Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Still sick.  Charlotte is a little perplexed by Mama's constant dragging and laying on couches.  I feel bad that we're not getting more time outside, but the weather is obliging by being cold and wet.  Charlotte is spending a lot of time playing with her Cars cars & her Little People animals...they have a lot really hysterical interactions based around a) who is friends, b) who is fast, c) who lives in ice, and d) who is a 'fabulous race car.'


(Charlotte and her "best buddy car Mater")

Charlotte is also interested in Venus Flytraps....Matt and I watched "life" on Discovery and thought she might be interested in the Plants episode since she's obsessed with 'planting sings [things] in the soil.'  She was fascinated and a little freaked out by the Venus Flytrap.  Then Dinosaur Train had an episode about some form of Drosera (Sundew plant) and talked about carnivorous plants.  So she's REALLY into carnivorous plants.  We spend a lot of time looking at the 10 page National Geographic article from a month ago on carnivorous plants, and we made up a hand-thing where we talk about Venus Flytraps.  I will try and get that on video.

Thursday, April 22, 2010

Still Sick

We're on day...I don't even know...of this particular illness, and Charlotte and I are still coughing.  No one has puked in a few days, so that's something.  The last few days have been full of willpower battles - Charlotte really wants to get into her humidifier (damn us for picking the cute froggie one! too tempting!) and she has been sent to time out approximately 8 times in 48 hrs for being unable to stop messing with it.  We are limited by the very small number of flat surfaces in her room.  There is really only one place for it to go, and it turns out that she can reach it there.  We spent a little while running in there every few minutes to catch her touching it and then make her stop, and then put her in time out, then jury-rigged a stable platform out of her reach.  Funny thing that's come out of it is hearing Charlotte say, "humidifier froggie."

Have gotten slack in creative meals lately - there has been a little too much reliance on peanut butter & jelly and grilled cheese sandwiches.  Part of the problem is that I'm sick too, which I keep forgetting to use as an excuse to cut myself some slack.  I'm hacking up a lung here, I can't be expected to come up with fun & nutritious snacks, dammit.  It's also the time of year where finding organic fruit is harder - and Charlotte gets tired of frozen berries...and I get tired of cleaning them up.

I've also been casting around for some new projects/independent play stuff to do with Charlotte.  I have a project or two up my sleeve for tomorrow - I got some tube pasta from the store, and cut some old (very stained) onesies into fabric strips, and I'm got to see if she can thread them.  I have a big bag of pom poms, and a muffin tin, and I'll let her sort them out.  I have white glue and paint brushes and paper grass...there should be something I can do with that.  Unfortunately, a lot of this is supervised stuff, but maybe after we make some macaroni necklaces I can direct her to the dress-up box.  Maybe I can put some different stuff in there...hmm.  I seriously wish that my whole job was doing projects with Charlotte all day.  She even knows the word project, it's awesome.  As soon as she sees me gather up stuff and bring it to the kitchen table, she asks, "Dat a project, Mama?  Dat you project?"  If I tell her that I have a project for both of us, she gets even more excited.  "Oh boy, a project, yay!"  Girl after my own heart.

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Sick Monkey

Urgh, we're sick.  On Sunday Matt had a GI issue, then on Monday Charlotte was sluggish and whiny & then puked fantastically after dinner.  Yesterday Charlotte was coughing, sad and pukey, and I was sad and pukey.  Charlotte woke up at 5 am this morning, crying because her throat was hurting so bad.  We snuggled out on the couch, and I dosed her with Tylenol.  What a day.  Matt's taking her to the doctor this afternoon.  I feel so bad for her.  I really hope she doesn't have an infection or something.  I used to get bronchitis and strep throat a lot, so that's my concern.

I was changing Charlotte's diaper and getting her ready to go, and she was cheerful enough to carry on this conversation:

C: And gonna see a fishing tank, and there are cwabs.  Hermit cwabs inna shells.  Say "fishes."  [pause] Say "FISHES."  [looking at me expectantly]

Me:  Oh.  Oh!  "Fishes."

C:  Good job, Mama.  You say "fishes."  Good job.

Sunday, April 11, 2010

QTOD: Reverse Engineering a Word

at the playground, in the sandbox with a toy hammer:

"I'm using my hammer to ham!"

Friday, April 9, 2010

M-O-M-M-Y needs C-O-F-F-E-E *

Every now and then we get on this sleep thing...three days this week Matt has forgotten to set the alarm clock, and three days this week Charlotte has woken up in the wee hours of the morning and stayed awake for over an hour (almost two, usually).  It's a horrible combination.  That means that today I was up from about 3:45 to 5:30, with just a few minutes of dozing in there. And then woke up late and groggy when Matt realized that he just had time to shower and run.

