Retroactive Post: 5th Birthday!

Family party, the day before:

More later.

Visit to Nana's

State of the Four Year Old

Just a bulleted list of the stuff that is going on right now, in Charlotte-ville.

* Charlotte still loves school, and is seeming to be doing a better job in general of following instructions & schedules.

* We've pretty much decided not to push her into Kindergarten in the fall, and instead red-shirt her.  Her birthday is September 24th, and the cut-off is September 1st in this district.  This deserves its own post some day.

* Matt really decided to get on the ball and prod the school in the PT area.  Charlotte is still doing a ton of toe-walking, and while the rest of her gross motor stuff seems to be working out (fine motor, too), it's still worth another detailed evaluation at school.  Her teacher is totally on-board and was going to bring it up in a meeting yesterday.  So we'll see where that goes.


* TV-wise, Charlotte is still very into naturalist animal shows, both live-action and animated.  She's way into the Wild Kratts, the animated series, and its predecessor, Zoboomafoo.  She also just watched an episode of Dirty Jobs with me that was about an animal ranch, a whole hour long, and usually adult shows just do not hold her interest.


* Charlotte is dipping her toe back into representional art.  They have been talking at school about healthy foods, staying healthy, getting excersize and getting sleep.  So she drew two pictures last week; one about being sick and throwing up on the side of her bed, and one about the sorts of things she sleeps with.  (Tiggy, special blankie.)



* Had a late but awesome Christmas and visit with our friends in CT and went to the Wadsworth Atheneum for their free Second Saturday.  They had crafts set up for the kids, and Charlotte made an awesome "barn owl" mask, complete with eyelashes, mustache & beard.

* Right now Charlotte's main interests are Lalaloopsies toys and fairies and Playmobil people.  She's way into creating these elaborate landscapes and storylines.  They all really center around one tree house that she has carefully set up.

The whole set up. Note the Nutcracker out front. He's there to indicate that is is Christmas, apparently.

This is Scarlet Riding Hood's bedroom. She has the Playmobil boombox for music, and a jewelry box for a bed. Charlotte sets her alarm for her every night.

Two shelves. Storage area. Books on one shelf, paint tube, bug in a jar, and bug catching net on the other.

 

 

* Back in January, Charlotte got to meet her newest cousin, my brother & sister-in-law's baby daughter, R.  Charlotte was surprisingly into it, and did a pretty good (well, okay-ish) job of being gentle and protective of the baby.  At least as well as the dog did, anyway.

* While we were in Central New York meeting the new baby, Charlotte also got to go to her first zoo with Daddy, the Rosamond Gifford Zoo.  They had a really great time together, and I'm glad that they got to do something so special just the two of them.

* Valentines Day was awesome, as far as she was concerned.  She helped me make cards that we sent out to family, and we made a heart-shaped icebox cake for dessert on Valentines Day.  We also had heart-shaped homemade pizzas.

Big kid.

I must post this stuff right now so when the shoe drops next week I will be able to remind myself of how awesome Charlotte did this weekend.

It started on Friday; even though Charlotte got very little sleep on Thursday night (let's not talk about that while we're in a good mood) she rocked it at physical therapy.  She did everything Arlene asked her to do, even the stuff that was tricky or exhausting.

Saturday morning we went out to Troy to see my stepsister, her husband & their daughter.  He's in the military, and is being stationed in North Carolina.  They move later this month from New York to North Carolina, so we wanted to get the girls together before that.  We went to the Childrens' Museum of Science & Technology in Troy, continuing our theme of science museums, I guess.  Charlotte handled the car ride out and back like a pro, and has really gotten this using public restrooms thing down pat.  She does hate the air dryers, though, especially the automatic ones.  Charlotte was so excited to see her cousin, B.  B just turned two back in February, and she was adorable and pretty well behaved also.

One of the things that impressed me the most about my kid is that there was a little wildlife presentation where a museum employee had different wild animals that the kids could touch.  Despite never having been to pre-school or day care or church school, Charlotte understood the whole "circle time" concept.  She picked up a carpet square to sit on, put it away afterwards, and even raised her hand and said "Excuse me!" to get the adult's attention.  AMAZING.  Plus, she sat with her legs out straight and her toes pointing at the ceiling, which must have seemed weird to the museum staff, but that's the way Arlene is always asking Charlotte to sit.

Today we had a major cooking day, cooking a bunch of new recipes to make a crazy elaborate (for us) dinner.  It was Matt's idea & project, and he made sure to get Charlotte involved nearly every step of the way.  She was with him grocery shopping, she prepped all the herbs, and even used the chopper attachment to make the herb paste.  She tried every single thing on her plate, even stinky cheese and mashed potatoes!  (Charlotte is weirdly opposed to mashed potatoes, I can't figure it out.)

I seriously had such a blast with her this weekend.  Three and a half years old seems like such a huge difference from three, and I'm enjoying the ride.

Mama: Charlotte, no! No spitting!

Charlotte: Buh, buh, um, baby....Baby Gavin spitting! Baby Gavin do spitting!

Awesome. Charlotte's first baby cousin related excuse.

Had a great Thanksgiving, went to my Mom's house in upstate NY with Matt & Charlotte, Nicole, her husband & baby, my brother & his wife, my brother's mother-in-law and father-in-law, and my brother's brother-in-law and the brother-in-law's girlfriend. Whew. My mom and stepfather were there too, of course.

