This is a Special News Bulletin!

Acutally, two special news bulletins!

First, we have reports from Suze that Charlotte scootched all the way to the kitchen today.  It is not exactly crawling.  She basically uses her arms and drags her body behind her.  It's pretty awesome.  We should attach Swiffers to her clothes so she can pick up all the pet hair while she scootches.   Of course, when I got home she refused to do it.  Oh, the life of a working mom!  Wah.

Second, Charlotte said her first word about 2 weeks ago.  I've been holding out on sharing this piece of news because I wanted to have a video to go with the announcement.  Alas!  For weeks, Charlotte had been saying something that sounded like, "cat" but it was not very specific.  Sometimes there wasn't a cat nearby or it just sounded like she was scat singing or something.  Then one morning, Mike went in her room when she woke up.  They were hanging out and in walks Nacho Grande and Charlotte said, "Cat!"  Then she did it again.  And when she came downstairs and the cats were sitting in the window, she said cat at again.  Very exciting!  And ironic.  You see, I do not like the the cats.  Earlier this summer I was looking for a new home for them (sidebar:  my mom died and her cat, who is old, needs a new home.  My cats are young and more likely to be adopted, or so I thought.  This was right after the tornado in North Minneapolis and there was an overabundance of pets without homes.  So, we kept out cats and my sister kept my mom's cat.  The end.).  Charlotte has been increasingly paying attention to the cats.  She would reach out to pet or grab a handful of them, and she would clap at them.  It actually made me hate the cats less.   Then a few days later, we were listening to a CD with children's songs and there was a song with meowing and Charlotte meowed in response to the song.  Looks like we've got a cat person on our hands!