I'm not so much bothered, developmentally speaking, by Charlotte waking up and staying up.  There's a couple reasons for it - she wakes up and remembers something exciting to do, or she wakes up and can't find Tigger, or she wakes up and her diaper is too full of pee for her to comfortably go back to sleep.  It's hard for her to fall back asleep once she wakes up, for whatever reason, and who can't relate to that?  Or she wakes up and is too overtired to fall back asleep, which, for her, is a big issue no matter what time it is.  It's hard for her to fall asleep at bedtime if she's overtired and she practically never naps unless she is belted into the car seat.

I understand all of this, and it doesn't bother me, per se, but god, I gotta tell you, this lack of sleep is killing me.  I was brushing my teeth this morning and berating myself for not losing weight, when I really started to think about it.  I already have very little time during the day.  I go to bed, say, 12:30 am after working until midnight, then get up about 7:30 am.  If I spend 2 of those 7 hours falling asleep, helping Charlotte fall asleep, making sure she isn't trashing her room, laying awake listening to the baby monitor trying to decide whether or not she's going to fall asleep/break something/work herself into a frenzy....well, I think I can be a little nicer to myself for not waking up at 6 am to work out.  I'll figure out something, but this is just hard right now.  As is obvious by this rambling, disjointed blog post.  Whoops.

...and then Charlotte crawls into my lap this morning and says, "I'm your best buddy, Mom!  I love you, Mom!"  It's like she's got a sixth sense about these things.


* Ralph's World song

Wednesday, April 7, 2010

Mis-heard lyrics are genetic.

My sister is FAMOUS for mis-hearing (and repeating) song lyrics.  Charlotte's two from this week:

From Twinkle Twinkle:  "Like a dino in the sky..."

From I'm Not Small:  "a nice big truck..."  (instead of 'an ice cream truck')
Things Charlotte does not like:  Getting hosed down in the tub because she threw sand in the air and ground it into her scalp.

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

It's been a while...

...sometimes when I have big posts brewing in my head, it's hard to actually sit down and post anything, because I want to elaborate on these big themes, but I don't have time.  So I forget to stop in and blog about the little things, the stuff I want to remember.  The other day, I was discussing with my sister about how G doesn't have any teeth yet (@ 8 months) and I knew that Charlotte got her teeth "late" but couldn't remember when.  I was able to go back and look it up, which was so freaking cool.  It was in May of 08, and she was 7 1/2 months.



Things That Charlotte Loves Right Now:

* Movies!  Cars, Cinderella, Ratatouille are the big ones, though still Curious George & Mary Poppins.

* Music - Sharon, Lois & Bram; Imagination Movers; Cars Soundtrack (natch).  She still gets a hankering for "Single Ladies", and I can sneak in Vampire Weekend and Timber Timbre w/o too much of a protest.

* Singing songs - big hits are I'm a Little Teapot, Skinnamarink & Flea, Fly, Mosquito

* Things she's into: talking about animals, particularly "What hatches from eggs?" and metamorphosis; identifying dinosaurs; playing with her cars; stacking toys/blocks; dressing up in hats & scarves & shoes; coloring at her big-girl-table

* Places/Activities she loves - going to the library! getting a snack at Trader Joe's, seeing cows, going to the playground, digging in dirt, swinging & sliding.  Going to Yankee Candle.  Splitting a muffin from Dunkin' Donuts.  Seeing family.

* Books & Stories - she likes to listen to her Chicka Chicka Boom Boom CD, discovered the "If you give a..." books, We're Going on a Leaf Hunt, any book with a cat in it, most books with dinosaurs.  She likes me to tell the story of the three little pigs & goldilocks and the three bears.

* Toys - stacking is still huge. Her various stuffed rodents are special bedtime buddies, Angelina, Suzette/Suzie and Remy.  Remy got lost at Yankee Candle, and that made a huge impression.  Now whenever she can't find him, she remembers that time he got lost and gets very upset.  Tigger is still her "best favorite buddy Tig."  Moose is still necessary for the bedtime routine.  Her Cars cars are also very much favorites, as are her Little People Animals from her A to Z playset.

* What's next? Serious potty training. Finding a daycare/preschool/babysitter.  Maybe finding a playgroup/class? She clearly wants/needs to spend time with other kids. Swapping out some toys/books.  Packing up more baby clothes. Starting our garden plot. Sitting at the dinner table. Painting w/ real paints.