Sleeping arrangements were a little complicated - it worked out well the first night, but Charlotte had a major freak out at 1:30 AM and didn't fall down asleep again until almost 4, sleeping between me and Matt on the fold-out couch. Charlotte has never been the kind of kid to come into bed with us and sleep - not since she could sit up/stand up on her own. She's too much of a mover and a shaker. Unfortunately, our only option on Thursday night/Friday morning was to have her in bed with us, and it took her over two hours to fall back asleep...and it wasn't just awake, it was screaming/chatting awake. I was laying there, making sure that she didn't climb off the bed and trash Nana's house, and wishing I could write down some of the stuff that she was talking about. I don't remember it all now, she was using her Elmo and "climb climb climb-a up!" all over Matt, and saying strings of random words.

Despite all the insanity, it was a good time. Mom and I talked a little about how for our family, emotionally, Thanksgiving is almost as good as Christmas when we're all together. It sounds hokey, but it's true. Me and my brother & sister & Mom are really, really close, and we love hanging out. Our spouses are very good at understanding our insanity when we're all together.

Next up...Christmas shopping! Here's what we really want to get Charlotte. Little People A to Z Learning Zoo - pretty much ever since I saw it in a catalog we thought it would be fun for Charlotte. She loves animals, and this has letters, too. Got my fingers crossed that it will still be available when we try and order it. I still have a lot of shopping to do for the step-niece B, who will be 10 month olds at Christmas, and of course, my sister's son who will be almost 5 months at Christmas. I have a few ideas for the kids, I'm pretty psyched. This year is going to be a huge, exciting Christmas...my brother's house renovations will be done soon, and we'll be visiting in January to do Christmas with my mom and sibs.

I have a few more posts coming up...some stuff is percolating in the back of my head, more philosophical mom stuff rather than day by day, blow-by-blow stuff. We shall see.

Knock on Wood

So far, so good, on the hamthrax watch. Knock on wood, of course. Charlotte is having some side effect/cold action going on. Massively runny nose, lack of appetite, mood swings. But no cough or fever which are the big signs of H1N1. Or fever and vomiting, which marked her bout with the flu last time.

Which doesn't mean we have it easy here in the Casa De Sick. Charlotte is a little wild, not napping and not eating. She told me this morning that she is "vewwy hungwee", but she won't actually eat anything except juice and veggie sushi. Yesterday she completely rejected two whole meals...she ate a hot dog bun and a slice of cheese when she was out with my sister, mom, aunt, grandmother, (and of course, baby G), but at home all she ate was juice and veggie sushi.

Yesterday was really fun, though, otherwise. My mom is having a hard time living in a different state than her two grandchildren, and often comes out for a one-day visit (3+ hour drive each way!!) to see us. Since she works in the higher ed system, she had Veteran's Day off, so she coordinated a visit with my sister, her sister, and her mom. They made their almost-annual pilgrimage to the Yankee Candle flagship store, not three miles from my apartment. Nana (Charlotte's name for my mom) couldn't bear the thought of being so close and not seeing us, so she asked if she could stop by (briefly, because I was working). Matt jokingly suggested that she take Charlotte with her, since Charlotte loves Yankee Candle. Mom was thrilled, and agreed to pick her up.

Charlotte really does love Yankee Candle - part of it is the actual candles, she really likes smelling them - the flagship store is this Christmas-year-round kind of place that sells candles, ornaments, seasonal decorations. It has several theme rooms, including a woodsy-Christmas tree forest that has fake snow come down every 6 minutes, and a toy train track suspended from the ceiling in several sections of the store. Charlotte loves to go and smell candles, see trees, see snow, and see the train. Eating a snack in the cafe and occasionally getting a toy are just bonuses that she hasn't caught on to yet.

Mom and Nicole took Charlotte over with the rest of the visiting family, and were gone for almost 3 hours...3 hours which I didn't have to do anything but just work. Since I can't just work, no matter what, I also ripped several CDs to my iTunes, ate a snack, and finished casting on for a new sweater...but I did also get tons of work done. It was very bizarre to be done with work at 9:15 last night, instead of working up until midnight and still having some left over. I'm not sure what to do with this information now that I have it; there is still no extra $ to get Charlotte into a day care program so that I could have time to work during the day, but it is good to know that I can be so productive when I have time to myself. I kind of thought that I had lost the knack.

Matt wants to banish Charlotte's nap, since she sleeps so well at night when she doesn't sleep during the day....but I really need this time to regroup and prepare for the afternoon steady decline into madness. I think our schedule needs to be tweaked somehow, but I'm not yet sure how to do it. And I need to remember that a week when Charlotte isn't feeling well isn't the time to implement any major changes, anyway.

Alright, off to work while Charlotte is having some quiet time.

July is almost over...

...and we don't yet have a sign of Baby W, my niece/nephew who was due, ahem, yesterday. My sister is getting just a wee bit impatient. The other two summer babies in my extended friends/acquaintances have joined us. Oz over at Knocked Up had her second son, Jonas, and my friend Kevin just welcomed his daughter this evening. I am not telling my sister Nicole about Kevin's happy news, though...she knows that his wife was due 2 weeks from now, and I don't think she could stand to know that S went early.



(my sister and I - she's at 39 weeks and 2 days in this picture, and you can't even tell!)

This summer has been ridiculously busy. I've been meaning to post about some of our excursions, and Charlotte's blossoming vocabulary, and the trials and tribulations of working from home with a busy toddler, but I'm starting to accept that I might never get to all of it.

I'll end with a quick picture of Charlotte from last weekend - we went to the Glasgowlands Highland Games here at Look Park, Florence MA. Matt's parents met us there, and we had a blast. Matt wore his kilt - inspiring my favorite quote of the day from Charlotte: "Daddy have tutu!"



