Week from Crazy Train

oh. my. god.

Can I just tell you that pretty much nothing went as planned this week? I'm not gonna get into a day-by-day play-by-play, though it's tempting. I will say this, though...there were BACK TO BACK trips to the doctor's office on Thursday and Friday to have fuzz pulled out of Charlotte's nose. I don't want to talk about how we scoured her bed and got rid of everything we thought she could get stuffing from, or how the first doctor may not have looked hard enough, or how she screams, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry!" as she's held down by a nurse while the doctor comes at her with the long tiny tweezers.

So why am I even posting?

I'd like to whine without reliving...it's just been one of those weeks where you know you are doing everything right and everything you can, and it's still not enough. The kind of week where you feel like you were grumpy all week and allowed too much television and not enough "I love you"s. (Though I did get two of the most rare, the spontaneous "I love you, Mom"s on Monday. That was nice.) The highs and lows came so fast that I feel unbalanced and uncomfortable and out of control. Which sucks. I'm supposed to be the calm one, the laid back one, the one who takes things as they come and makes flexible plans, and instead I feel like one more reschedule could make me shatter. The thought of continuing exactly like this for the next nine months is terrifying. The thought of only doing this for nine more months is heartbreaking. I don't want to think about pre-school and potty training and sleeping in a big girl bed, but I know that I may have to, as soon as next month, next week, or maybe even tomorrow. (Charlotte asked to pee on the potty twice this week, and did both times! Then she peed once on the floor, and today wouldn't sit at all, but that's okay.) Christmas is so exciting and overwhelming at the same time. The present I had my heart set on getting for Charlotte is sold out until January. Charlotte is so excited by the "Chris'm" lights in her room and the santa hat Matt got her that she cried hysterically at bed time. I asked her what she wanted for Christmas, and Charlotte answered, "A Chris'm tree, and go a Yankee Candle." Luckily, I think she'll get both those wishes this weekend.

So that was my week. High points included the two aforementioned spontaneous "I love you"s from my daughter, babysitting (by myself!) the excellent baby G-man (and the excellent puppy-nephew M...the kitty nieces informed me that they did not need or want babysitting, so there), watching Charlotte get very into Christmas songs/lights/decorations, playing Pretend Yankee Candle (auntie's idea) with Charlotte, and making chicken & cheese enchiladas for the first time. Low points were too numerous and horrible to mention.

Tomorrow, though, to mix up some literary heroines, is another day...with no mistakes in it. And boy, am I looking forward to that.

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)

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!)