Thursday, December 30, 2010

Belated Christmas.




We couldn't decide on one best picture this year, so we sent out three different cards.  These were the photos we chose.

Going on behind the scenes: Part 1

I haven't posted in a while, mostly because it's been hard for me to post brief, anecdotal things while a bunch of other stuff has been going on in my life & brain.  I have a hard time just posting brief bloggy things here; probably too much Twitter & Facebook.  But I miss blogging, and I miss tracking what's going on with the parental side of things, and I always get annoyed when reading back I realize I missed huge chunks of what was going on.  So I'm working on getting back in the habit.  And to fill in some of the blanks, here's some of what's been going on in my head and stoppering up the blog posting process.


Every few months or so, I go through the baby-wanting cycle.  It was particularly bad this year after Charlotte's third birthday.  She's so grown-up now, such a big kid.  She's not a toddler anymore, she's definitely (and defiantly, as I accidentally typed it at first) a child, a kid. 

Matt and I hashed it out, all the eight million reasons why it doesn't make sense to have another kid right now.  And the eight million reasons are really just one, and in my mind the tackiest and worst reason to do/not do anything: money.  (Which is a whole other entry in itself, that I do not feel like getting into at the moment - I'm depressed enough as it is.)

And I was accpeting it, moving on, and doing so well, when December came, and former co-workers & high school friends started having babies, and my facebook feed is full of babies.  Tiny newborns, haggard moms, first Christmas outfits, the whole nine yards.  Big sisters holding onto babies, proud grandmas, bewildered dogs.  And I love looking at it, but it makes me so envious & sad.  A blogger who I've been following for three years posted that they will be actively trying for a new baby in the next year.  Her oldest son is the same age as Charlotte, her second son is my nephew's age.  At Christmas I snapped my poor mother's head off as she hinted, yet again, that it would be great if someone else would have another baby.  I apologized pretty much instantaneously, but family stressors being what they are (lots of sick family members, uncertain grandparent health) she was slow to get over it.  I ended up apologizing again but saying firmly, "You have to let it go, it's a very sensitive subject."

I feel like time is running out.  I mean, on paper it looks fine - I am 31 years old, no known fertility problems, but I am overweight (okay, FAT) and I do have elevated blood pressure.  Both my doctor and my ob/gyn said to me when Charlotte was born that I was definitely fine to have more kids, but they both said that it would be better to do it sooner rather than later.  Charlotte is three - I never wanted my kids to be that far apart in age.  Matt & his sister are just about 7 years apart, and while they love each other intensely, it's not quite the same as me & my sister or my sister & my brother or me & my brother.  I think the larger age gap can make it harder for siblings to be close, especially when one moves out, and it can cause the parents to lean too hard on the older sibling.  Just everything in me is screaming, "If you are going to do it, it needs to be NOW."  Everything externally is screaming, "That is not a good plan AT ALL."  Hence the tears and agony and fretting and beating on this poor, poor, poor deceased equine.

Wednesday, December 8, 2010

QOTD: That's already on the calendar, actually.

Charlotte is currently in giant trouble for transgressions involving Vaseline and various tubes of diaper & skin creams.  However, she did say this funny thing today.

Charlotte at the laptop:  I need to look up a schedule.

Me:  For what?

Charlotte:  For Santa.

Sunday, November 28, 2010

QOTD: You said it, Hallmark....I mean, Charlotte.

Charlotte:  I'm just so happy.  Are you so happy?

Me:  I *am* so happy.  Why are you happy?

Charlotte:  Because I just love you!

Aww.  Melt.

Friday, November 12, 2010

Planning for next Halloween already...

Charlotte:  I know what I'm going to dress up as for Halloween.

Mama:  Oh yeah, for next Halloween?  What are you going to be?

Charlotte:  A vampire.

Mama:  *kinda flummoxed*  A vampire?  Really?

Charlotte:  Yes, a vampire.  I'm gonna dress up as a vampire.