(Charlotte in the stroller at the games)

2009 so far

So far this year is...underwhelming (with the exception of the new president!). We got a new mattress, which is just plain awesome - I wake up in the mornings without a backache, and I am totally sleeping better at night. I can't believe that we've been putting this off for two years as a "luxury expense." It's been worth it.

Aside from that, we're just going through what the whole country is going through. This economy blows - we both still have jobs, but have the feeling that they could disappear at any minute. No yearly bonuses, no overtime, and a wage freeze. I try not to think about it too hard - it's so hard to find a legitimate job where I can work from home. Even if I wanted to put Charlotte in day care (which I don't) I can't imagine where the extra money would come from - and the extra car. Right now we have one functional car, which isn't a big deal since I work from home and Matt works literally three miles away. If there is a problem in the middle of the day, Matt can be home with the car - and car seat - in five minutes. If our company laid us both off, we'd have to find new jobs, which would probably be for two different companies, in two different locations, with two different schedules, all of which would require us to negotiate that balancing act that most families with two working parents are required to negotiate. And I would hate it. So for now, we're keeping our fingers crossed and our resumes up-to-date.

In family news, my stepsister Julie (who is my favorite stepsister, I'm not gonna lie) is scheduled for a C-section on February 9th with a baby girl. I'm very excited for her - this baby was a total surprise, but she's embraced pregnancy and upcoming motherhood with a maturity and panache that I don't think a lot of people expected. I'm so proud of her I could bust - and I'm knitting like a crazy woman in hopes that the baby blanked arrives before my niece does.

My sister, Nicole, is also pregnant. This is even bigger news - Nicole is my best friend, and my closest family member, and I'm so thrilled for her. The timing, in my honest opinion, is not great - but she wanted to do it this way, and Josh went along with her, so we're all riding it out with them. She's due July 28th, and I just cannot wait. Nicole and Josh don't want to find out the gender of the baby, and I think that's awesome. I really wanted Charlotte's gender to be a surprise, but Matt couldn't take it, so we found out. I'm going back and forth on what I think Nicole's baby is going to be. Charlotte has voted girl, boy, cat, so really, it's anybody's guess.

As for my baby girl, her new hot trick is singing. Charlotte has always loved music, but since she has been picking up on this talking thing, the ability to speak the words of her favorite songs has been a fun new hobby. She's been requesting "row, row" for some time now, but now she sings along with Old MacDonald, too. She can make her requests known, too - she's very into "Sweet Caroline" by Neil Diamond right now. It's one of her current top three. In fact, here are Charlotte's top three favorite songs, as of today.

3. "Solsbury Hill" by Peter Gabriel
I love this song, so I've been playing it a lot. To Charlotte, the best parts are the lines where she can sing along - she sings "boom" to the line my heart going boom-boom-boom. Her favorite part is the part on each chorus when Peter Gabriel sings "I've come to take you home" or "I'm going home" - she loves to sing "home" in this sweet, wistful tone that I know she got from me.

2. "The Hoppity Song"

Her other favorite song right now is the cover of The Hoppity song, originally sung by John Ondrasik...I think that Uncle Rock does the cover that Charlotte loves, but I'm not sure. I couldn't find what I was looking for on YouTube, but this video is hilarious, and it's the right song, so even if it isn't the performer, it's appropriate. There's a part of the version Charlotte likes where he sings, "Everybody sing hi(gh)" and the chorus sings back a high-pitched "hi!" and then he said "Everybody sing low" and the chorus sings back a low-pitched "low!" Charlotte loves to say "high!" and "low!" and have us sing back. We're an easy bunch to amuse around here.

1. "Sweet Caroline" - Neil Diamond
For those of you who aren't from Massachusetts, let me explain that "Sweet Caroline" is played at Fenway Park every game between the 7th and 8th innings. During the 7th inning stretch they play "God Bless America" and "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" (as do many parks, I believe) but a few years ago the music director started playing "Sweet Caroline" because they really liked it. A sort of call and response has grown during the chorus - after the line "Sweet Caroline" the whole park goes, "bum-bum-bum", and then after "Good times never seemed so good" the park says, "so good! so good! so good!" Charlotte has learned these, and requests the song by singing, "Ba, ba, ba." To add to this, my mother-in-law got me a Wally the Green Monster doll that plays the chorus to "Sweet Caroline." (That sentence is such a Boston Red Sox fan in-joke that I can barely unravel it - sorry if you don't care.) Charlotte loves Wally, of course, and will request him by singing "ba, ba, ba" and pointing. She can be appeased by either squeezing Wally's hand so he plays, or by playing "Sweet Caroline" on the stereo. We do a lot of both.

Here is a video - it's kind of dark, but Charlotte is holding Wally, and sings the response *almost* in the right place.




Matt says that today Charlotte made her first two-word sentence that didn't consist of the word "hi" or "bye" as the first half. Apparently when he microwaved his soup for lunch she said, "Ha noo-noos," which means "hot noodles," if you don't speak toddler.

I think that's just about all the news that's fit to print - and I have some baby stuff to knit, so that's it for now.

Flying solo.

I have a lot of stuff in my head right now, but not a lot to post about. Today Matt is at a Patriot's game, having been invited by a friend who got tickets from a friend, who got them from a friend. They are good seats, with access to a luxury box, so Matt was pretty thrilled. He's off having a great time, and I'm happy for him, but I'm a little frustrated and tired. I'm likely going to be by myself with Charlotte all day, without the car, and some days that's just a little overwhelming.

