Charlotte has been adjusting really well to our new house. Her bedroom is pink and very girly, and even though we haven't had much time at home with her yet she likes going outside and walking to the park, which is not even a block away! She's also getting very independent, even more than she used to be which is saying a lot. She loves to make decisions on her own.
Daycare has ended so tomorrow I go back to being a part time stay at home mom combined with my part time youth minister gig. Next week is the mission trip and I am going to miss Charlotte so much! I've never been away from her for so long. It's going to be really hard for me, and hopefully not as hard for her though. After I get back I have about 2 weeks completely off so I will get to be home with her every day for a little while, and then I'll still get to be home with her 2-3 days during the week which I am really looking forward to! I haven't "stayed at home" with Charlotte since before her first birthday, so I'm a little nervous but excited to have a lot of mommy and Charlotte time.
4/8/12
Eric, Charlotte and I were playing in her room this afternoon. Eric and I bought Charlotte a large pad of paper and crayons recently and we were playing tic-tac-toe together while Charlotte played with some of her other toys. Eric was obviously going to win so I just took two turns in a row so I could win. Eric called me a cheater and starts tickling me and saying "cheater". I'm of course laughing because I was being tickled. After he stopped Charlotte says "cheater" and walks over to me, pushes me over, sits on me, and starts tickling me, saying "cheater, cheater". I was laughing just as hard as when Eric was tickling me, not because of her tickling but just because it was so funny for her to completely mimic exactly what Eric had done. It was hilarious!
3/22/12
My kid is the biggest talker. 18 months old and she is already using 3 and 4 word sentences with some regularity. We had some friends over for dinner the other day and were telling them about how much she talks. She didn't even seem like she was really listening, but after we said it, she said "I'm talking a lot". No joke, our friends heard it and were pretty impressed by it. We were impressed by it! She gets so much more than I think she does sometimes. She's just 18 months old, I don't expect her to do or say so many of the things that she does. Now, of course every parent thinks their kid is advanced and so smart and stuff, and I'm not necessarily saying Charlotte is super advanced or smarter than anybody else her age, but I'm not going to sit here and deny how smart she actually is and how advanced she is for her age when it comes to how much she talks. It's so much fun teaching her new words and phrases and hearing her mimic us when we're not really expecting it. She still babbles quite a bit, but more and more the things she says are real, understandable words.
2/24/12
Charlotte has been sick for the past week. Last week she had a fever and was just fussy and tired, and this week she got the same cold that I have. It has pretty much worn us out completely. On the positive side, it means she's been sleeping great. On the negative side, she's been a little more fussy and she has developed a little bit of a cough which is really sad. She's been a little more cuddly than normal too which is really cute but I wish it wasn't because she was sick! Even when she is sick she's cute though, and the past couple of days she's actually asked for a nap, a little earlier than normal too. And the cutest thing that happened: I had Monday off for President's Day so we stayed home together, and a little after lunch but before naptime we were playing in her room and she asked for a couple of her blankets (she loves blankets these days). We pulled out a couple, and she layed on top of one playing with one of her toys, and within 2 or 3 minutes just fell asleep right on top of the blanket in the middle of the floor. She has never done anything like that! I was so suprised and awed by her. It was really cute, so of course I took some pictures before moving her into her crib, which barely woke her up. It's been nice having her sleep so much, but I hope she gets better soon because I hate listening to her cough and I hate knowing that she doesn't feel good!
2/3/12
Usually I think pretty much every thing Charlotte does is adorable, or funny, or adorably funny, or really smart, or amazing in some way. There is, however, one thing she has been doing that drives me a little bit crazy. First, she's finally hit the "No" stage. If you are a parent, you probably know what I am talking about. Her answer to everything is no. Sometimes she really means yes, but now that she knows what the word "no" means, she loves to use it. I don't know if she thinks it gives her more control over her life or what, but she says no to almost everything. Saying no is fine, if we ask her if she wants to do something that we know she needs to do anyway (like get ready for bed) it's our own fault if she says no. Instead of asking we need to simply tell her certain things or she is not going to understand why we give her the choice and then take it away from her. And usually we only ask her if we're actually ok with her saying yes or no. The problem I have is half the time I can't actually tell if she means no or if she really means yes but is just saying no because she likes it, which is frequently the case. Then she'll start acting like she should get or do whatever it was she said no to. It's just frustrating because it makes most things take a lot longer and I often can't tell what she really wants. I know it's minor irritation in the big picture, but I'm starting to get a little exasperated about it.
1/20/12
Charlotte is starting to get really good at following directions and listening to what we tell her. Take dinner tonight for example: She was playing with her vegetables, and I told her to open up her mouth and eat them. She opened up her mouth and I told her good job, now put the vegetables in your mouth. She took one, put it in her mouth, then took another and put it in her mouth. She closed her mouth, opened it up a couple of seconds later, and spit out the vegetables. She did a great job following my directions--I just didn't tell her she needed to swallow. Guess I need to be more specific next time!
