Landscaping

Our landscaping project is finally completed. The swing-set now has a permanent home on a nice little bed of pea-gravel. We moved the plastic swing-set outside too so Charlie would have something to climb on until he's big enough to climb on the big one.

I didn't take pictures of the rest of the project but we now have some nice little flower beds, complete with concrete edging, in the front. We've also added a "pie garden" area in the back - which means we planted a peach tree, apple tree, rhubarb and we're planning on adding strawberries...everything you need for all Matt's favorite desserts. Now if we could just figure out how to plant ice cream for me and pudding for Charlie we'd be set...

We Were Warned

About a month ago Charlie's Great-Grandma Nancy warned us that Charlie was going to push over our lamp in the living room and break it. It's not that we didn't believe her, it was more that we were too lazy to find a safer place for it. Today her prediction came true and oh man what a horrible mess it made. Thankfully Matt was home so one of us could take the baby outside while the other one picked up the glass shards.

No one got hurt in the disaster, however Charlie's piggy bank is going to be hurting when we empty it to buy a new piece for our lamp.

The Week Thus Far

The week's been busy so far and sadly I have very few pictures to show for it. Below are the flowers Matt sent me at the office for our 3rd Anniversary. I was so surprised when they brought them to me that I was convinced they had the wrong office (read cubicle).

Our other excitement this week is that we signed up for Kindermusik. Before signing up I had to get over how much I hate it when places spell words wrong just to be cute. I have a hard enough time with spelling. It doesn't make it any easier when places try to confuse me by using k's when they should be using c's.

Anyways, Kindermusik is a little music class for babies/toddlers. We sing songs, dance around, and play with little instruments. Charlie seemed to enjoy his first class today and I noticed he didn't steal anyones rice shakers so we're making some progress on the bullying front.

Today we also went down to Eastern Washington University's campus and volunteered in a physical therapy class. A mommy that I walk with asked me if I'd bring Charlie down because a class taught by one of her husband's colleagues was looking for premature babies to observe. So we went down and about 14 college kids played with him and observed his movements for about an hour. I, in turn, observed them and realized how funny it is to be a student sometimes. They had names for the way he was sitting on his knees and they were fascinated with how he moved his body to a sitting position from laying down. They quickly wrote stuff on their pads of paper every time he reached for a toy and leaned his body using his core muscles.

I got a little laugh out of them trying to figure out how old he would be if he was born on his due date. They wrote all these numbers down and tried to do the math really quick in their heads. The girl who shouted out the answer first added 7 weeks to today, instead of subtracting 7 weeks. It took some real convincing to get her on board with the fact that he should be 13 months old not 16 months. It was kind of comical to me to watch them learn from a real life situation and not just from a textbook.

So that's been our week so far. We go back to Eastern again on Friday for some more observation - hopefully Charlie will continue to wow them with his sitting and leaning skills!

Teen (no wait) Baby Wolf

These are really poor quality pictures (I was trying out different settings on my camera) but the gist of it is that Charlie has discovered how to surf on his little push cart.

We're just waiting for him to push the cart over to the stove and reach his hand up onto the gas flame or something else really clever like that.

Standing Like It's No Big Thing

Charlie's standing on his own now and already acting like it's not even hard (hence the annoyed look on his face when I asked for a smile).

He's been walking a little more this weekend as well. He's comfortable walking from mom to dad, and occasionally to the toy box, but that's about as far as he's willing to go so far. We'll keep you posted on when he leaves the mom, dad, toy box circle.

Introducing...

Walker Texas Ranger! That's right. On Thursday Charlie took about 5 steps. I didn't post it and put it on the record (this blog is the official Charlie record by the way) because we weren't sure if he'd do it again any time soon. But tonight he took another 5 steps so we're putting it on the record.

Now we can finally quit worrying about his development and get him all signed up for kindergarten!

Like Father Like Son

He loves the light saber, just like his dad. And he loves to read the paper in the morning, just like his dad.
Anything Matt does these days Charlie wants to do too, it's pretty cute to watch.

Self Regulating Baby

This is Charlie's new trick. When his body is ready for a rest he just pulls his blanket out of his crib and lays down and waits for someone to come pick him up and put him in the crib. Our baby may not walk yet but at least he puts himself to bed!