Charlotte and I spend 4 days a week by ourselves, no problem, but on the weekend it's a different routine, and I expect and anticipate having the extra help. Or being able to say, "Dude, I need a nap and a shower, hang out with the kid, okay?" Plus, I feel bad for Charlotte. It sucks when your mom is phoning it in, and today, that's how I feel. Charlotte's napping right now, but I know she'll be up soon, and I have soooo much to do for Christmas still that I know I'm going to have to stick her in the play yard and work around her. I feel guilty for that, but I don't have time to put this stuff off, either.

Blah. I need a vacation. Not from Charlotte, but from everything else. If only I could wake up tomorrow with no work and a clean house. Someone send a fairy godmother, 'kay?



In Holly Jolly news, we went to a family Christmas party last week (like last year) and Charlotte again got to sit on Santa's lap. She didn't actually cry, but she was very concerned/interested in this dude. She couldn't take her eyes off of him. Even when she got her present and we took her to the back of the room to open it, she was still craning her neck and trying to see what he was doing with the other kids.



Santa gave her a Minnie Mouse toy, which would not have been my first thought, but Charlotte absolutely adores her Mo-mo. I don't think she's ever seen Minnie before - it's not like Winnie The Pooh, where we have a lot of stuff with him and Tigger on it. She recognizes Pooh, Tigger and Elmo when she sees them in different places, but Minnie is her first Disney Mouse, and there is something about her that Charlotte finds very appealing. They've been inseparable all this week, and Mo-mo is oft requested by name, which is unusual for Charlotte.

Another fun thing at the party was Charlotte hanging out with my youngest cousin, Chelsea, who is seven. Chelsea and I are the cousin brackets - at 29, I'm the oldest, and she's the youngest. Chelsea was chasing around Charlotte, with Matt or I following as back-up. After five minutes, Chelsea looked at me and said, "Playing with Charlotte is fun, but she never stops moving! And she always wants to touch things she's not supposed to!" This is a lesson that the youngest daughter and youngest granddaughter never had to learn before, and it was pretty funny.



It was a great party, I enjoyed myself, and I enjoyed seeing my grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and relatives who I don't know who they are. It was awkward and weird in some ways, though - my dad wasn't there. He's never there, since my stepmother and my dad's family had a fight over 10 years ago. And as much as I am kind of over the whole thing, it still hurts and sucks to see Dad's siblings all joking together and helping the family set up, and to know that Dad isn't there because he doesn't want to deal with it. It sucks that Dad isn't there to say, "Oh, Jenn, this is Uncle Joe, remember him? He's the one who used to tease Gramma about going for a ride on his motorcycle!" Me and my sister just kind of wander aimlessly, not knowing what we should offer to do. It doesn't help that my whole family is kinda bad at communicating, to the point that one year we showed up at a party only to find out that we were supposed to be dressed nicely for a family photo. Dad, who had been the one to relay the party invite, neglected to mention this. We thought it was just a regular cook-out, and were wearing t-shirts and jean shorts. It ended up being no big deal, we all stood in the back, but it was just one more thing to make us feel alienated.

At this party, my uncle told me and Nicole that he had talked to our dad on the phone that morning, and we both said, in unison, "That's nice." He realized from that response that we hadn't heard from him in a while - and Uncle Scott felt bad. The whole thing is such a big mess, and I don't even really care to untangle it. I could go on and on for hours about it, and it would make even less sense. I'm just really sensitive to it at this time of year, with all the sentimentality and obligation and true joy and dread that Christmas means to me.

Shaking that all off....

I'm really looking forward to Christmas with Charlotte - I know that she's getting some fun toys, and I can't wait to see her play with them. We've been really lax about leaving her presents around, banking on the fact that she's 14 1/2 months old, and won't really notice that the See N Say in the box in our room is going to be unwrapped on Christmas morning. However, Charlotte has noticed and remembered said See N Say, and she likes to come in our room and stand in front of it. I think she's trying to figure out why we have something that is so obviously for her in a box in our room. She's going to lose it when she realizes that it actually makes noises!

I'm trying to decide if I want to take her out in the snow for a few minutes. I think I'm going to wuss out - it's such a pain to get us both all ready to go. Maybe tomorrow before Matt goes to work we'll take her out for a minute. She really likes the process of getting ready to go out, thank god. Charlotte loves her coat ("co") and her mittens and her hat ("ha") and thinks the snow ("no") is funny.

One last picture of Charlotte - her new thing is climbing, and she's figured out how to pile up things to use them to stand on. In this picture, you can see that she totally thinks she's going to be able to swing her leg over the side of the play yard and make her escape. Not true.

Holiday countdown...

The Christmas countdown is on. I am...well, started on my shopping at least. We have good ideas on what we're getting everyone, so that's something. Thanksgiving went well - except for the puking. Charlotte gagged herself and puked in the car on Thanksgiving morning - a first! Then her cousin K threw up all that night. It was...a little much.



I'm excited about Christmas this year, but not so excited that I have no time to breathe, much less make this season magical. I'll figure something out, all I know is that not getting the tree up is not an option. Charlotte enjoyed the lights so much when she was just an infant - I know she'll love them now, too. I took a jillion pictures of her last year - here's just a couple.





A big problem I keep running into is thinking that I need to have coherent, cohesive, well-thought out blog entries. I intended this blog to be kind of a way to keep track of what's going on with Charlotte while she's growing so fast, and I'm losing stuff because I'm caring too much about making it good. So prepare yourself for a bunch of mediocre, picture-heavy posts. Because I hate it when it's been a month between blog posts.

It's my party and...there were no tears at all. Awesome.