1/16/12
Pretty much all I have to write is about how adorable my daughter is. Nothing specific, or at least nothing new. I swear she learns a million new words and phrases every day, and she is so good at following directions! I told her to get a specific book off her shelf, she goes over there, I told her it was on the bottom shelf, she bends over, sees it, and grabs it. How amazing is that? Plus, she's definitely got "please" down, to the extent that if we say please she'll do something. I asked if she would give me a hug and she shook her head no, but then I said, "please Charlotte?" and she walked right over and hugged me. Adorable. My kid is stinking adorable.
1/2/12
Christmas with Charlotte was awesome! She loved opening presents. She didn't even care most of the time what they were, she just liked the unwrapping part. I kindof wish we would have just bought a bunch of gifts from the dollar store and wrapped them so she'd have had more to open. She loves all her new toys, and so do we! It is so nice to have new toys that she isn't bored with for her to play with.
12/23/11
I swear Charlotte has more energy than any other kid I know. I can barely keep up with her, and I'm pretty energetic myself. She's also learned how to say no and is definitely using that one a lot! Oh, and now she can climb onto couches by herself, and while I was taking care of some of her other cousins at daycare I turn and find her sitting on the arm of the chair. Oh great. I still feel guilty about the cast, who knows what is going to happen now? Like I said, I can barely keep up with her, and now that she can climb onto furniture by herself, I fear another trip to the doctor is inevitable. I hope God gave her a good guardian angel. Or multiple angels. She probably needs more than one.
12/18/11
Lately Charlotte and I have been playing hide and seek. Mostly I run into a room and hide somewhere in there, and then tell her to come find me. Then she'll come looking. If she can't find me in a relatively quick amount of time, I say something to clue her in where I might be. She loves it! It's been so much fun. It's her new favorite game. Maybe she'll even be able to join her cousins when they play soon. She's not great at hiding, I've tried that (having Eric hide her, or hiding with her from Eric) but she always gives herself away. She doesn't quite get that. But she loves seeking!
I guess today, when I was at work, Eric tried playing with her and she just ran from room to room searching for me saying things like "seek" and "where's mommy?" So stinking cute! I feel so bad that I wasn't there to play with her. We played after dinner though to make up for it. We both really enjoy it. I love being able to play an actual game with her, even if it's a little bit adapted. She's just so fun to play with. She has so much energy and it's nice to be able to direct it towards a purpose and have her start using it to learn and develop more.
12/7/11
Charlotte has been doing the cutest thing! First, she's starting to say full sentences. Just simple things like "I want that" but still, I'm so impressed and proud of her. The cute thing though is that she lifts up her hands and sortof shrugs and says "Where'd that go?" or "Where did the ____ go?" I'll hide something, or say where's dad, and she'll look around for it, lift up her hands, and ask where did it go. It is just the cutest thing she's ever done. Ok, that might be a slight exaggeration, because every time she does something cute I think it's the cutest thing she's ever done. Every time she laughs I think it's the cutest laugh she's ever had too. I get so caught up in the moment with her and what she's doing and how wonderful it is. I love being her mom so much, it still surpises me some times just how much I love being a mom. I was excited to have a baby before she got here, but every day and every week and every month I love her more and more and love being a mom more and more. Now that she talks and shows true affection and is responsive to what we say and do, we have been having so much fun!
11/28/11
Charlotte has been advancing in so many ways. Except for having focus, but since she's only 14 months old I'm not really that concerned about it. She is so responsive to everything we say and do, and she understands everything. She nods and shakes her head when we ask her questions and she actually means what she does. If she doesn't want to do something she'll shake her head no, and if she wants something or wants to do something that we ask her she'll nod. She also likes to brush her teeth which is super adorable. She dances anytime we play music or sing to her and she can turn in a circle now too. She repeats everything we say and her vocabulary is getting to be pretty amazing! Every time we say we're going to go somewhere she walks over and stands by the door.
On a negative note, Charlotte has been hitting a lot more and she thinks its funny. We need to be way more consistent in our discipline with her and we've started making her stop the activity we're doing if she hits us and sitting her down on the floor and telling her that she can't hit and that it's not funny. I don't really know what else to do about it.
A couple of weeks ago now I put Charlotte on a chair because she loves being on furniture like a big kid but she stood up and fell off, and in doing so fell funny on her arm. She apparently has a small fracture on her elbow so she's wearing a cast. She's been handling it really well and the only really annoying part of it is bathtime since it can't get wet. It will hopefully come off in a week but possibly longer than that if the doctor thinks she needs it on longer.
Except for the hitting and the cast, Charlotte has been doing so well! She sleeps great through the night, plays pretty well with her cousins, shows a lot of affection for me and Eric, and is generally a happy baby. I can't believe how much she's growing and developing and how adorable she is!
11/4/11
Charlotte is talking like a maniac! I'm so amazed at how well she talks and what words she says. Especially "socks". She says it so clearly that anyone can tell what it is she's saying. Which isn't always the case. She also says woof and can kindof quack. And she loves dogs right now. She eats peaches like crazy. She'll go through a whole container of them in two sittings. At least she's eating, and at least it's something healthy. She finally is used to drinking out of a cup and is drinking more milk now which is a relief (she went through this phase where she didn't want any milk at all). Plus, she hardly ever spills. Just kidding, she still spills a lot. Mostly because she tries to put her food into her cup which she of course finds hilarious. All in all, she is doing great though, she's a pretty happy kid and very smart.