Mama:  What is a vampire?

Charlotte:  Spooky.  A vampire is spooky.  Not a wampire, a vampire.

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

*yawn*

I am not a morning person.  Really, really not a morning person.  I am also a mom, which means that despite my non-morning-person-ness, I frequently get up in the morning.  Not as early as my sister, whose alarm is set somewhere in the 5 o'clock hour (shudder), but early enough for someone whose bedtime is long after midnight. So any morning when I have to actually DO something, other than just be present and make breakfast, is like a kick in the pants.  Like today.

Charlotte still has this cough that she just can't shake (part of this three week cycle of illness).  As I've lamented before, there aren't really a lot of medications available for kids under 6 (and for good reason) (my, I'm parenthetical today) so we end up dosing Charlotte with honey.  (Only good for kids over 1 year.)  It works pretty well, especially in the middle of the night when she's not talking a mile a minute.  During the day, all bets are off.  Any benefits won by honey or warm herbal tea are completely trashed by her inability to keep silent.  She just keeps irritating her throat.  (I'm the same way.) (Obviously, I'm just embracing the parentheses today, there's clearly nothing else to be done.)  Last night, like the last week or so, I woke up to hear Charlotte coughing, so I brought a spoonful of honey to her room, sat her up, gave her honey, gave her a cup of water, and went back to bed.  I did this twice.  This morning when Charlotte wandered out to the living room, she had a terrifying knot in her hair, the size of a ping pong ball.  We figure that she must have (grossness alert) coughed out a wad of honey-phlegm-bile right into her hair.  Ew.  So Charlotte needed a bath first thing this morning, which means I needed to GIVE her a bath first thing this morning which means I'm still not awake and also grumpy.  But the whatever-it-was is out of her hair, so that's something.

I have reached several conclusions this morning.  Probably not the ones you might expect.  I have learned:

* Unlike her mother, Charlotte could probably develop dreadlocks quite easily.

* It's time for a haircut.  For Charlotte.  She's never had one, and the ends are all dead, thin, straw-like, and eager to stick to each other.

* Dr. Bronner's soap continues to be my cure-all.  Matt always mocks my soap, but today after baby oil & conditioner failed to detangle the mass, Dr. Bronner's stepped in and helped sort it out.  I don't usually use it on Charlotte because I have the mint one, and that is too intense and burn-y, but next time I will get a vat of the baby or almond and keep that around for washing my disgusting child.

* Today is a whole pot of coffee day.

Wednesday, November 3, 2010

Charlotte got her flu shot today; pray for us.  Last year she was sick for a week after it.  This year she was sick going into it, but I called the nurse yesterday and asked if we should reschedule.  The nurse said that as long as she isn't running a fever, she can still get it.  When Matt brought her in today, he told them about her reaction last time (fever, puking, sick for a week) and they gave her the shot rather than the nasal spray.  Charlotte had to get a combo with the H1N1, though, since she never got the second dose of the H1N1 last year.  They actually ran out of it when I had called them to schedule her second dose; they also hadn't told me at the appointment or in the literature that she needed a second dose, that was another thing I figured out from the news/internet.  Sigh.  What rigmarole that all was.

Charlotte slept through the night last night; we've had 3 days of that in the last 2 and a half weeks, and it's starting to really take a toll.  I'm grateful that she slept last night, though, because I suspect that tonight is not going to be great.  If she reacts to this flu shot at all, it's gonna be a problem on top of her current cold (well into day 10 at this point).  My goal is to get my work done for the day and get into bed as close to midnight as possible, and hope like hell Charlotte sleeps until 4 am at last.  Matt talked to the receptionist at the pediatricians' office about maybe trying to make an appointment to talk about this sleep thing, but she wasn't sure how to schedule that kind of consultation, and she was gonna get back to us.  I'll call tomorrow and see if I can sort it out.  I also have an idea that I need to implement this week, but it involves tweaking my schedule, which I am not so great at.  This is big though, the sleep thing impacts us all pretty dramatically.