The party was great - despite the fact that we were in a tropical air mass and it poured buckets and 20+ people were squished into my living room/dining room area. But we were all family (even our best friends count as family, even if Kelly refuses the honorary "aunt" title), and everyone stayed pretty cheerful. Charlotte was an excellent co-hostess - she mingled with everyone, and also provided entertainment. She danced and clapped whenever she heard anything resembling music, and she was appreciative of all the gifts and attention. I didn't take any video, because my camera only holds 2 min before it maxes out the memory card, but my brother and his fiancee just bought a camcorder to use on their honeymoon, and Chris taped it and copied it for me. I can't believe we finally have an actual family video! We joked about how it will be hilarious in 15 years when Charlotte makes fun of us for having an actual VHS tape, and we will still make fun of my Uncle Scott for raving about Mamma Mia and how he went to see it three times.

One of my favorite pictures actually isn't from the party - it's Charlotte on Sunday morning realizing that her Uncle Chris is still at the apartment with us.



We get to do this again, a smaller, more exclusive party with my sister-in-law, brother-in-law, Charlotte's paternal grandparents, and her cousin. I am actually super-psyched for that, drama-be-damned. I can't wait to have the cousins together partying it up. Hopefully the almost-eight-year-old's patience will continue to hold, and maybe Charlotte being excited about presents will melt her grandmother. My fingers are duly crossed.

Birthdaygate '08; or, The Family Drama Never Ends

As usual, I have some family drama. I don't know if it's better or worse now that I have a kid - on the one hand, the situation with my father's immediate family has gotten worse, but I care less. On the other hand, the little bits of constant in-law drama are much, much worse. And I DO care about that, and since we are much more involved with my in-laws than my father, it is kinda a big deal.

The current family issue is a little something I'm calling Birthdaygate '08. The background on this is that my in-laws go on vacation twice a year - they have a time share in Hawaii, and they get a favorable exchange rate on their weeks. This means that on years they don't go to Hawaii, they can trade for weeks in time shares in other places. I don't exactly get it, but let's just say that instead of going to Hawaii this year they went to Florida for a week in April, and they are going to Arizona and Mexico for two weeks this fall.

Last year they went to Florida in the fall and it was a huge deal around the time that I was in and out of the hospital and being monitored all the time because we were all afraid that they were going to induce me on vacation and they had Red Sox tickets. I'm not saying that they would miss the birth of their grandchild for the Red Sox, because that is mean. What I'm saying is that there was a lot of concern and pressure that they might have to give up their tickets and try and get an earlier flight due to all the maybe-they-will-maybe-they-won't induction nonsense surrounding Charlotte's birth. I managed to bargain with my OB practice for an extra weekend and went in to be induced on Sunday the 23rd of September, and got to go to my baby shower and also insure that my in-laws would be back in the state before the baby actually made it to the outside world.

Also, all the drama around the christening was also complicated by the fact that we wanted to have it the last Sunday of April, but that had to be rescheduled due to the spring Florida trip and Red Sox tickets. Which was fine, we weren't exactly prepared in April anyway...but it would have been a lot easier to have had the christening and party in April since I wasn't working at the time.

I tell you all that so that I can tell you this.

There is now a ton of drama surrounding the putative date of Charlotte's first birthday party. Her birthday is September 24th, a Wednesday, if I recall correctly. (She was born on a Monday and this year is a leap year, so that makes sense.) Matt and I don't want to actually have her party until on or after her birthday. Since Wednesday is in the middle of the week, we'd like to have her birthday the following Saturday. However, Matt's parents leave for vacation that weekend, to be gone for two whole weeks. This means that the next available weekend is in the middle of October, which is their other grandchild's birthday (Charlotte's cousin K). The weekend after THAT, fully one month after Charlotte's first birthday, is my brother's wedding, and we'll be spending the weekend in Syracuse. So, unless we want to have Charlotte's birthday party in NOVEMBER, at which point we start interfering with all her grandparents' birthdays, we need to have her birthday party when we want to have it, that weekend right after her birthday.

The controversy arises from a couple of things - firstly, that Matt and I STUPIDLY stated that we don't want to have Charlotte's birthday party before her birthday because it makes us uncomfortable, and that there are a number of world cultures that back us upon this tradition (esp. Puerto Rico and Hawaii, as I recall). The other factor is that my mom is going to be travelling the weekend before Charlotte's birthday, so that is two strikes against it. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Because the in-laws have grabbed onto this, and are saying that we place a stupid superstition above them.

Phone calls and emails have been exchanged on the topic, and silly arguments, such as "We are more than twice your age and know of no civilized culture with that kind of superstition." This fills me with fury because their son-in-law was raised in Hawaii, and they go there all the time, and therefore their grandson is of that descent, and they apparently don't consider that civilized. Lovely. Then Matt and his mother got to have the whole exchange where Matt's mom said, "We told you we were going on vacation! You know we go on vacation on the fall! You've known for six months!" Matt retorted, "You've known her birthday for almost a year!"

The whole situation is made that much more complicated by the fact that none of this is in a vacuum - Matt's older sister and their parents have a relationship that is strained at times, and there are feelings that his sister punished his parents by keeping their grandson away from them. I don't think this is the case - except maybe as a form of self-protection, but that's the feeling that is there, and that kind of underscores every decision we make in regards to the grandparents. "Well, they didn't get to do this with K," Matt will say, and I will say, "That has nothing to do with Charlotte."

