he still seemed confused. I realized I wasn't going to clear up this issue for him on the 2-minute drive to Umma's house, so I said "ok, let's take our own vote. Raise your hand if you want to go to Umma's house." Carter and I raised our hands, Bella looked at us like we were crazy. "Ok, there you go, 2 people voted to go to Umma's house and that's most of us, so we're going to Umma's house." (wild applause ensued). I said "See, Carter, you just voted." He nodded his head - I think he got the general gist of things.

I dropped them off and went to vote. There were three lines: A-E, F-L, and M-Z. Seriously? M-Z??? Do we have no idea of how to count letters??? Having the severe misfortune of a T last name, I was stuck in the line that wound all the way around the room and snaked back around again. In the meantime, the A-E line was completely empty, so they started pulling the "F" people from the almost equally as short F-L line. Meanwhile, I waited, and I waited and I WAITED, until finally it was my turn. I took my ballot, filled it out, dropped it in the box and got my little I Voted sticker and was on my way.

Then it was on to Starbucks for my free coffee, of course.

After doing my grocery shopping, I went to pick up Carter and Bella. When we got in the car, I pointed my sticker out to Carter. "Where's mine?" he asked. "Remember earlier in the car when I voted?" I told him he could have mine, but when he's 18 he can go vote for real and get his own sticker. "If I vote twice, can I have TWO stickers???"

"Sure. Something like that." We'll cross that bridge some other time.

Don't I smell beautiful???

This morning I was changing Bella's diaper while Carter was changing himself out of his pull up and using the potty. He came out of the bathroom slowly, watching me intently, looking a little smug. He inched up closer to where I was sitting on the floor with Bella. I knew something was up. Finally he said, "Don't I smell beautiful?" Uh oh. His hair looked wet.

Then it hit me. It wasn't a bad smell - just overpowering in a way that made my eyes water.

Instantly.

I asked him "did you put something in your hair?" A huge grin spread across his face as he nodded. "Doesn't it smell beautiful?" he asked me again.

"What did you put in your hair?" I asked, now a bit frightened for his answer. I began to recognize the smell though as I waited for his response.

"That spray stuff on the back of the toilet!" He inhaled deeply, his smile widening. Febreze berries and paradise air freshener.

Awesome.

"Wow, you sprayed the air freshener in your hair?"

"Yes, but that's not all..."

Oh crap. "That's not all???"

"Nope, I sprayed it here too." He turns around and points to his naked rear end. "Now I smell beautiful ALL OVER."

*sigh*

It's raining, it's pouring

So, I'm stumped. I've only been off of work a month and a half (if you don't count summer vacation) and already I feel like I'm running out of ideas for how to keep two active little ones entertained. When it was sunny out, we would go to parks, go jogging, play in the front yard, whatever. Now that it's raining, we're all starting to climb the walls a bit. We're tired of play dough, blocks, cars, coloring, cooking and keeping the TV turned OFF has become a constant struggle. So, my question is: what is something you have done with kids that A) doesn't cost much (any?) money, or B) doesn't require the use of an outdoor facility?

Gas prices are starting to come down a bit...I saw it at $2.85 a gallon and got really excited. Then I remembered that $2.85 by any normal standards is still expensive. So I'm trying to stay close to home.

Just to illustrate how frustrating it is for the kids to be sitting around the house, as I'm typing this, Bella brought me her shoes (although she's only wearing a onesie) and started whining and pointing at the door. I put her shoes on and went back to typing. Next, I hear more whining and then I look down and she's holding my tennis shoes (I'm still in my pajamas). I think she's trying to tell me something. Now if only I knew what it was...

In other news, we went to the zoo yesterday, dressed in our costumes for Zoo Boo. One of my favorite moments was when we were walking up to the aquarium and Carter looked up and said "wow! Look at all that shampoo!" Perplexed, I started looking for what Carter could have deemed to look remotely like shampoo, and realized, we were walking through a forest of bamboo.

Bamboo, shampoo...it's all about the same :)

I must remember...

As a general rule, if you stay up until 1 AM, your kids WILL try to wake you up at 5 AM. Good luck keeping up with them all day.