10/24/11
This morning Charlotte wanted to eat my cereal with me. I eat sitting at my desk, and she would walk up to me, wait until I gave her a piece, then turn around and walk all the way across the living room to the rocking chair. After touching the ottoman, she would turn around, walk back, and come over to me to get more cereal. She did this probably half a dozen times. Same exact thing. Eventually she started to get distracted by things like Eric but she would still come back to get more cereal and walk across the room then back again. I have no idea why she did that but it was incredibly adorable and hilarious. She's done a million other cute, smart, and funny things since the last time I wrote about her but by the time I actually sit down to write I've usually forgotten the one cute thing that I really wanted to write about.
10/16/11
The past week has been incredibly difficult. I haven't had very many cute things to post about. Mostly Charlotte has been fussy. She was sick in the middle of the week and has just been generally angry this week. She screams when she's angry. She's only 13 months old and she throws temper tantrums like a master. It's horrible. What do you do with a kid who screams when she doesn't get every little thing her way? Plus when she throws temper tantrums she usually gets herself so worked up she can't calm herself down and we have to pick her up to get her to calm down, but sometimes I feel like that is basically teaching her that it's ok to scream to get attention and to get what she wants. It's very frustrating. Plus, with her only being 13 months, it's not like she fully understands her actions and the consequences. We can only teach her so much. Problem is, I'm not sure how much we can teach her. She seems to understand quite a bit, and I'm almost positive she knows what "no" and "don't" and "stop" mean, but whether or not that means she fully realizes the outcome of her actions I'm not sure about. I really don't want my daughter to be spoiled, but I also want to make sure she has the attention she needs and is secure in the knowledge of our love for her. I guess I didn't realize it was going to be such a fine line so early!
10/9/11
Charlotte thinks that dvd's are books. She keeps trying to pull the movies off the shelf (we finally moved it into our bedroom to make it more difficult for her to access) and then bringing them over to us to sit in our lap and have us read them to her, just like she does with her books. I even asked her what it was and she said "book". What a funny kid.
10/6/11
We gave Charlotte real spaghetti for the first time the other night. She loved it, and of course we loved watching her eat it. We planned it for bath night too, smart thinking on our part. She's starting to learn to drink from cups like a normal person. We weren't sure she was ready for it, but after she stole her cousin's cup and just started drinking it yesterday (spilling a good portion on herself but overall getting most of it in her mouth) we realized ready or not she wants to drink like everyone else so we're switching her over to that.
10/2/11
Tonight we taught Charlotte how to put coins in one of her many piggy banks (she has 4, two of which are actually pigs). She had a blast! We got some really cute videos (one of which is on Facebook) and it was really fun teaching her to do it and then just watching her go at it. She only tried to eat the coins a few times so I consider that pretty successful.
Another smart thing Charlotte did today: we have this old wet wipes box that she likes to play with/climb on (she's really into climbing onto things these days) and it was next to her dresser, so she used it as a step to get higher so that she could find/get into the things on her dresser.
She does about a million cute things a day so by the time I have a chance to write about them I've forgotten most of them. She's talking all the time now, mostly babbling sentences but also real words when she's learned them and figured out what they mean. Some of her most common words: go, cup, book, cracker, and play. She also says "vroom" (or close to it) when playing with cars (I taught her that one), and tries to say the names of people she knows. She dances/sways to music all the time which I love. She walks or crawls to her high chair when we talk about food and eating, and she stands up on her own a lot more and walks nearly all of the time. I'm so impressed and amazed with how developed she is, and I still can't believe it's hardly over a year since she was born!
9/25/11
Charlotte stood up by herself today. She has been walking a lot more lately, but still grabs on to things in order to pull herself up, and actually if there is something within reach she will grab it and walk along it instead of just walking by herself. And she's never pulled or pushed herself up off the ground, until today. We were in the crying room at church and she pushed up onto one knee, and then just pushed the rest of the way up until she was standing on her own. It was awesome. We were really surprised, because we've read that usually babies will lift their butt up into the air and then push the rest of the body off the ground when they are first learning how to stand on their own, but that is definitely not how she did it. I hope it means she will start walking even more! I love watching her walk, it is incredibly adorable.
9/22/11
I'm no longer allowed to say crap. Which is a problem, because that's about the only remotely bad word I say. Seriously, I am not a curser. I don't swear. Pretty much the worst word I say is crap, but I say it semi-frequently. It's my go-to word when something bad happens. Unfortunately, that was one of the words Charlotte picked up one pretty quickly when she started to learn words, and she'll just repeat it if she ever hears me say it. I mess up and say "crap", and she'll repeat in a sing-song voice "crap crap crap crap crap" all cheerful and cute as can be. It's pretty hilarious, but in a really bad way because I don't really want that to be one of her most said words. So I'm working pretty hard at not saying it, but it's tough. It's hard to think of something else easy to say that isn't also a word I don't want Charlotte to repeat.