A dangerous precedent has been set. Because Matt feels like he needs to make up for what is interpreted as various slights on his sister's part, we've bent over backwards to accomodate them over and over. Unfortunately, they see it as their due, not as something special that we're doing for them. As a result, whenever our opinions diverge from theirs, they take it as a personal insult, and an added layer of "ungrateful child."
I don't need this from 2 out of 3 sets of parents - this sucks. Every time there is something special, a holiday, a christening, a birthday, we have to way out the needs of 3 different sets of grandparents, in the interest of fairness, and our preferences get pushed to the end of the list. It's easy to do that, because right now Charlotte's little, and she seriously doesn't care what happens as long as she has Mumma and Daddy with her. She doesn't know that her christening got re-arranged, that her maternal grandfather constantly chooses his second family over her, and that her paternal grandparents will never be happy with her parent's decisions. So it's easy to try and make everyone happy while wearing ourselves down to a nubbin.

But enough is enough. We are her parents, and we are allowed to decide what to do based on whatever we want. We also have to be prepared to weather the storm based on our decisions, and that's a little hard to deal with. I guess that's what it really means to grow up.

Charlotte's fan club

This past weekend Charlotte and I had two parties - on Saturday my brother and his fiancee had a big "bridal barbeque" (or, you know, a cook-out) and my friend Kelly had her bridal shower on Sunday. Chris and Megan live out in the Syracuse area, and so do Megan's parents, so they had the party in their very large, very nice backyard. Matt, Charlotte and I went out on Friday so we could settle in a little and visit before it got too crazy. Megan's parents, Bruce and Carla, were so psyched to see Charlotte - it's gonna be a while before Chris and Megan make them grandparents, and Megan's brother is even younger, so Charlotte's all the grandbaby they're gonna get for now. They were awesome and Charlotte warmed right up to all the gushy attention.

Matt and I had been looking forward to this party for a number of reasons: pig roast, hanging out with Bruce and Carla, seeing my family, playing outside, firepit, booze, etc...but one of the other things we were looking forward to was hanging out with other babies. I think I've mentioned it before, but Matt and I don't have any close friends with babies - we know some people who have just started having babies, but no one in our immediate circle of friends has kids. Chris and Megan's friends are on a completely different timetable, so there were two kids there who were pretty close to Charlotte's age. Conner, who is 13 months, and Lucas, who is two weeks younger than Charlotte. Matt and I were looking forward to seeing her play with them and just to talk to other people who are (hopefully) as obsessed with their kids as we are with ours.

All the parents were really cool, but since Conner's mom was the matron of honor and had other duties to attend to, we mostly hung out with Lucas's parents. Lucas and Charlotte were kind of fascinated with each other. Mostly Charlotte, I will admit. Lucas's Mom, MK, watches her sister's kids, so Lucas is used to other kids. Charlotte kept pointing at him and looking at me, like, "Holy shit, look at the baby!" She also would pat his arm, and he would smile at her and me. It was truly cute. However, when it came to toys, Charlotte was much more ambitious. She went after the older baby's toys. She particularly loved his little push n' sit whatever mickey mouse thing - Conner liked to push it around, and maybe ride it. Charlotte was obsessed with all the buttons, particularly the silly little shifter. Her uncle Josh is happy with this - he thinks she might be into performance automotives. I think he's already preparing to teach her to drive standard and help her find a rally car.



We got lots of compliments on how cute Charlotte is, which is always sweet, but does leave me feeling a little weird sometimes. She was also complimented for being "good" and friendly, which sits a little better. I don't know - I know that she's just a little baby, and there isn't a whole lot to comment on, but I really wish we could avoid the whole thing where girls always get complimented on their looks. I just worry about body image and things like that so much - yeah, she's only 10 months old now, but where is the line, and when do we cross it? I'll save that worry for another day, I guess.

The other fun thing about hanging out with other babies was the whole sharing of stuff - Charlotte played with Conner's toys, MK borrowed our umbrella stroller to wheel Lucas around to convince him to sleep, we all shared high chairs. I'm such a dork, but it made me happy.


(Charlotte and Matt playing with MK and Lucas)

Sunday my sister and I headed out from Syracuse with Charlotte to go to Kelly's bridal shower. It was hot and weird and altogether a little harder to get excited about that party - we were tired and partied out, though it was nice to see Kelly's future-sisters-in-law. They and her future mother-in-law are awesome people, and Charlotte did enjoy sitting with T and D, and also watching Kelly's "niece" Sadie, who is either 3 or 4, I forget. T had actually given us Sadie's old car seat, which we just installed last week, and we love it. Somehow, even though it looks much bigger, it takes up less room in the car. And it has armrests and Charlotte looks so silly and grown-up in it, just casually draping her arm over the armrest.

The party was lovely and kind of elegant, but there were a lot of people I didn't know and Charlotte got hot and cranky and refused to drink anything even though she was pouring sweat. She then took a sip of my lemonade and spilled it all over herself, so it was time to go. We wrapped up the trip with a wardrobe change, and we took off for home.

We have four more parties this summer - holy crap.

Oh, and we did finally find a sunblock. JASON umbrella mineral sunblock, SPF 30. It smells fruity, but she wore it all weekend without a rash, through about 5 different applications. My one complaint is that if it gets supersaturated and stops rubbing in, it gets all over clothes, and doesn't actually absorb into them, but I guess that is kind of the whole point, right? And it's not JASON's fault that all my clothes are black.


(Here's Charlotte in the pool that Carla got for her and the other babies. Charlotte was the only one who actually went swimming, and she would have stayed there forever, even though she was covered in goosebumps!)

Next, she'll be getting a job to help with the rent.