I need coffee.

NOW.

That's all.

The not-so-golden arches

McDonald's is forcing me to question my faith in humanity.

We took the kids there today after a doctor's appointment. It was a shrewd move, I know. Your kids are upset because they just got shots? Why not give them the gift of childhood obesity to calm their nerves? That'll clear up their clean bill of health in no time. But I digress...

We sit at a table inside the play area, which is PACKED. Kids are running around like maniacs, screaming. Parents are having casual conversation, completely ignoring their kids. At one point, I look up and there is a little boy (probably 2-3 yrs old) cracking up laughing as he is pushing someone else's baby around in a high chair. I'm sure that's what the wheels on the high chair were intended for, right? He was running full-kilter around the play toy, ramming the high chair into various objects and people. The baby was laughing, but all I could think is am I the only one seeing this??? Why aren't there two sets of parents jumping up to stop this inevitable train wreck??? And the kid just kept picking up speed. Finally, I see one parent, apparently the mom of the boy doing the pushing, look up and smile and say "not too fast now."

Seriously?

Next thing I know, the lady next to me starts SCREAMING at her kid. Now, I'm not perfect. I've lost my temper on many occasions when pushed hard enough. And I only have two kids. This woman had at least four. But this was exceeding the bounds of decency. I was already on edge, so I looked up without even thinking and then quickly looked away without making eye contact, instantly recognizing that this was not the right move. I could tell that she had seen my reaction though. The lady started screaming even louder at her kid(s), "Now look what you've done! That lady over there is giving me dirty looks like I'm some kind of trailer trash or something!"

Amazing. Although kind of funny that one would jump to that conclusion. Sounds kind of like a guilty conscience to me.

It kind of made me almost wish I had gotten a dirty look in. I don't know why I even go to McDonald's any more. I just walk out feeling dirty. And guilty. And maybe even a little bit angry.

From now on, I'm only going to eat at Burger King. (Just kidding).

Naptime Blues

I knew this day was coming, I just never thought it would come so soon. It seems that both of my kids have officially sworn off naps. Now, Carter, I get. He's four and spent a year attending preschool during his naptime, so his naps have been inconsistent, at best. But Bella??? She's only 18 months. We got a good solid three years of dependable napping out of Carter before he threw in the towel. I remember reading somewhere that sleep patterns go all haywire at around 18 months, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it's just a phase.

So it is with great sadness and a heavy heart that I bid a fond farewell to my daily two hours of peace and tranquility. Naptime, you have been a dear friend to me for so long now. You will be sorely missed. As will my sanity.

That is all.

Soccer Mom

Carter had his first soccer practice today. I was a little worried because there were some tears shed when we went to register him a few weeks ago, but as soon as he got his new shin guards on, he was psyched and ready to go. The women who are coaching his team are SAINTS. It was mass chaos. Carter kept saying "I just want to make a goalie." I tried to convince him that what he really wanted was to make a goal, but he wasn't buying. When we got there, his coach was standing in the goal, having kids practice kicking it in. She would stop the ball and kick it back to them. Carter came up to me and said, again that he wanted to make a goalie and then, he turns to me and says "I better go tell her to stop kicking the ball back to me so I can kick it in."

I tried several times to video tape the practice, but I was laughing so hard, I didn't have much success. Carter did, in fact, end up making lots of "goalies" (some of them were even in the right goal!!) and he also found that he was really good at throwing himself on the ball and picking it up with his hands (which apparently is frowned upon???) while someone else was trying to kick it. Also running and throwing himself against the padded wall of the gym was a big highlight (he must have done it a million times, and at one point, he even ended up tackling the goalie who had picked up the ball he was trying to kick in. Although in all fairness, I think the goalie was really just getting in the way of Carter's attempt to throw himself at the wall directly behind him. I'm pretty sure no harm or malice was intended.

In any case, he was so thrilled with his first attempt at soccer that he has not stopped grinning all night long. I told him I was really proud of him to which he replied, "yeah, I'm pretty proud of me too."

First game on Saturday...wish us luck! I will try to get some decent video this time.