9/13/11
I can't belive I let Charlotte's birthday pass with only a picture. Things have just been very busy lately. But now Charlotte is 1, and we're all loving it! We threw her a huge party (seriously, about 40 people came, it was awesome) and she ate cake for the first time. And by cake I really mean frosting. It was adorable and wonderful and I can't believe I've been a mom for over a year now! I know it's cliched, but time really does fly. I still love being a mom, and Charlotte is still my baby and I'm sure will be for the rest of my life. She's walking now too, or at least is able to. Mostly she still crawls or only walks until she can grab on to something or someone else. But she's walked quite a few steps by herself now which I really enjoy. I always get excited to see her walking on her own.
We went to the doctor for her one year check-up last week which was quite the ordeal. She did ok for the doctor, kindof fussy but I think she now realizes that she doesn't like being poked and prodded. Then, she did awful for the nurse who gave her shots because, hey, she had to get 3 shots. Yuck. She cuddled herself into my shoulder for a couple of minutes afterwards which she hardly ever does. It was the worst shot experience yet. To make matters worse, we then had to go get blood drawn for the hemoglobin and lead test, which took a couple of minutes for them to get enough blood and she screamed the whole time. Then, they didn't give us a band-aid because apparently it's a choking hazard. I thought I had one in my purse but nope, so we tried to hold her bleeding hand and stop it with the gauze which clearly was a bad idea. We ended up just going back to the lab people and asking them to give us a band-aid after she got blood on both her clothes and Eric's. Finally, just to make matters worse, we realized she hates elevators. We decided to take the stairs down instead of risking the elevator again and adding to her stress and pain, and of course, they are incredibly difficult to find and we actually had to ask someone. It turns out, they are a couple of turns and a door away from the elevators. I hope that building never has a fire because no one will be able to find the stairs to make it out in time.
Other than that doctor appointment, Charlotte is doing very well, growing slowly but very active and happy!
9/4/11
Happy 1st birthday Charlotte Rose Peterson!
9/1/11
Charlotte took her first steps today! We've been trying a lot lately and she's been getting closer and closer every day, and tonight she finally did it! Of course, we didn't have the video camera out but I don't care, we got a couple steps on video later on and I'm just happy both Eric and I were around to watch her do it. She took 3 and it was so dang adorable and exciting. We just cheered and clapped and she was so happy that we were happy, she just clapped right along with it. I'm so proud of her and excited! 3 days before her 1st birthday too!
8/25/11
Charlotte has been super adorable lately. She was so much fun tonight. She just keeps learning new things and showing us how smart she is. First, she now knows how to nod her head and does it all the time. It's really cute. Plus, she usually does it when we ask her something and the answer is "yes", so she's definitely figuring out what it means. Also, she loves belly buttons and is starting to learn body parts. It's really funny with the belly buttons because we'll ask her where our belly buttons are and she'll life up our shirts and grab our stomachs. Again, very smart that she actually knows what it is and where it is even when it's hidden from her. Finally, she also knows what rings are. I've shown her my wedding ring a couple of times and told her what it is when she has shown interest in it (I think she likes it because it sparkles). Tonight she was playing with the cell phone and I said "ring ring ring" to get her to "answer" it, and instead, she looked down at my hand and grabbed my ring. I was really surprised and impressed! She also talks a lot. She can say cracker, go, book, play, block, and she tries to imitate us whenever we talk. And when we laugh. If we start laughing she often joins in. I'm just so impressed and amazed at her comprehension and intelligence. She's such a smart and happy child and she brings so much joy to my life!
8/23/11
The fun part of parenting is starting. And by fun I mean not fun. Charlotte has started hitting and she thinks it's really funny, no matter what we say or do. We're trying really hard not to react to it, to just tell her "no hitting" and redirect her to something else, but she mostly just smiles or laughs and doesn't really get that she's not supposed to. Or if she does, it doesn't matter. I think discipline is going to be really hard and not fun and I'm really not looking forward to it. But, she has to learn that things like hitting are not ok, and I've heard it's easier to teach kids things now than later when they're already long in their bad habits.
8/10/11
Charlotte is fully weaned from the pacifier! We stopped giving it to her last Friday and the first night was really hard but it got progressively easier and the past couple of nights she has done great! In fact, I think she is sleeping better now, she used to wake up usually at least once during the night crying because she didn't have the pacifier, and now she's been sleeping straight through. I can't believe how easy it was, I thought it was going to be much more difficult because she was really attached to it as a sleeping device. That's the only thing we used it for though; we weren't giving it to her when she cried in public or anything like that for over a month now. I think that helped the transition. Now when we go on vacation we won't have to worry as much about her waking everyone up crying for the pacifier! I'm glad the transition went so smoothly and so quickly! Now if only we could get her to walk...I'm really hoping she'll start next week at Lake Mary.