Charlotte is growing in leaps and bounds! I just realized that she is now officially too big for 80% of her 9 month size clothes. Thank god we have so many damn clothes. Part of what encourages us to buy so much clothes is that we don't have laundry on site, and we go to my sister and brother-in-law's house or my friends Kelly and Chris's house to do baby laundry once a week or once every other week. So it's actually kind of important to have enough clothes to get through two weeks without needing to do laundry. Right.

Biggest news here is that Charlotte started crawling last Thursday! June 12, to be exact. I was in the office (thus fulfilling my fear that I will miss all her major milestones on the one day a week I have to go into the office) and I called Matt on my break to say hi. He was saying that I would have to call Nana and tell her that Charlotte might start crawling when we were visiting, and just as he was saying that, he said, "Oh, wait...no, she's crawling now. She just crawled."

When I got home that night he showed me the little video he took on the camera. "You should put it on YouTube," he said.

"I can't! She's crying the whole time! It's like you're torturing her!" The video is hilarious, but I don't think I am going to post it - it really does seem like
Charlotte's crawling towards him against her will, wailing the whole time. She has this hilarious crawl. She sort of goes into downward dog pose, then hands and knees, and then she moves her hands and kinda hops her feet forward. Soooo funny.
Charlotte did this for one whole day before she decided that not only does she want to cral TO things, but she also wants to BRING things with her. She's spent the last couple days trying to crawl with toys in her hands.

On Friday, Charlotte also started clapping, spontaneously. It's awesome and hilarious. Matt and Charlotte and I went to the new Red Robin in Holyoke with Nicole and Josh. It wasn't even open yet, but Nicole had gotten coupons to go on their training night and get a free meal. It was pretty chaotic, but Charlotte did a great job. She sat in the highchair and ate Cheerios and tried to pick our waiter's pocket. She also clapped on command - I said, "Hey you guys, Charlotte can clap now! Show them how you clap!" and she did.

This weekend we went out to my Mom's house in upstate New York to hang out with my siblings and their assorted partners. On Sunday, Father's Day, Bob (my stepfather) had invited his daughter to come up with her 8 year old.

We had a blast on Saturday. We took Charlotte to the beach for the first time, dressed in her new bathing suit that Matt got for her. We sat her in the water and she loved it right away. There was a slight meltdown when Charlotte tried to put a handful of sand and rocks in her mouth and a whole bunch of grown-ups (myself included) freaked out and swooped in on her. That startled her so badly that she burst into hysterical tears, complete with the I-can't-catch-my-breath-and-stop-crying hitching cries. She did stop eventually and I took her out in the water and dipped her down to her chest. She then happily sat on the beach blanket with Nana and ate her beach toys while me and Matt splashed around for a bit.

The whole weekend was great - it was awesome to be in the woods and hanging out with my family. Mom's house has a little apartment over the garage, so we could unpack the pack n' play and just not worry about bothering anyone with all the baby crap. The one downside to the whole thing was that Charlotte was so excited and overstimulated that she hardly napped and barely ate practically the whole weekend. We managed to get some food in her at the end of each day, but she would go from 7 am to 4 pm with just a couple ounces from her bottle and a few handfuls of Cheerios. It was very stressful to me because it was so hot and I was so scared that she'd get dehydrated. It bugs me that people get so nonchalant about it - "Oh, when she's hungry, she'll eat." No, people. That's not true for babies. Toddlers, yes, adults, yes, but not babies. They don't understand their drives or appetites yet. It's entirely possible that she could get too hungry and too dehydrated if I don't keep trying to feed her. Seriously.

All in all, though, it was wonderful. Seriously something to look back on and remember fondly.

Next post I may try and untangle the whole Mother's Day/Father's Day/expectation experience of this year, but for now, I'll just leave with a video of Charlotte's first time at the beach.

Holiday Tour, Winter 2007

I'll add photos to this entry later.

This Christmas was great. Not so much in the spiritual sense, I didn't get the big "Wow" moment that I sometimes do, but I did have a lot of really great moments where I felt connected to my family and friends. Charlotte was wonderful everywhere we went, and with everyone we saw, and there was a LOT of traveling.

December 8th & 9th we went to see my paternal grandparents in Plymouth, MA. They hadn't met Charlotte yet because my grandfather has been in and out of the hospital since August. They found a large mass, and at first they thought it was cancer, and then they found out it was benign, but he still had to have major abdominal surgery to get it out. Then they were concerned about his kidneys, but he started having clotting problems, and put him on blood thinners. They had to constantly re-evaluate that, and they accidentally thinned his blood too much due to weird test readings from his liver. And then the pancreatitis started. Next up - gall bladder removal.
Anyway, my poor Grampa is grumpy and not able to travel that far, so we went to see him so Charlotte could meet another set of Great-Grandparents, and so that they could meet their first great-grandchild. My uncle Scott was visiting with his wife Stacey, and they were happy to see us, too. Stacey even held Charlotte. Uncle Scott is just 11 years older than I am, and he's the fun young uncle. He and stacey got married the winter before we did, and they live in Connecticutt, pretty close by. They are fun to hang out with and just cool people. They aren't planning on having kids themselves, so they were pleased when we had a new baby for Gramma to play with.

The other great bonus to the visit was that Sunday was the family Christmas party. It's the Lundin family party - Lundin being my Gramma's maiden name. So it's that whole side of the family, most of whom I don't really remember. 2nd cousins, etc. I do remember most of my grandmother's siblings. Uncle Carl, Uncle Joe, Aunt Helen & Uncle Harold...and all my aunts and uncles were there, so they all got to meet Charlotte. Two of my aunts wouldn't put her down! Also, my little cousins got to meet her. "The little girls" are my uncle's kids. The oldest is 12, I think, and the youngest is 5. There is a gap between the oldest of the little girls and the youngest of the rest of the cousins by about 5 years, and it seems like a weird generation gap. Anyway, the little girls loved that there was a baby to play with, and were heartily disappointed that a) she's too little to really play, b) she slept the whole time and c) she doesn't have her ears pierced.

