Monday, May 30, 2011

The week in cell phone pictures

playing outside w/ the boys.
Washing the chalk of the wall with sponges and water.

Okay, this was two weeks ago, but a lot of fun.
Puddle jumping in her red galoshes.

This was the last time she'll wear the galoshes!
Took five minutes to get them on and four to get them off!

My nephew, ham & CHEESE.





Crispy Tofu Triangles @ Crazy Noodles in Amherst.

Rapunzel braid.

"her" tree stump.

Friday, May 27, 2011

How many hours of sleep does an almost 4 year old need? 7 sounds good, right?

I blog heaviest when Charlotte sleeps least, it's unavoidable.  This week has been a massively effed sleep schedule.  Summer's rhythms have thrown her off, and she's waking at 5 am with the birds.  This means she's tired enough to actually sleep at nap time, but then she's not tired enough to sleep at bed time.  Last night she fell asleep around 1:30 or 2 am, after hours of interventions and one consequence (she was chewing on her dresser instead of sleeping, so got her stuffed animals taken away for today).  She was up by 9 am this morning, and I'm not sure if she had been asleep the whole time.  I refuse to let her nap today, no matter how big the circles are under her eyes.

Then, when in I went in at the 1 o'clock hour, I was singing.  She won't put up with a lot of lullabies, but occasionally I can squeeze one in.  Unfortunately, it's often when I'm too tired to remember the words to any songs, so I fall back on my extensive list of church songs, musical soundtracks, patriotic songs, things I learned for 4th grade chorus, and "Piano Man" by Billy Joel.  If you woke me up in the middle of the night and asked me to sing the first song that came to my head, it would be either "Piano Man" or "Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas," which are apparently the screensavers in my brain.  After Charlotte requested "sing Piano Guy again," a few times, she then requested by name "Edelweiss," which pleased me despite my total exhaustion.  I also pulled out "Fifty Nifty United States," the main body of which is the 50 states sung in alphabetical order.  This reminds me of teething babies, because I sang those 50 states over and over to the baby I was nannying when I was 20, not to mention every sleepless infant I ever babysat when I was a teenager.

A sweet moment, though - one of the things Matt does with her during her bed time routine is to talk about happy thoughts, to help her fall asleep.  Last night (at 11:30 pm or so) I asked her to think of some happy thoughts, and these were the things she was thinking about:

* Going to a zoo and seeing a giraffe.  With spots.  And riding on its back when it runs fast.

* Maybe seeing a tiger at that zoo.

* Looking up at trees, that's a happy thought.

* Going for a long walk.  Going for a long walk to the library to get books.

* Playing with special clay. [that's what we call Model Magic]

* Going to bed and waking up and it's Christmas.

Monday, May 23, 2011

Singing songs.

Charlotte has been singing since before she could speak.  She used to hum musically to get herself to fall asleep (sometimes it was more of a tuneful moan).  She repeated songs we sang to her, made up her own.  Now we're in a phase where not only is she making up her own words, but she's making them rhyme.  This blows my mind in the best way possible.  I think she's so brilliant.

Here are some recent songs/poems, copied from Facebook:

All the creatures, they took my heart away.
My heart, my heart....every day.

Every night while I'm sleeping, the moon is rising.
The moon is rising and rising.
Like pizza dough.
Pizza dough, rising and rising.
Like yeast. Yeast rises.

Of course, for every moment of genius, there is a moment of anti-genius.  This morning I had to make up a new rule, one that I never expected to have to make - Rule #745:  Do not dip your hair in the toilet.

Monday, May 16, 2011

More cell phone pictures...and a list.

Stuff Charlotte is up to:

* Walking the mile to the library with me

* Making up her own songs, that actually rhyme!

* Working on counting and adding

* Still having sleep/eat/stubborn issues


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Friday, May 6, 2011

Closer to four than to three.





Last week I was exhausted, overwhelmed, and there was nothing but pasta in the house for dinner.  Our cars our broken, so driving anywhere was out of the question.  We decided to walk into town to eat at the one of two casual restaurants.  It's about a mile - Charlotte walked to the restaurant with us, and we had a lovely, relaxing meal out on the patio with some other charming diners.  Then we walked home.  (Charlotte got to ride on Matt's shoulders for part of it.)  It seems like such a simple thing, but it was really a lovely night where everything lined up to turn a bad day into a great memory.  Hokey?  Yes.  True fact?  Also yes.