Do the Puyallup

We spent the day at the fair together last weekend. And by "spent the day at the fair," I mean "ate our way through the fair." It was fun, but I think I'm still recovering.

There were the corndogs...
The ice cream...The curly fries...
The caramel apples...The elephant ears...
The sugar-induced coma...Carter had a blast riding the kiddie rides - or at least any kiddie rides that were not deemed by him to be "too fast."

Please excuse the cheesy music and slightly nauseating effects (and camerawork)



In other news, as you can probably see from my pictures, I got my jogging stroller that I had been wanting. I LOVE it :) Gotta love craigslist. We've been trying to go running every day, which has been really fun. (and necessary after our day of over indulgence at the fair!)

Finally, I will leave you with this video that seems to sum up life for us lately:

Runner's highs and lows

As I've mentioned before, we have started taking long walks each night after dinner. These walks have turned into jogs as of lately and, while I've never considered myself a jogging type person, I've actually kind of enjoyed it. Yesterday I bought new running shoes (I won't even tell you how old my last pair was) and even got the Nike+ chip that syncs with my ipod so we can time ourselves and keep track of distances.

Our nightly jogs have been so successful that today we went to the park and I decided to go for a little run with the kids. Bad idea. I put Bella in the stroller and had Carter run along side of me, like usual. Neither of them wanted to have anything to do with it. Carter didn't want to walk or run, Bella didn't want the stroller, but didn't want to walk either. Halfway through the trails, I was pushing Carter in the stroller, carrying Bella and doing my best power walk. Not for the exercise, but simply just to get the heck out of there and back to the playground.

I've been looking for a double jogging stroller on craigslist, but they're so expensive. If anyone knows someone who is looking to get rid of one, keep me in mind.

Where's Martha Stewart when you need her???

In the past, decorating for the holidays has been a non-issue. We just don't do much decorating. I'd get home from work late, spend some time with the family and go to bed. I wasn't home enough to even notice that the house was the bah-humbug house on our street. I mean, we put up decorations just before Christmas. And by "decorations," I mean a tree, maybe a wreath, and one year, we even put up lights on the outside of the house. We even turned them on a couple times. And by "just before Christmas," I mean sometimes the week of.

Now that I'm at home during the day, we've spent much more time outside playing in our neighborhood. It's also becoming glaringly obvious that our house needs a little shot in the arm of festivity. So, when I saw one of our neighbors hanging their Halloween decorations yesterday during our nightly after dinner walk, I kind of got excited about doing some decorating myself.

We went shopping today and as soon as we got to the Halloween aisle at Target, Carter started getting upset. He refused to go down any aisle that had a witch or anything else scary. Great. I tried having him stand at the end of the aisle where I could see him, while I walked down the aisle looking for decorations, but that only lasted until he decided that "stay right there and don't move" could easily be interpreted to mean "hey, I know you're bored, why don't you wander around to where I can't see you and find something interesting to look at." I know, he's only four. What should I expect???

Luckily, Target also had a section of decorations that were more Fall oriented than Halloween, which I think I prefer anyway. I found a really pretty cranberry vine wreath - I think the "cranberries" were made out of Styrofoam, or something like that, and I hung it on the back of Bella's stroller and we kept walking. Next thing I know, I hear, "Mommy, could you please tell Bella to stop eating those berries." Awesome. (Hey, I had to give him credit for being polite). I look down and there's a trail of fake berries behind us on the floor and Bella has a very satisfied smile on her face. I fished around in her mouth to see if any were actually in there and it appeared, luckily, that they all fell on the floor before any of them actually made it to her mouth.

Good thing Halloween is still a long way off. Otherwise, I may never get this house decorated. If anyone has any easy (and not at all frightening) decorating tips, let me know...

Conquering new frontiers, daily

Last Friday I had surgery.
Doctor's orders: take it easy.
What do I do?

Well, Wednesday morning I looked out the window and realized, the lawn MUST be mowed. Now I have never mowed a lawn before, per se. But I'm looking through the vast jungle that is our front yard thinking, "it can't be that hard, right?"

HA.