The fun part for me was that a big part of the family party has always been Santa for the little kids. A great-uncle was Santa when I was growing up, and this year it was my uncle Scott who was Santa! He was nagged into it, and he was reluctant, but it was very exciting for me. It was great to have Charlotte's first Santa picture with my own family.

It was a huge disappointment that my dad wasn't there, for my grandmother, I'm sure. But we've all learned not to expect these things to mean as much to him as they do to us. After all, he did say that he might miss my grandparents' 50th anniversary party because of a NASCAR race on TV.

Anyway, the next weekend we were supposed to go see Dad and Linda in NY, but there were major storms on Thursday and Saturday, and we all decided it wouldn't be safe, so we stayed home.

The following weekend was the weekend before Christmas. We hung out with Jen on Saturday and exchanged presents, and then on Sunday we went to Fitchburg to spend Christmas with my in-laws. We had a lovely Christmas Eve visiting with Matt's Aunt, and then on Christmas Day we went to the assisted living place to see Matt's paternal grandparents. Grammy V. held Charlotte, and kept telling everyone how good she was, and that her name was Charlotte Emily. I think she was pretty fuzzy on whose baby she actually was, but she enjoyed holding a girl baby very much (she had 4 boys). It was pretty special to take a picture of them together, and kind of mind-blowing to see a 92 year age difference.

I was very concerned about taking Charlotte there, as she hasn't finished with all her vaccinations and so many people go in and out of those places, but she didn't get sick, so it worked out okay. Also, I was a little concerned about Grammy holding Charlotte - she's very weak and pretty much bedridden, but she did fine. I was very upset when Matt's dad just kind of took Charlotte and handed her to Grammy - I had told Matt ahead of time that I was uncomfortable with going and I didn't want them to hold her. They are 92 years old and have hygiene issues. I wish that wasn't a concern, but it really is. I was very frustrated afterwards that my preferences were completely overridden and that no one even asked our permission. Matt was holding Charlotte when my FIL took her and gave her to his mom, and I wish that Matt had said something too, since I had told him my thoughts on it. Matt kept saying, "It's not like a nursing home, they aren't sick," but that's not a very honest way of looking at it. Lots of people in that facility ARE sick, do get colds and things like that. Not to mention all the visitors at holiday time. And the fact that the grandparents themselves aren't very clean - it's not dignified, and it's upsetting, but it's God's honest truth. And if we're going to make my sister wash her hands before she holds the baby, the least we could do would be to wipe Grammy's hands with a baby wipe or have her use some hand sanitizer - both of which were in the diaper bag there in the room. But no one asked me. They would not have done that with Matt's sister.

The weekend before New Years, the 29th & 30th we were supposed to see Mom & Bob, but they had to cancel. Bob had a pacemaker put in this December, and he had the incision prodded on the 27th, and he was too uncomfortable to travel that weekend. On Saturday, though, Charlotte got to meet her Aunt, uncle and cousin on Matt's side. Matt's sister and her family had gone up to visit the in-laws right after Christmas, and were heading back to NJ that Saturday. They stopped to visit so that they could finally meet Charlotte and see our new apartment. It was a fabulous visit, and it was good to see at least part of the Christmas present went over well. I can't remember what Kai thought of his other presents, but I had found a keychain Stanley measuring tape and grabbed it for Kai when I was shopping. I remember when I was 7 that I liked keychains and useful things, and having a measuring tape on a keychain seemed very useful and grown-up to me. He really liked it.

We walked into town and looked around, and it was so much fun to go to Faces and A 2 Z with Kai.

New Year's Eve was another first with Charlotte. Nicole came during the day to visit with her while I worked, and then Matt and I ordered Chinese food for dinner. We visited with our upstairs neighbors for a while, and then went out to see the ball go up in the center of Northampton. (Northampton being Northampton, insted of the ball dropping at midnight, it goes up a flagpole.) Charlotte was perfect - just chilling out in the front pack. It wasn't that cold out, so I didn't feel *too* bad about letting her come out. It was a little loud, but as Matt pointed out, no louder than the TV at my dad's house or the party we went to for my dad and stepmom's 50th birthday. We ran into Anthony and Kiera, and some random strangers in the crowd complimented Charlotte on how good she was and how cute she is.

This past weekend we went to my mom's to have our Christmas visit. Bob's doing very well, but between hospitalizations, their cat died a sudden and unpleasant death. It's been a stressful holiday season for Mom, and she hadn't seen Charlotte in a month and a half. And she was sooo disappointed that we were supposed to go to my dad's this past weekend - and then Dad cancelled, so we got to go see Mom. It was Charlotte's first visit to the North Country, so I did take lots of pictures. We had a great visit opening presents, hanging out, and eating. Bob's daugher Lara and her kids came up on Sunday, and everyone was surprisingly well behaved.

Phew! That's it for the holiday travelogue. We still haven't had an official Christmas visit with Dad, and I'm not sure how we're going to manage that.

This coming weekend, Matt and I are going to Ikea for a day to finally get a kitchen table. We want to start modelling better habits for Charlotte, including not eating in front of the TV and reading more often. Also, in probably 2 months or 12 weeks, Charlotte is going to need a high chair (yikes!) so we definitely need to get this table thing under control. Auntie Nicole will be babysitting, so we'll see how that goes for her.