Sunday, October 31, 2010

Saturday, October 30, 2010

QOTD: Spooner said what?

"It's the Great Charlie, Pumpkin Brown!"  repeated three times...heh. Matt couldn't tell what was wrong the first two times.

(Okay, so not quite a spoonerism, but still cute.)

Go Ask Alice.





Despite the evidence to the contrary, Charlotte is not going to be Alice in Wonderland for Halloween.  She still wants to be a witch.  Though last night she said she was going to be Cinderella.  But we're right back at witch this morning.  Thank goodness, because we already have a witch costume.  And an awesome broom.  I figure if she starts to waver towards Cinderella, we can pull the broom out and remind her of how cool it is and that Cinderella doesn't carry a broom (actually, that's patently untrue, but I'm not sure that she'd remember that in time to make a convincing argument).

In other news, Charlotte is recovering from a cold and being a huge pain in the neck.  Here are some facebook status updates from yesterday:

11:48 am -

You know your kid is three when you specifically tell them that you are happy that the crayons didn't roll into the baseboard, because the heater is on and that would make a mess.....and five minutes later, she's put all the crayons in the baseboard. Groan.


2:15 ish pm - 

In the ongoing saga of I-need-a-vacation, Charlotte just came out of her room during "nap" with a mouthful of toy food saying, "I need to throw up," and spitting out her fake food. I did not laugh, but it is pretty freaking funny. This is my punishment for laughing at a puke joke 2 weeks ago.


10:55 pm - 

I know today has been rather Charlotte-heavy, but I'd like you all to know that the hilarious child is STILL AWAKE. Luckily, I'm still up and working and just monitoring from the living room, but seriously? Really?


11:16 pm - 

...and she's finally asleep. Phew.

Thursday, October 28, 2010

QOTD: I think the word you are looking for is "damn."

Allow me to set the scene - Charlotte has been sick since Monday...running a fever, runny nose, no appetite.  She's definitely feeling better, but she's eating so little that it's making us nuts.  It's hard to recover from a cold when you don't fuel your body!  One of the things we have done before is once she starts to perk up a little, we order some chicken and fries and try to bribe her into eating more calories.  3 out of 4 times, this works.  Tonight it did not.  

So, we're at dinner, and Matt realizes that Charlotte is not going to eat her chicken, no matter what he asks.  (The fries and roasted broccoli & cauliflower, she did eat.) 

Matt:  Well, that's a crying shame.

Charlotte:  Aw, no, Daddy.  That's a happy shame!

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

A Mother's Curse

It's a cliche, but it's happened to me.  You know how at least one point in your teenage existence you are screaming at your mother and she comes back with, "When you grow up, I hope you have a daughter just like you!"?  Well, that is, apparently, the story of my life.

I am talking, again, as usual, about sleep.  Or lack of sleep.  Ever since we instituted a bedtime routine at 11 months, going to bed has not been Charlotte's problem.  It's been falling asleep at bedtime, or waking frequently, or staying up once she wakes in the middle of the night.  I am continually grateful that we can put her to bed at bedtime and she stays in bed, and (usually) falls asleep quickly and without fuss.  (Dudes, I am knocking wood SO HARD right now.)  Every now and then she'll have trouble falling asleep at bedtime, and we recently took all the books out of her room and moved them to a bookshelf in the hall, which helped immensely with that.  She was staying up to read, rather than going straight to bed. (*cough*justlikehermother*cough*)

Once we took the books out, we thought we were golden.  Every so often Charlotte will go through a cycle where she wakes frequently in the night.  But this past week it's been BRUTAL.  She will wake up and then be up for HOURS playing, bouncing, making lots of noise.  If we didn't live in an apartment complex (luckily her room shares a wall with a laundry room and we're in the basement, meaning we have just the neighbors above us) I would probably just be able to ignore it, but as it is, she really can't be shouting at 3 am.  Even if she's kind of hilariously shouting, "I'm late! I'm late! For a very important date!"