I won't tell you the whole story, but let's just say it included me crawling to my next door neighbor's house, clutching my side, asking her to come help me start my mower (mind you, my neighbor is pregnant), and my neighbor across the street (whom I've never formally met) yelling instructions to me from his garage. And I can't be entirely sure, but I think he might have been laughing a bit too.

WHATEVER.

Now my lawn is pretty. well, prettier.

Go, me.

This is *not* me, but I felt about as dumb as this person looks.

A picnicking we'll go

Ok, the kids looked nonplussed, but they had a good time, I swear!

Today I was feeling about 90% (ish) back to normal. Then my pain medication wore off. Now, I'm thinking I overdid it just a wee bit. Hey, my surgery was a whole two days ago, why would I not want to run out and enjoy a full day picnic/family outing???

Dave's company had a picnic at Remlinger Farms today, out near Carnation, so we loaded up the car and made the trip out there. There was a hay ride, pony rides, a bouncer, good food...we had a lot of fun.

I had my new video camera in hand all day and put started playing around with some of the features, so here's the resulting movie. It's kinda goofy, but fun. Enjoy :)

The further adventures

I'm finally recovered (and lucid) enough to write a short update. I had a minor surgery to have my gall bladder removed yesterday and have pretty much been sleeping ever since. Don't get me wrong, the idea of sleeping all day has been a big perk, could I just have it without all the pain? :)

Otherwise, things have been good around here. On Thursday, we took an impromptu trip to Mt. Rainier to go hiking with the kids. Carter really wanted to go to the top of the mountain. Namely, he wanted Daddy to drive him there. We quickly found out that if you drive up to Paradise, and don't park quickly enough in the new parking lot, you will eventually find yourself winding back down the mountain and it's a four-mile trek back up to Paradise.

So, once Carter realized that we couldn't drive to the top, he insisted that we hike to the top of the mountain. We grabbed a bite to eat before beginning our mountainous trek "to the top," which amazingly enough, was listed under one of the "easy" hikes. :) I made the unfortunate mistake of telling Carter that we were taking one of the easy hikes and he started stomping his feet. "I DON'T WANT AN EASY HIKE! I WANT A HARD HIKE!!!" After hiking for about 20 minutes he changed his tune. "THIS IS TOO HARD! I WANT TO GO HOOOOOME!!!" So much for reaching the top of the mountain.

Bella, not to be outdone by her brother's dramatics, decided to throw her own fit, Bella style. "pick me up, put me down, pick me up, put me down..." Every time I put her down, she would make a run for it. About half of the time, her "run for it" was in the wrong direction. She had a couple of good spills along the way. Finally I picked her up (against her will) and decided to entertain her by dangling a video camera (the super cool new one I got for my birthday!) in front of her. Here is what resulted...




This worked great for a while, until, inevitably, she wanted to be put down again. About every five feet, she flopped down on the ground like this:



The next day we went to get our pictures taken and so I'll leave you with these:

"Practice party"

Carter had found a recipe for a chocolate birthday cake in one of his kids' cookbooks (Sesame Street: C is for Cooking) and informed me he wanted to bake himself a cake for his birthday. I thought, ok that sounds like fun, but I want to try it out before subjecting any innocent party goers to my baking misadventures. The recipe called for all kind of healthy stuff - yogurt, applesauce, etc. and add to that the fact that I've never baked a cake that didn't come out of a box...well, let's just say I was nervous, to say the least.

So, we went to the store and picked up all the ingredients, plus everything we needed to make a bread bowl artichoke dip recipe (YUM) that I had found with my Pampered Chef stuff and we were off...I called a couple of unwitting victims, I mean friends (HA HA, love you guys!) :) to come and have a little pre-birthday "practice party."

I wish I had my camera here to take a picture of the cake when we were all done. Carter was pretty proud. I won't lie - I was too :) And it didn't even taste half bad. A big mass of ooey gooey chocolatey goodness adorned with rainbow sprinkles...Plus, I got to spend some quality time with some amazing friends and their kids. What more can you ask for???