8/4/11
Charlotte 11 months old
8/2/11
Charlotte is finally too big to wear some of her 6-9 month clothes. She's now ready to move into the 9-12 month clothes. I think we have a lot of clothes in that size, and it's a good mix of clothes weather-wise, but we have no pajamas. Clearly that will need to be remedied soon since those are some of the clothes we've noticed she's growing out of. I think she's going through a growth spurt too because it seems like she wants to eat all the time, and she eats pretty much everything we give her. Take lunch today, she ate an entire peach. And she eats a full thing of yogurt at a time when we give it to her. I'm happy she's growing of course, and considering she's 11 months on Thursday, it's about time she went up a size. Still, it's nice when we don't have to buy her clothes, although almost every time we go to the store I want to get her something.
7/31/11
Uh-oh, Charlotte is starting to act spoiled. I think Eric and I need to start being a little bit better about not giving her everything she wants and standing our ground. It's hard to tell when to start being more firm and not giving your baby everything she wants, but judging from how fussy and demanding and cranky she gets sometimes, I think now's the time to stop giving in to her all the time. I'm not sure exactly how to tell when it's ok to give in and when it's not, so any advice from parents would be helpful. Otherwise we'll do what we've done with a lot of situations that are new to us: ask family members directly, and/or play it by ear/follow the cues she's giving us.
7/22/11
After 10 1/2 months, Charlotte finally has a tooth! She hasn't been fussy, no fever or anything out of the ordinary, so I didn't even realize it until my sister pointed it out to me today that it was there. Barely through the surface, but she finally has her first tooth.
7/21/11
Charlotte is great at pointing, and lately she's been pointing to the animals on her wall and enjoying having us name them for her. She loves animals lately! Today we walked to the park (the first time she's been outside all week since the weather has been so unbearably hot and humid) and she loved it. It was so great to get her outside and let her play in the sand and on the swing and the slide. We saw 3 dogs and a stray cat while we were out too, which was awesome for her. The cat was a little creepy since it kept trying to follow us but now she's actually seen a cat and heard it meow so that's something.
She also eats a lot of regular table food now, but we're starting to run into the problem of her wanting to eat exactly what we're eating. Some of it she can't eat yet, and we don't eat a lot of vegetables, so we usually end up giving her something different from what we're eating, which is starting to be a problem because she wants what we're having. I guess that means we're going to have to start eating healthier. This will be the first time since I was a kid that I will actually have to eat my vegetables. Well, more than just the 3 or 4 that I like. I'll have to branch out and eat things like carrots, green beans, and heaven forbid, potatoes. These are the sacrifices you make when you have kids, right?
7/15/11
Charlotte is the most adorable baby ever. We taught her to raise her arms over her head when we ask her how big she is and then we say "so big" when she lifts her arms, and now she'll sometimes just do it without us saying anything. What's even cuter is she did it when we were reading one of her books that had the phrase "pat the big, he's so big", so when I read the words "he's so big" she raised her arms over her head. Later on she raised her arms when I was talking about something else and happened to say the word "big".
She also will stand for a couple of seconds on her own sometimes, mostly just when she's standing against furniture and she switches toys from one hand to the other or before she turns away to sit down and crawl. She's not walking yet but she does walk around furniture a lot, and sometimes if we hold her hands she'll walk with us a little. When we do that though she mostly walks on her tiptoes. I have no idea why but it's really funny.
7/4/11
Charlotte 10 months old
6/30/11
It's a very summery week for us. Tuesday we went strawberry picking (even though Charlotte is still too young to be able to eat them) and today she got to go to the beach for the first time! I think she was a little confused about it. She played a little bit with the wet sand, and I held her and dipped her legs into the water, but she just didn't seem to know what to do. It was very cute. Tomorrow is the 4th of July parade that my sister is in, so we will probably go to that, and then Monday we get to take her to the pool for the first time! I think she'll have more fun at the pool because it's clear water with a more solid floor than the bottom of the lake. I'm so excited to take her--I think she's going to have a ton of fun. She loves taking baths and I think the pool will be somewhat similar to that, at least more so than the lake, and I can't wait to see how much fun she will have.
6/23/11
I can't believe my lack of updates about Charlotte! There is so much to say too since it's been 2 weeks since I last wrote about her. Let's see, she is starting to learn some baby sign language which is really cute. She doesn't usually initiate it but she'll do it if we do it, and even if we just say a word she'll do it too (especially "all done" and "more"). She was waving a lot but I think she got sick of it and now she doesn't do it very much. She's very outgoing now, she definitely got over the stranger anxiety and now loves people and being the center of attention. She also loves to pull all of her clothes out of her drawers. She's finally figured out how to open closets and is even starting to get into the cupboards. But not the ones with stuff in them that she can actually play with, no, only the one that has things in it we don't want her to get into. We'll have to do something about that. She's done pretty well with my transition into work. I think it helps having family watch her instead of strangers. But she doesn't take a bottle very well so hopefully that will get better. She's super cute and smiley and I swear just when I think she can't get cuter she proves me wrong!
