Cousins!

My sister finally gave birth to my nephew last Thursday at 1:04 AM. Yay! His name is Gavin, and he's adorable, if I do say so. Charlotte hasn't met him yet, but she will this weekend. I'm so exciting to see them together, but I'm also a little nervous. Charlotte is used to being the baby and to getting not only all of Mumma and Daddy's attention, but quite a bit of Auntie's attention, too. Charlotte really isn't all that interested in babies, either.

The other day we went to visit Matt's mom and visit with his sister and the other nephew, the big kid. He'll be nine in October, and he is one of the most fascinating people in the world, both to me and Charlotte. Charlotte follows him around, and says, "Hi, K. Hi, K. Hi, K..." over and over until I say to him, "Just say, 'Hi, Charlotte.' She'll be happy, and she'll leave you alone." One of my favorite moments from the visit happened early on, when he was playing a synthesizer program on the Nintendo DS to make music, and Charlotte danced to it. A little moment, but really, that's about as interactive as you can expect from an almost nine year-old and almost two year-old.

Charlotte has really been pushing her "almost two" status. She's kinda destructive and hyper and chatty. It's hilarious, but we are also almost constantly trying to keep her away from anything she can chew up. She has destroyed huge sections of her crib by gnawing it to splinters. This week Charlotte started putting things up her nose...pieces of paper and little pieces of fluff she's pulled off her blankie and Tigger. It's kind of crazy-making. But at the same time, she's telling all these stories and really expanding her language by leaps and bound. I'm amazed at how well she remembers song lyrics, and movie/tv show dialogue, even from stuff that I haven't emphasized. She's great with theme songs. Charlotte's current favorite movie is Mary Poppins, and all the songs that go with it. She's way into Sesame Street as well, and randomly quotes it. Charlotte chewed a piece of veggie burger (pronounced "chicky bugga") into a triangle and told me that "this my favorite favorite triangle," which is something that Telly on Sesame Street said one time. It totally blew my mind that not only did she recognize a shape in her food, that she could pick a quote out of her memory that applied. Crazy. And on Tuesday, I was changing her diaper while she was waving a drumstick (sticks are still the toy of choice around here) over another toy. "pee-a buttah sammich!" she announced a few times. I realized that she was saying "a la peanut butter sandwiches!" like Mumford the Magician from Sesame Street.

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)

To do list.

I will post some things later about stuff we've done with Charlotte since this spring. She likes field trips, and we like taking her. She's been to her first show, got to meet cows, went to a children's museum, and rode a carousel. She's also talking a blue streak, and starting to use 3 word sentences. Charlotte says new things every day.

To illustrate, here are some words she said today that she used all day, and I don't think I've heard her say before: pencil (always referred to it as a pen, like most other writing instruments), shovel (in a book, usually she calls shovels "scoop"), and cherries (previously lumped in with all other red foods as "apple").

Also today were three new sentences: "Morning, Mama!", "I do it!" and, bizarrely, "I draw V!" She did, in fact, draw a "V", but it was more like a < . Oh well, I'm proud.

Too many new things to even post....

...I will get the hang of posting regularly sometime, I swear. Charlotte is picking up so many new things, words and actions. It's nuts. The only one I can remember off the top of my head is that today she said "sheen" meaning "washing machine" for the first time. And also "chew." I'm not sure if she meant the verb "to chew" or if it was short for "chewy", which is what we call all her teething paraphernalia. It was in reference to the fact that Charlotte was chewing on the footboard of her crib. Since the crib rails have protective coverings, she must have decided it was worth the challenge of nearly detaching her jaw to do it.



This picture was from my sister's backyard on Mother's Day. Charlotte knew that you get water from the spigot, but she's not really sure how to make it work.

This week has been totally non-glorious in only the way it can be when you have a cat who pees on the floor who suddenly gets diarrhea and a toddler who has to assert her will about EVERYTHING and a complete lack of ambition to even do so much as fight for the right to shower, much less party. It's one of those weeks where working from home doesn't feel as awesome as it did in the beginning, and I start to worry that I'm damaging my kid since she's obviously bored out of her skull. What sorts of things can I do with an 18 month old that don't involve extensive supervision? Does it make me a bad parent to admit that I keep her in the room with me and keep a vague eye on her rather than trying to amuse her every second of the afternoon? And I'm fighting this sinking feeling about letting her watch Sesame Street every day, but she LOVES it, and I get work done, and Matt loves that she loves it.

Urgh. The questions don't get any easier.

You are now entering....the toddler zone.

I have a jillion things I want to post about, including a lot of whining about how being a mom means I suddenly have no friends, and how Matt just realized that last weekend, how I'm getting more and more excited for my sister's baby to be born, and how I wish I could have another kid, and how I'm not sure if I should be putting Charlotte on any daycare waiting lists right now, but I'll skip it for now. Because right now, I can hear my daughter screaming in her bed because she is overtired and probably hungry, and fighting sleep with every last molecule of will.



Charlotte has entered the terrible toddler zone. I wouldn't call it the terrible twos, because it really ranges from 1 1/2 to 3 or so...but that's where Charlotte is now. She doesn't want to eat anything, she doesn't want to nap, and when she doesn't get what she wants, she can't really be re-directed. There is no more swapping of mom's phone for Charlotte's toy phone. No more switcheroo with Elmo for the TV remote. And she's asking for TV all the time. She's figured out that Elmo and Pooh live in the TV and we can make it happen whenever she wants. Which isn't great. And she's learned how to whine.



But on the other hand, this is one of the most fun ages ever! Charlotte can request her books, her toys, her food - she has an opinion, and she can tell you about it. She does voices for her toys! (Is that advanced, or am I just a totally typical parent who thinks her kid is a genius?) When she's playing with Elmo, she does Elmo's voice, and answers him in Cookie Monster's voice. She pretend-talks on the phone constantly, and has really funny conversations: "Hi! Okay. Umm....da-da, come! Kitty, hi. Uh-huh. Okay. Elmo. Okie dokie!" Charlotte tries so hard to read and count. When she's "counting" she points at things and says, "two, three, two, three. Nine." She likes to look at books and point out letters, and sometimes she even gets them right. Odds are good if the letters are C, E, O and P. Charlotte loves her family, and had a great time being baby-sat by Grammy and Grampy last weekend. No tears, and she talked about them all night after they went home.

Things parents say.

"Well, it wouldn't hurt to comb your hair if there wasn't yogurt in there."