I think the next step, as much as I'm dreading it, is to take the extraneous toys out of her room, so if she wakes up in the middle of the night, she falls back asleep out of sheer boredom.  Charlotte is not going to like this plan, but she needs to sleep!  If she won't take a nap, then she needs a solid 12 hours at night.  A kid her age really needs to get that much sleep.  I told my friend Morgan last week that Charlotte has bags under her eyes like a college freshman during mid-terms week.  And I wasn't exaggerating.

Monday, October 18, 2010

Hawaii

Charlotte loves Hawaii.  I almost have no idea how this happened.  She saw an episode of Imagination Movers that involved Nina returning to Hawaii for a family party.  The show covered all the basic Hawaii themes - hula, surfing, island....and Charlotte ate it up.  She especially loved the little hula primer (Nina demonstrates the hand movements for house & ocean) and tried to teach everyone she met how to do it for the next month.

yes, this is Charlotte's hula outfit. Tutu, slippers, and  too-small winter hat. I added the halter top for modesty's sake.


After that episode I decided to try her out again on Lilo & Stitch (Disney movie set in Hawaii).  There is some shooting of lasers in it, which sorta bugs me for a 3 yr old, but she'd seen lasers on Wall-E (Matt's choice), so I decided to give it a try.  Disney is very good at not showing person on person shooting.  ANYHOO, she loved Lilo & Stitch and we started listening to the Lilo & Stitch soundtrack constantly.  As a result, Charlotte now also loves Elvis.

Charlotte said, "I'm Elvis!"

After that, Charlotte moved on to books.  When I told her one day that we were going to the library tomorrow, she said, "Want a Hawaii book!"  I had to look online...hard to find a children's picture book about Hawaii on short notice, but we found Dear Katie, The Volcano IS a Girl.  It's written by Jean Craighead George (who wrote my favorite all time book, My Side of the Mountain ) and illustrated by Daniel Powers.  It is, as you might expect, about Pele.  

Charlotte also looked at pictures of my sister-in-law, brother-in-law and nephew in Hawaii, as their vacation started up about the same time as her obsession.  In fact, at the site of the first picture, Charlotte even said, "Is that Hawaii?"  Oceans & palm trees will do that.

She's gotten some Hawaii-themed gifts for her birthday.  A grass skirt and some leis from her Grammy, a book and shirt brought back from Hawaii from her aunt & uncle.

I'm clearly excited about the white rabbit.

The whole thing is adorable.  I love these kicks she gets on.  Now to start saving for airfare...

Friday, October 15, 2010

Not the best way to start a Friday.

Charlotte was up from 2 am to 6:30 am.  Some of it was cheerful, "Mom! Mom! Mom! Can you wrap Tigger*?" and some of it was tearful.  I got up the first 4 times (it was a trade-off long ago that I'd get up with Charlotte at night if Matt would be 100% in charge of the litterbox), but I started kind of falling apart around 5 am.  I couldn't separate my dreams from my awake time.  At one point, I thought Charlotte was shouting through the baby monitor, "Mom! I need more Tim Gunn!"  When I begged Matt to go in and help her, I finally realized that she was saving, "I need more Velveteen Rabbit!"  I guess I was feeling guilty for DVRing Project Runway and then deleting it before Charlotte watched it.

Now it's 8:46, and Charlotte's still asleep, and Matt's leaving for work.  Usually, no matter how little sleep she got, we wake her when Matt leaves.  We have found that Charlotte flips her lid if she wakes up and Daddy is already gone.  It totally messes with her head for HOURS.  Today though, she's only been asleep for about 2 hours.  There's gonna be hell to pay when I finally DO get her up, but I'm not going to wake her intentionally until at least 10:30.  If Charlotte wakes up before then, so be it, but I can't really look forward to a day of no television and that little sleep.