6/9/11
Charlotte is addicted to this book called "Heads" which is about all the different parts of a head and has some touch-and-feel pages and some flips and flaps and whatnot, and each page has a pull-out tab that makes an animal do something (like open it's eyes, or flap it's ears, etc.). My favorite one is the elephant who sneezes bright green boogers onto a monkey. It's awesome. The book is really great, and Charlotte loves it. We got it for $3 used at a book sale, and it was one of the best purchases ever! Since it was already used, it hasn't been a big deal to have her pull at stuff and make it even more used than it already was, and she loves the book so much. I had to read it to her 3 times in a row one day because she cried every time I finished it. After the 3rd time I had to put her down and distract her with something else because I couldn't read it again. Most days (like yesterday) Eric and I both end up reading it to her at least once, if not more. She has so much fun with it, and it's totally worth it to read over and over again because she never seems to get sick of it. Best book ever.
6/6/11
We took Charlotte to the zoo for the first time on Saturday. She did really well. We tried to go during the day and couldn't find a parking spot and it was so crazy we just decided to do some errands instead and go back later. We ended up going shortly before they closed and it was still pretty busy but much better. It ended up being a good choice because I'm sure we wouldn't have seen anything and would have been cranky and miserable had we gone during the day. Charlotte really liked seeing all the animals. We didn't get to see a couple because they were already indoors and we wanted to stay outside the whole time, but we saw most things. Her favorite exhibit was the flamingoes. They were really close to the fence and very active and she got a big kick out of them. It was really fun taking her and I'm sure we'll go back a lot this summer, probably during the week when it isn't as crazy.
6/5/11
Charlotte 9 months old
5/31/11
Charlotte has been so funny today. She spent about 5 minutes just crawling around the apartment making funny almost-laughing noises, like she was practicing how to laugh. Later on, Eric and I were playing with her in her bedroom with this stuffed dinosaur, and Eric asks her what dinosaurs say, and we both said "roar" at the same time, and she laughed and laughed at that.
5/27/11
We're taking Charlotte to her grandparent's cabin for the first time this weekend. I am really looking forward to it. They have a dog, and Charlotte is starting to get to the point where she grabs at him and she actually tried to eat his face once when he came up and licked her. It was hilarious. It should be pretty fun to see how she does with the dog now that she can crawl more and is stronger and more confident in herself and what she wants and does.
I think it will be so nice to get away for a weekend, and it is so great that Eric's parents have a cabin. I never really had that cabin experience growing up, which wasn't a big deal to me at all since my parents took us camping all the time and we never lacked for things to do or places to go, especially during the summer. That being said, I think it will be something special for Charlotte that her grandparents have a cabin that she can go to during the summer. Grandpa Peterson is also very excited to teach her to fish when she gets to an age where that is feasible, which I think is really sweet. I'm really excited that she'll have some special Peterson things while growing up. I have distinct memories and experiences of both of my grandparents' houses and families, and I'm looking forward to seeing that with Charlotte and her grandparents.
5/19/11
Charlotte has been getting into everything. Except of course things that are ok for her to get into. We now have to close the bathroom door and the door to our room, which basically cuts out 1/3 of the apartment for her to crawl around in. I think she is starting to feel a little cooped up too since we stay inside so much. My allergies have been so bad I don't want to be outside at all, but I think I'm going to have to toughen up so I can get her out of the house and let her explore the great big world outside. We go on walks with her every so often, and I took her outside a few times before my allergies got really bad. She did ok sitting on the blanket in the grass, but she hasn't yet ventured off onto the grass. I think she's a little afraid of it. Afraid of crawling on it anyway, definitely not afraid of grabbing it and ripping it out of the ground and putting it in her mouth.
5/4/11
Charlotte 8 months old
5/3/11
A few quick updates on Charlotte. She has become quite the Daddy's girl. She gets so excited when he comes home and then cries when he goes to change out of his work clothes before picking her up. She's also eating solid food really well again. She stands up against everything and is starting to step while holding on to stuff. Not a lot, just a step or two at a time, but she's definitely learning. She also puts every little thing she sees into her mouth. We now have to sweep and vacuum way more than we used to. She also loves paper. Which may explain why she tries to eat so many of her books so often. It's kindof gross. And frustrating. She also loves to splash and play with her toys in the bathtub and it is absolutely adorable. That's a quick rundown of Charlotte one day before her 8 month birthday.
4/25/11
Charlotte changed her mind and decided she likes bananas. Maybe. She doesn't really eat any solids anymore, because she won't let us give them to her on a spoon like we used to, or even help her put them in her mouth, but she's not quite coordinated enough to pick things up off her tray (unless it's dry like crackers or cheerios, and even cheerios are difficult) so she doesn't get much into her mouth. Of course, it's somehow easier for her to find the tiny little things on the floor and put those into her mouth. Vacuuming is going to have to start become a daily chore.
4/19/11
She's pulling them off and putting them in her mouth at an almost unstoppable speed. I like to encourage her curiosity, but books are not to be eaten. It's very difficult for me, an avid reader, to watch books being practically destroyed and nearly torn apart and chewed up by my own child. I hate taking them away from her, because like I said, I want to encourage her curiosity, and her love of books, but if she ruins them all she'll never get to find out what they have to say.