Busy Day

Today was a busy day. We went to my cousin's wedding at Lake Wilderness. It was a beautiful wedding. Lake Wilderness is where Dave and I got married and this was our first time there since our own wedding 6 years ago. And wouldn't you know I made a wrong turn and nearly got lost :) It was really neat having the kids out there and telling them stories about the day when we got married. That spawned this gem of a conversation between Carter and I:

Carter: What's a wedding?
Me: It's where two people get married.
Carter: Am I getting married?
Me: Not until you're 40.
Carter: Are you married?
Me: Yes...
Carter: (confused) Who are you married to??? (by now people around us are starting to chuckle)
Me: I'm married to Daddy.
Carter: What about Bella? Who's she married to?
Me: No one. Not ever. She's becoming a nun.
Carter: Oh, ok.

The ceremony was outside, on the lawn by the lake and the reception was held inside. The kids wasted no time whatsoever breaking in the dance floor...




This went on for a really long time, receiving random bursts of applause from thoroughly entertained onlookers . A little later, they settled down and grabbed a bite to eat...



















Next, it was off to a birthday party at the Little Gym in Renton. Carter has been watching the Olympics, so he has been counting down the minutes until this gymnastics party.

By the time we got home, all of us were totally wiped out. I put Bella down for a nap, in hopes that I might be able to get some rest as well. I woke up 3 hours later and she was still sleeping. That was 5 hours ago and still not a peep. I have a feeling it's going to be an early morning for us tomorrow...

I wanna live on Sesame Street!

We have a morning ritual at our house. The little ones crawl into bed with me and we turn on cartoons (generally because I'm too tired to actually get my lazy butt out of bed). This may happen anywhere between 5 and 7 AM. Sometimes, if I'm lucky, it might even be 8. Lately our morning show of choice, while Mommy is getting her bearings, has been Sesame Street. I loved watching Sesame Street when I was little, but I don't ever remember it being such a hip place to be. Lately I've woken up to scenes like this:




and this:



Can you tell me how to get to Sesame Street? No, seriously...

Santa, the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth Fairy

Ok, so I'm not really new to the whole idea of blogging, per se, just new to this particular format...bear with me!

I had one of those "I'm a horrible mother" moments the other day. In hindsight, it was for the best, but at the moment, I felt terrible. For those of you who don't know him, Carter is one of the most loving kids I've ever met. He has a huge imagination and a sense of humor way beyond his years. Oh yeah, and Carter LOVES Superman. And I'm not using the term "love" lightly. He has watched ALL of the movies so many times he can quote them. Seriously anyone who has ever seen Superman 3 even once can probably feel my pain. But that aside, about a month ago, he started insisting I call him Superman. I thought, ok, it's a phase, he'll grow out of it. I tried playing up the "Carter is way cooler than superman" angle, but he wasn't buying. He started telling me he didn't want to be Carter anymore. If that's not a painful thing for a mother to hear, I don't know what is.

Then, the other night we were having Lima beans with dinner and he called them power beans and started eating them like candy. Not an entirely bad thing...However, after dinner he said "now I'm so strong I can lift a car" (a scene from the first superman movie, of course). I told him he could pretend to lift a car, or he could lift one of his toy cars, but he could not lift an actual car for real. He (somewhat) politely disagreed.

The next day, he started in again. This time he started saying "if only I could fly..." yikes. I finally asked him, "but why would you want to be Superman? Carter has a family that loves him and Superman is all by himself, that sounds pretty lonely to me; no parents, no friends..." to which he replied "I don't need any parents. I just want to be Superman. I am NOT Carter anymore." Here comes the part where I lose it. I told him he wasn't Superman, he can't fly, he can't lift cars and what's more; SUPERMAN ISN'T EVEN REAL." That was when the flood of tears started. I think he cried for at least a half hour straight. I told him I loved that he was using his imagination; he's so creative and so smart, but I was so worried that he would eventually believe these things he was saying so much that he would try something and wind up getting hurt. I might as well have told him that there was no Santa, Easter Bunny, or Tooth Fairy all at once.

In the end, we came to a compromise that he could play a game where he pretended to be Superman, but I still got to call him Carter. And I kept reinforcing the idea that the things that Superman does in the movies are not real and he would get hurt if he tried. That was a couple days ago and so far things have gone ok. I don't think we'll be watching any more Superman movies anytime soon though...