* Sometimes her best buddy Tigger likes to be swaddled. He's still a very young Tigger, you see, and he finds it comforting.  I guess.

Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Tuesday is just Monday 2.0.

Mondays after busy/good weekends are always a little rough.  Charlotte misses her daddy when he goes to work, and after having a long weekend away with family, she was particularly sad to see him go this morning.  I had also decided that Charlotte was gonna be TV-free this week.  She's been asking to watch TV pretty much constantly lately, and when it's on, she just spaces out.  It was starting to freak me out.  So I declared this week a TV vacation.  And in the interest of fairness, I declared it a Facebook-free week for myself as well.  Facebook is my space out vice...and while I can't really swear off the internet as a whole, I can definitely take out the biggest time-waster.

Charlotte did a great job with no TV today, which was fab.  She had some trouble early in the day, but I set her down with some of her new toys (and new-to-her hand me downs).  She rocks.

I made Charlotte some octo-dogs for lunch, and she refused to eat them - citing both that they were "too silly" and "too funny."  I totally suspect that I may have a vegetarian on my hands.  Once she figures out that her bacon is cute pigs and her "chicken and fries!" is silly chickens, we may shift this family into 2 out of 3 vegetarians.

Monday, October 11, 2010

Whew!

It has been crazier and crazier, and wilder and wilder over here.  But awesome, also.  In the last few weeks, we've:

* had a lovely family birthday party in our apartment back yard, with Charlotte's grandparents, aunts & uncles

* gone to the Boston Childrens' Museum

* took the T to the Childrens' Museum (that really does get its own entry)

* had a birthday party for Charlotte with her friends, again in our back yard

* had ANOTHER birthday celebration on vacation with Matt's family in the Berkshires


Next up is Halloween.  Charlotte has lots of plans, involving her dressing as a witch, me dressing as a pumpkin, Matt dressing as a bat, and lots of trick or treating and decorations.  Can't wait!

Thursday, September 30, 2010

Telling stories.

Charlotte is into storytelling in a BIG way lately.  They aren't particularly linear, exactly, but they are very structured, in an awesome way.  She has the mechanics down, the "....and Alice said....and dad said...and the next day...but then..."  Frequent characters in her stories are Alice (from Alice in Wonderland), Mr. Rabbit (the White Rabbit), Mom (me, or Alice's mom), Dad (Matt, or Alice's Dad), Woody (from Toy Story), Buzz (from Toy Story) and Cinderella (you can guess from where).  Sometimes she gets so involved with the story that she forgets to eat, or pee, or whatever it is she is supposed to be doing.  It's totally hilarious.  And when Charlotte is really tired sometimes there aren't even real words.  Just "...mumble mumble...gibberish....AND THEN.....blah....SO...."

Here is an actual partial transcript of a story from the day of her birthday party (September 19th), when she really started telling stories in earnest:

...and Alice said, "Mom...Mom and Dad...can I go out and chase that rabbit?" and so...and so...her mom said, "Of course, of course," but...and so...we sent an email first.

One of the things the parents in Charlotte's stories frequently say is, "Of course, my dear," which just cracks me up.  

Friday, September 24, 2010

Saturday, September 18, 2010

Too small. Too big.

When Charlotte caught me sorting outgrown clothes, she HAD to wear the lamb sweater.  The same sweater that was mine, then my sister's, then my cousins'.  I don't remember if my brother wore it, or if it had gone to live with my cousins by that point.  My aunt found it and gave it to me for Christmas when Charlotte was 1, and Charlotte loved it.  She likes chewing/sucking on the metal "O" zipper pull.  Gross, but I remember loving it too, the cool metal in my mouth.  Charlotte is just about 3, and we handed it down to Gavin, but I remember wearing it, so I was much older.  A preemie, it took me a little longer to get as big as Charlotte is now, so it is very, very strange to know that I remember wearing a sweater that she has outgrown before her 3rd birthday.  Some of my memories start very early, though, so who knows if Charlotte will have a similar memory of the lamb sweater?  Dancing in the living room, sucking on the zipper pull, squeezed into last Christmas's present of blue corduroy pants and slightly too-small witch's hat.  It's not that the clothes are too small, it's that my baby is too big.