4/14/11
Today Charlotte learned how to pull books off her shelf. It was only a matter of time. She's still in the process of deciding how she wants to go about it, and isn't quite at the "I'm going to yank all the books off as fast as I can so they are all on the floor" stage, but I can see it happening soon. She likes to eat them too, and normally I can stop her from putting books in her mouth that she shouldn't, but I see my control over that weakening.
4/11/11
It seems like Charlotte has been doing so many new and adorable things lately. She can crawl like a maniac, and she's starting to crawl over things (like her parents) and around things. I'm going to try setting up a little mini obstacle course sometime in the near future to see how she does with that. She's also pulling herself up and standing against things which she finds very enjoyable. We had to show her how to sit back down in her crib so we don't have to lay her down every time she gets up. Oh, and she is starting to get into everything! She hardly enjoys her toys anymore, but of course she likes cords, and outlets (not so much anymore since we put the plastic plugs in them), and the bathroom, and shoes, and she's starting to like little things she finds on the ground, which means I now get to vacuum multiple times a week. And her fine motor skills are definitely improving. She can actually get the cheerios in her mouth when we put them on her high chair tray. She's also very, very talkative, just like her mom. I just can't believe how much she can do and how cute she is when she does it! Just watching her try to figure out how to get into things and watching her explore everything is so fun. I can't wait until the ground outside is a little more dry so she can crawl around outside. She's going to love it.
4/9/11
Charlotte must be the only baby in the entire world who doesn't like bananas. Bananas. Are you kidding me? She will not eat them mashed, she will not eat them mixed with cereal, and she will not eat them cut up into little pieces for finger food. She will not eat them here or there, she will not eat them anywhere.
4/5/11
Charlotte 7 months old
3/24/11
Most songs that get stuck in my head these days are children's songs. What makes it worse than having just regular annoying songs stuck in your head is that these are even more repetitive, because that's how children learn and it's what they enjoy. Currently I have the words "clap, clap, clap your hands, clap your hands together" running through my head over and over again.
3/22/11
Usually Eric and I give Charlotte her baths together, it's just easier that way. Tonight, Eric got last minute tickets to go see the Wild game and he went with my brother, leaving me at home with Charlotte tonight, on bath night. No biggie, so I thought. I have only given Charlotte a bath by myself one or 2 other times. They were challenging, but not like tonight. She is much stronger, and mobile, and wiggly. It was probably the shortest bath she's ever taken. Almost no play time with her bath toys. And I hope I actually got her clean. Also, while I was holding her on my knee after taking off her diaper, just before I put her in the tub, she peed on me. All over my leg. Yuck. I'm not sure what is worse, baby pee on your leg or baby spit up in your mouth.
3/22/11
Poor Charlotte has been sick the past couple of days. Nothing serious, just a cold that has her breathing funny and having a hard time sleeping. Which means I don't get to sleep much either. Charlotte's just been waking up more often because she loses her pacifier because she starts to breathe through her mouth, but she needs it to calm herself (we have plans to wean her off of it eventually, in the next couple of months, but she's only 6 1/2 months so we're still ok with her using it). So she wakes up, can't find it and get it back in her mouth, and cries. A lot. I can tell she's really uncomfortable, and sometimes giving it back to her doesn't even do anything. Plus, wiping her nose and suctioning it out is awful. She hates it. You'd think we were the worst parents in the world by how she reacts to it. And of course, because it makes her cry even harder, I feel awful doing it, but what am I supposed to do, let boogers drip into her mouth and onto her clothes? Ew. Of course not.
On the positive side (because I realize the past few updates have been about Charlotte's less happy issues), she's doing really well with solid foods, and we've discovered she likes carrots, peas, and pears, but not peaches. And cheerios, although they are a bit of a challenge for her. Her fine motor skills aren't great yet so it's a big success if she gets them into her mouth, and it takes her longer to break them down and swallow them. But it is so fun watching her eat them, and she really enjoys the experience of pushing them around on her tray and getting them into her fist and then into her mouth. Yesterday she wore overalls, so of course a bunch ended up down her pants. We're going to try bananas soon--actually real people bananas, mushed up, not packaged baby bananas. That's how we want to do most of our food, but we haven't used the grinder too much yet since she still needs the food fairly pureed and it just doesn't get it liquidy enough. I think she's ready to progress to thicker food though, since she can handle the cheerios. We'll see how it goes with the bananas!
3/20/11
Charlotte has bad stranger anxiety. It's not fun. Basically, Eric and I can't leave her anywhere to be babysat nowadays, so we can't go on a date just the two of us for awhile, and when we go places with her we mostly have to hold her the whole time. Sometimes she'll let people hold her, and she'll play on the floor with kids but usually we have to be pretty close. We do play dates at Aunt Gina's almost every Friday, and she is more used to those cousins now, but she's still quiet and not very smily most of the time we are there. Usually she warms up more after a couple of hours somewhere, but that's also usually close to the time we are leaving so people don't get to see her bubbly happy cuteness very often. It's disappointing, because at home she is just the happiest, funnest little kid. She has so much fun playing, and she is so talkative, just like her mom. Almost everything else she gets from Eric, but she definitely gets that from me! And she has the hugest smile, and I just wish she would share it with other people more often! Hopefully she gets over her stranger anxiety (or stranger danger, as her aunt Maria calls it) sooner rather than later so she can start enjoying our great big family!
