Thursday, April 30, 2009


This week has been totally non-glorious in only the way it can be when you have a cat who pees on the floor who suddenly gets diarrhea and a toddler who has to assert her will about EVERYTHING and a complete lack of ambition to even do so much as fight for the right to shower, much less party. It's one of those weeks where working from home doesn't feel as awesome as it did in the beginning, and I start to worry that I'm damaging my kid since she's obviously bored out of her skull. What sorts of things can I do with an 18 month old that don't involve extensive supervision? Does it make me a bad parent to admit that I keep her in the room with me and keep a vague eye on her rather than trying to amuse her every second of the afternoon? And I'm fighting this sinking feeling about letting her watch Sesame Street every day, but she LOVES it, and I get work done, and Matt loves that she loves it.

Urgh. The questions don't get any easier.

Saturday, April 25, 2009

You are now entering....the toddler zone.

I have a jillion things I want to post about, including a lot of whining about how being a mom means I suddenly have no friends, and how Matt just realized that last weekend, how I'm getting more and more excited for my sister's baby to be born, and how I wish I could have another kid, and how I'm not sure if I should be putting Charlotte on any daycare waiting lists right now, but I'll skip it for now. Because right now, I can hear my daughter screaming in her bed because she is overtired and probably hungry, and fighting sleep with every last molecule of will.



Charlotte has entered the terrible toddler zone. I wouldn't call it the terrible twos, because it really ranges from 1 1/2 to 3 or so...but that's where Charlotte is now. She doesn't want to eat anything, she doesn't want to nap, and when she doesn't get what she wants, she can't really be re-directed. There is no more swapping of mom's phone for Charlotte's toy phone. No more switcheroo with Elmo for the TV remote. And she's asking for TV all the time. She's figured out that Elmo and Pooh live in the TV and we can make it happen whenever she wants. Which isn't great. And she's learned how to whine.



But on the other hand, this is one of the most fun ages ever! Charlotte can request her books, her toys, her food - she has an opinion, and she can tell you about it. She does voices for her toys! (Is that advanced, or am I just a totally typical parent who thinks her kid is a genius?) When she's playing with Elmo, she does Elmo's voice, and answers him in Cookie Monster's voice. She pretend-talks on the phone constantly, and has really funny conversations: "Hi! Okay. Umm....da-da, come! Kitty, hi. Uh-huh. Okay. Elmo. Okie dokie!" Charlotte tries so hard to read and count. When she's "counting" she points at things and says, "two, three, two, three. Nine." She likes to look at books and point out letters, and sometimes she even gets them right. Odds are good if the letters are C, E, O and P. Charlotte loves her family, and had a great time being baby-sat by Grammy and Grampy last weekend. No tears, and she talked about them all night after they went home.