Friday, September 17, 2010

QOTD: 5 pm freak-out version

While Matt was trying to get her to sit on the potty:  "It's just an accident.  I don't know what my mouth is doing...there's no energy to pee.  There's no energy!"

Sunday, September 5, 2010

Karma. She is a bitch.

So, remember that time that Nicole almost dropped Charlotte?  Well, in the interest of sibling rivalry, I had to go one better and almost crush Gavin's fingers.

He's okay, but I'm traumatized, Nicole's traumatized, Josh is traumatized, and Charlotte is traumatized.  Matt, while not traumatized, understands that everyone else is.  Ugh.  It was literally the last thing I thought about last night and the first thing I thought about this morning.  Okay, second, after, "Whoa, Charlotte let us sleep until 7:48!"

Which moves us on to a new phase in family stuff - it's one thing to accidentally hurt yourself, a whole other can of worms to accidentally hurt your kid, and then a whole 'NOTHER an of worms to accidentally hurt someone else's child.

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

QOTD: I thought I had more time...

I hear the sound of multiple bins full of stuff being dumped on the floor, coming from Charlotte's room, of course.

"What are you doing in there?!"

"Nothing, Mom! Nothing!"

(testing the browser on Matt's new phone.)

Tuesday, August 24, 2010

QOTD: +5 Goth cred

Charlotte, flipping through National Geographic, "There's a skull.  I love skulls."

Monday, August 23, 2010

Don't Judge.

This might make me the grossest mother in the history of toddler-dom, but I had no idea that the straps on Charlotte's high chair could come off until today.  Which means they've never been washed-washed until today.  I did a lot of spot cleaning, and some weird rigs with plastic bags full of water and baking soda and rubber bands....but I never realized that you can just take them off and throw them in the washing machine.

Well, they're being washed now, at least.

Also?  A few weeks ago Matt found a screw that apparently came from the high chair.  We have no idea from where.  He picked it up and turned it upside down, and can't see any missing.  Hmmmm.

Wednesday, August 18, 2010

I really hope this is a fluke...

Charlotte does this thing where she sleeps great for a month, or maybe 6 weeks, and then she spends a week or two waking up at in the middle of the night or at 5 am, and taking forever to go back to sleep.  I'm grateful that she sleeps so well at night the majority of the time, but her disrupted nights are always timed REALLY badly.

Last night Charlotte woke up at 4:45...or at least, that's when I heard her.  I went in and put her in a dry pull-up, got her a sip of water, and rubbed her back for a few minutes.  At that point, it was pretty clear to me that she was bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, and totally perky for waking up 3 hours early.  I went back to bed in the faint hope that she'd fall asleep easier if I wasn't there to talk to.  HA!

She finally got up at 7:30 this morning, but the time between 4:45 and 7:30 was the same as it usually is - Charlotte was in bed and talking, and I was dozing in my bed and going in there every so often to ask her to PLEASE stop kicking the wall/bouncing on the bed/laughing so loud.  On the one hand, it is awesome that she can amuse herself so thoroughly using just her imagination and her stuffed animals.  On the other hand, OMG, she needs to sleep.  Plus, *I* need to sleep, and I always have these weird dreams when I'm dozing that feel like I've been asleep for hours, when really it's just been 10 minutes.  I think Charlotte finally conked out from 6 to 7, but was up and chattering again by 7:15.  I went to bed late last night, and I think that I really did only get 4 hours of uninterrupted sleep last night, with another 2 1/2 hours of heavily interrupted sleep.