3/16/11
This morning I told Charlotte the story of the 3 Billy Goats Gruff. She loved it. It's the first time I've just sat her in my lap and told her a story, and I wasn't sure how she would do with it since there were no songs or props or anything like that. But she did really well. She especially liked when I did my troll voice and when I did the clop-clop-clop of the goats going across the bridge. She's super cute.
3/13/11
Yesterday Charlotte crawled forward for the first time! It was very exciting. It's been a little frustrating to watch her flounder on her stomach and occasionally scooch backwards but not really quite put everything together in her mind. She has the motor skills, and has had them for a long time, but the mental ability to actual figure out what that means for crawling was slower to develop. Or rather, normal pace to develop--my baby is ahead in almost every physical skill and pretty normal for mental and emotional development. But it was occasionally a little frustrating because she just couldn't figure out how to move and often cried on the floor because she just flailed about. But yesterday she finally moved forward. It looked like she was doing the worm. So it's not quite crawling, but it's close enough for me. We even got it on video! We put Eric's cell phone out of reach in front of her (she LOVES cell phones) and she tried so hard to get to it and eventually made it! I'm so proud of her!
3/8/11
Charlotte's too smart for her own good. She's already figured out how to knock the bowl of baby cereal out of my hands. First, she knocked the spoon out of my hands on the way to her mouth, and when that didn't work and she realized I would still keep feeding her, she went for the bowl. Maybe we'll just skip to finger food right away.
3/8/11
Charlotte is a little bit vain. She loves to stare at the 8x10 portrait we have of her on the wall, and at my background picture which is of her. She likes the mirror too, but that is different because all kids are supposed to like the mirror. I wouldn't think she was vain if she liked other kids more, then it would just seem like it was another little kid that she liked (because she probably doesn't know it is her) but she's not around that many little kids and although she is curious about them it's different when she's staring at the portrait. I just think it's funny how much she likes pictures of herself. Maybe it's because she recognizes it as the person she sees when she looks into the mirror. Either way, it's funny. But hopefully she'll grow out of it by the time she's a teenager.
3/6/11
This weekend we started Charlotte on solid foods. Rice cereal, mmmmm. She did ok to start with (on Friday), but after she ate a bite or so (ate being somewhat of an exaggeration, more like let us stick the spoon in her mouth with some food on it) so didn't really seem to want us to give her anymore. She did ok with it on Saturday, not super excited about it but not directly refusing or getting mad about it either. Today she did really well, letting us feed her a few bites each time. She's definitely getting used to it, and maybe even starting to enjoy it? If not the cereal itself, at least the experience of sitting in her high chair and eating like a real person. Sortof. In a few days we'll try something new, but we are waiting to make sure she is used to taking the cereal and adjusts to the experience and the new digestional process of solid food. For all those parents out there, what do you recommend for trying next? Obviously pureed fruits and veggies are good (we actually bought a baby food grinder so we can mash/puree some of the foods that we are eating too, hopefully we won't have to buy as much baby food that way) but when is it ok to start things like crackers and cheerios? Since they are pretty bland we were hoping to start them even before fruits and veggies, but what have others done? We think she would have a lot of fun being able to eat that kind of thing during our mealtime. So, what suggestions do my readers have from their own experiences/knowledge?
3/4/11
Charlotte 6 months old
3/2/11
I had to take our car in for maintenance tonight, while Eric stayed home and played with Charlotte. When I got home he gave me a brief run down of the night (played, ate, went to bed, everything ran smoothly), and I said "I feel like there should be more than that". A couple of seconds later he says "Oh yeah, and she crawled". Since she is so close to crawling I thought he was serious, and since I have really been looking forward to her hitting this phase, and I would hate to miss any big moments of hers, I said in a somewhat bummed voice "really, how much?", and his answer was "three or four crawls, then she stood up and started walking".
What a funny guy.
3/2/11
Charlotte was sitting on the floor on her blanket with her toys, and completely ignoring her toys she grabbed the edges and corner of the blanket and started pulling them into her lap (and into her mouth). Eventually her lap was completely covered with the blanket. Now, if that isn't cute enough (and trust me, it was), she tipped over onto the floor and rolled onto her stomach, successfully rolling herself up in the blanket. Unfortunately I didn't get any pictures, but it was absolutely adorable. Those are the moments that make being a parent completely worth it.
2/27/11
Today Charlotte spit up in Eric's mouth. That's really all I have to blog about tonight, mostly because it is the most amusing yet disgusting thing to happen today. I have a lot of compassion for Eric. I've had to change more dirty diapers in the past month and they have all been when Eric is at work so I have been getting frustrated about that, but after today I think she evened out the gross factor between the parents. I think I prefer dirty diapers. Sure, they take longer to take care of, but baby spit up in your mouth? Ew.