A Morning Trip to the Park

I feel like I've written this post before so I'll spare the details about how we live by this great park and Charlie and I like to go there to play and walk. It's starting to get hot over here in Spokane though so now we have to get up and go as early as we can (which is only like 8:30, early doesn't mean what it used to now that I have someone else to dress, feed and take care of).

Charlie has been getting pretty antsy in his stroller lately. He doesn't seem to like confinement. He did OK for me today though. I'm thinking it's because I let him play before we walked as well as half way through. He's learning early about compromise.

PS Re: Father's Day

Yes we did celebrate it, contrary to what Matt likes to tell people. I just failed to take any pictures of it. Charlie got Matt a mousepad with his face on it and a new outfit for work. We also made him breakfast and cookies just for the record.

A Carousel Experience

Tonight we took Charlie on his first carousel ride. Before they would start the ride though the operator came over to Matt and had to tell him that the straps were for the kids not the adults. From where I was standing I got the impression Matt strapped himself in and was going to let Charlie fend for himself. However, the pictures show that he simply strapped himself to Charlie. Anyways, once that was all settled they started the ride.

This is our friend Anthony on the tiger and Rikki with baby Samee on the bench. They managed to follow the rules and not get yelled at.

Charlie didn't exactly love his first carousel ride. He didn't really cry but he did have a frightened look on his face the whole time and he let our a few concerned moans as the ride went round and round. Guess we'll hold off on the season pass for now.

Strolling with the Big Boys

Charlie's still not walking on his own so tonight Matt took him outside with his walker and made him walk down the to the corner and back. I watched them from our driveway and when they got to the end of our street I saw Matt bend down and pick him up. So I assumed he was going to carry Charlie home. Not the case. Matt carried him across the street and made him walk home on the other side. Poor little guy, that's a pretty long distance when your legs are only about 18 inches long.

He didn't seem to mind the new torture technique though. He just babbled and walked along like it was no big thing.

Mr. Cuddles

Tonight Charlie was actually willing to cuddle for a few minutes before bed, something that hasn't really happened for about 10 months. He's usually too busy with his routine of emptying the Tupperware lids onto the floor, throwing the refrigerator magnets down the stairs, and dumping the Q-tips out to lay down and relax with mom so I was totally savoring our time together.

So a few minutes go by and Matt must have noticed it was quiet in the house for once because he immediately came looking for us. He walks in and says something to the effect of 'is there a baby in here that wants to wrestle?' To which Charlie responds by jumping up and yelling 'da da!' So much for cuddle time...

crawling away from me...
laughin' it up with dad...

(Sorry about the pictures of me in my weird pajamas. Matt refers to my funny robe thing as my mu mu. It's comfortable and not as hot as a real robe so it works for Spokane, I'm not apologizing for it, just explaining why it's great.)

Ghost in the Garage

Today Charlie and I are home alone. Nothing unusual about this really, we're home alone all the time. We went out to get the mail through the garage, like we do all the time. I left the door up just in case we decided to go somewhere later this afternoon. So we're inside for a few minutes and I'm paging through the Land's End catalog when I hear the other garage door go up. I go out to the garage expecting to see Matt's truck pulling in when instead I see nothing.

So I'm a little freaked out. I shut both doors and then lock the door leading into the house, hoping this will keep out whatever ghost or pervert is sneaking into our garage.

A few minutes go by and I hear the garage door again. So now I'm really freaked out. I head to the phone to call Matt to tell him to come home right away because Charlie and I are probably about to get murdered. On my way to the phone I look down at Charlie and see him playing on the floor with my mail key, which happens to have my garage door opener on the same key chain.

Whew. No ghost or pervert. Just a clever kid (who cried a lot when I took his makeshift toy away from him!) and a dumb mom.

Another Haircut

Taken yesterday, before his haircut. Taken today, after his haircut.

Charlie just had a haircut a month ago and I had really hoped it would last longer than 1 month. However, after a hot weekend trying to make long, sweaty hair look cute we gave up and went back to Kids Kuts. This time I told them to cut it really short so I wouldn't have to give them another 10-spot for at least 2 months this time. Made me feel a little better about the situation.

Weekend in the Greater Tumwater Area.

Since we took so many pictures I thought a slide show would be appropriate. If you aren't seeing captions with the pictures hold your cursor over the picture it should show you one. Basically we spent the weekend visiting friends and family on the west side of the state. These are pictures of our adventures...and by pictures of adventures I mean pictures of Charlie playing on various playgrounds and posing with various friends and family.