Is it any wonder I measure my coffee consumption in pots, not cups, these days?

Tuesday, August 17, 2010

QOTD: Iguanodon = Goat, Brachiosaurus = Sheep

Charlotte:  Ah, Ah, A.  A is for Iguanodon.

Mama:  Well, that sounds very close.  Actually, Iguanodon starts with I.

Charlotte:  I saw Iguanodon at the zoo.

Mama:  Oh?

Charlotte:  And I fed it corn in my hand and then there was no more corn.  And then I fed a Brachiosaurus and it was too tall.  You held me in your hands and I fed the Brachiosaurus and a T. Rex.  At the zoo.

Saturday, August 7, 2010

Trying not to jinx it...

..Charlotte got another three gummy bears today.  She's a very regular one-a-day pooper, so I'm pretty thrilled that 2 out of the last 3 poops have been on the potty.  Slow and steady, slow and steady.

Tonight we were supposed to be camping, but I had way too much work this weekend.  Tomorrow's plans are to hit Look Park and meet some friends.  Last summer we went to the splash park there, and it was a disaster - Charlotte kept jumping around and running on the concrete, and fell and hit her head like three times in four minutes.  We were a little skeptical about trying it again, but I think she can handle it.  And if she can't, we'll threaten to leave the water and see if that helps.

Lastly, Charlotte is very interested in wearing watches - Matt just started wearing one again recently (his birthday present from me) and Charlotte loves to be like Daddy.  It's hilarious, because I think it makes her look exactly like him.

P1010697

Thursday, August 5, 2010

Big Girl Week

This week has been a really big growing up week for Charlotte.  She went to a birthday party where she didn't know most of the kids, and introduced herself to them.  She helped me babysit her cousin Gavin.

P1010717

And today, she pooped on the potty for the first time.

Big week.  Big Girl.  And yesterday, she called me Big Mama.  I am not really sure that I'm okay with the last one.

Monday, August 2, 2010

Party Central

This weekend we had two major birthday parties to attend - my nephew Gavin turned 1 (!!!) and we went to the birthday party of the aforementioned neighbor boys, who turned 2.  I was a little nervous about the twins' birthday party, for many reasons - I am shy around strangers sometimes, Charlotte is shy around strangers sometimes, most of our other birthday parties have been for family, I was a little unsure of twin gift ettiquette.  (We ended up getting them 2 birthday cards at my extreme insistence....I was very happy about that.)  The plus side to the twin birthday party was that it was literally right in our backyard, so if it got too overwhelming (for anyone) we could just go home, 1 or 2 or all of us.  We ended up having a great time, and stayed 'til the bitter end.  Bitter for Charlotte, that is.  She had such a good time that she cried when we left, and this morning, she wanted to go back outside to the party first thing.  She was temporarily bummed that it wasn't there, but I think also a little bit relieved and ready for some quiet play in her room.

One of the funniest things is that we met another Charlotte at the party.  (reminded me of Oz & Axel meeting the Other Axel a few weeks ago!)  Our Charlotte had a brief encounter with  a much older Charlotte before, but it didn't even register to our little girl.  Last night I talked with the other Charlotte's mother about the whole Charlotte thing.  "Does she have a nickname?" asked the other mom, with a kind of wince face...I could tell she knew what I was going to say.

"We ended up calling her Char, which wasn't the plan beforehand," I replied.  She sighed.

"Yeah, us too."

It was funny, because I could just tell that she was like Matt....not thrilled with the idea of Char as a nickname ahead of time...and he's still not sold on it, except that it really suits her.  And Char-Char (Shar-Shar phonetically, I guess, but that just looks weird) when she was littler.  I had always pushed for Charlie, but it just doesn't flow naturally with the "Sh" in Charlotte.  We do call her "Sharlie" to tease her sometimes, but she always says, "Nooooo!"

The other thing I mentioned to Charlotte's mom was how Charlotte is kind of confused about the fact that her name starts with the letter C, but not the letter C sound.  And it's not even a CH sound, like chair or chocolate, so it's an exception of an exception.  Eventually it will make sense to her, but for right now, it's a little confusing, and totally something I didn't even anticipate.

So, like I said, great parties, and fun with other kids.  I'll add pictures later.

Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Change of plans.

Sticker chart got us started on potty training, but we've plateaued and regressed...next up, the gummy bear reward system, our version of the tried and true M & M system.  1 gummy bear for peeing on the potty, 3 gummy bears for pooping on the party.  Charlotte is proud to be a part of this plan, and has not stopped begging for gummy bears since they got put into the cart at Target last night.  She calls gummy bears "gummy stuff" or "gummy sings [things]".  One more instance of being her father's daughter - she loves them.

Tuesday, July 27, 2010

too tired to blog.


about 2 months ago
















QOTD: It was only a matter of time.

Today marks the first use of the phrase: "Oh no. That was just an accident."


(no household objects were harmed in the making of this blog post.)

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

bits

* This morning, after Charlotte watched Matt leave for work, she said to me, "That Daddy.  He's my favorite friend and I love him."

* The last two mornings Charlotte has been setting up her keyboard (one of my old non-working keyboards) and her magnadoodle thing on the coffee table and bringing her chair over, so she could work on her computer while I worked on mine.

* We went to the beach.  While I do love the ocean, it is far away.  Sandy-bottoom lakes are also pretty awesome (and Matt prefers them).  Charlotte had an amazing time.  She talked to some other kids, swam, and got to dig, dig, dig.  The picnic lunch was pretty fun, too.  We only stayed for 2 hours, because we were all a little sunned out.  Charlotte was exhausted and nearly fell asleep in her lunch.  We will definitely go back there again.

* This weekend is Jen's birthday spectacular, and Charlotte will be spending the weekend with her grandparents.  I'm sure she's going to have a good time, but I'm gonna miss her.

Sunday, July 18, 2010

Matt took Charlotte to Yankee Candle so that I could work...

Matt:  I do like apple scents.  Like that apple cider.

Charlotte:  Apple Pie.

Matt:  Yeah, they have an apple pie now.  It smells great.

Charlotte:  And pancakes!

Matt:  Maple Pancake, yes, we smelled that.

Charlotte:  And ice cream.  I smelled it with my nose.  It was 'eefresheshing.

Jenn:  Refreshing?

Charlotte:  Yes!  It smelled so good.

Saturday, July 10, 2010

Perspectives.



Originally uploaded by ladygwyn24
This is a picture of Charlotte taken by her "Auntie" Jen, one of my bestest friends. Jen & her boyfriend hung out with us on the fourth of July, and despite some last minute-plan re-arranging, we had a good time.

I also took a few pictures of Charlotte that day, and I wanted to take a look at both of them in the same place. Same kid, same day, same tree - different cameras, different photographers.

This weekend marks some crazy undertakings.  Charlotte is almost 3, and I've been dying to take her camping.  Matt detests camping, but Charlotte is fascinated.  She's seen an episode of Sesame Street, and she's seen it mentioned in a couple books, and she asked me several times this winter if we could go camping.  So tonight we're gonna head over to my sister's house, Charlotte and me, to pitch our tent, roll out our sleeping bags, and toast some s'mores.  If this works out, we'll probably spend 2-3 nights "camping" at my mom's house in August.  Here's hoping.

Also on the docket - Matt's parents are going to take her for a test run overnight on Sunday night.  Later this month Matt & I have a weekend planned where we are going to do birthday things with the aforementioned Auntie Jen, minus our little munchkin.  Her grandparents have been itching for a sleepover, so we're going to try that out.  I'm sure it will go well, Charlotte adores her grandparents, loves their house, and is typically very well-behaved for them.  I am not sure Mama is really ready, though.