Happy Baby

Superchunk shows off her yoga skills.

Scooter

Remember when Charlotte butt-scooted everywhere?  

Well, she still scoots quite a bit, but it won't be long until she is walking.  She has been standing on her own and even dancing!  It's exciting for us.  People always say things like, "oh, enjoy it while it lasts!  Before you know it she'll be walking!"  Believe me, we have enjoyed having a baby who is not super mobile for almost 20 months.  I don't take for granted that it's relatively easy to get ready for work while she sits and plays or only scoots into the kitchen and back.  We haven't even put up baby gates yet.  This week she started climbing the stairs so I guess it's time to do that!  She's 28 pounds now - at music class when we have to stand up for a song I groan.  We're savoring the end of butt scooting and ready for the next developments!

She Can Stand!

Baby Jail

Charlotte has been enjoying the warm weather.  She always asking to go outside.  She always manages to find something to play with.

Things you can play with that are not toys.

Bubble Tea at Hmong Village

Future Rock Star?

Zach juxtaposed these images

I hope not.  As someone who might be described as a nerd, I highly recommend it.  Seriously.  Although, I also recommend the grunge fashion.  Please be in style again when Charlotte is a teenager!

What a Baby

Remember when we went to the pediatric neurologist a few weeks ago?  I forgot that I took this picture of her getting her blood pressure taken.  She was not happy about it.  At the time, I thought, "what if this is the beginning of some journey?  I should document this!"  Well, it was not (knock wood).   And this is the only picture I took of the appointment.  But they did take a full set of vitals and it has been a while since I posted those so here goes:  18 months, 28 pounds; 30.5 inches (this HAS to be wrong, that would mean she has not grown since like 12 months, plus she was squirming around like crazy).

Stand in the Place Where You Live

Charlotte stood on her own over the weekend and all she wants to do is practice.  You should see her face when she does it.  She is so happy.  A couple times she even said "yah!" and clapped when she fell down.  I got a great video I will upload later.  

The Language Explosion, part II



This mobile lives at the National Gallery of Art

The other night, Charlotte was  looking at a book of Calder mobiles and she said, "look at these!"   That's right, a three word phrase. And it made sense.

Two Generations of Parkers

My Uncle Dick turned 70 this weekend.  Some family came to town to celebrate the big birthday.  It is also the Art-A-Whirl and my aunt Mary Jo has a painting featured at Flow Art Space.  How cool.  I want to be like her when I grow up.  We still refer to the aunts and uncles as "the grown ups" even though us kids are all grown up too.  Eight of us cousins grew up together in Minnesota.  All girls.  Even though there are 16 years between the oldest (me) and youngest (Hannah), now that we are all grown up, it's kind of like we are the same age.  It is crazy to think that one day WE will be the grown ups.  For now, we just want to get a picture of all us with our babies.  Finally, today all the babies were awake at the same time so we could get a picture.  But one of the new grown ups is missing. Where is Hannah?

Hannah and Bailey

Baby Mae

Oscar and Liam

Word Up

In the last two weeks, Charlotte has had the language explosion.  A couple weeks ago, we actually counted how many words she has.  It's a long story.  Our pediatrician was concerned that Charlotte is not walking yet so she wanted us to see a pediatric neurologist.  It was kind of a waste of time, because he barely even examined her and then concluded that there is nothing wrong with her and she "marches to the beat of her own drum" and will walk when she is ready.  On the way home from the appointment, we were talking about how our baby is actually a genius, a non-walking 19 month old genius!  Sooo, we counted how many words she had and the number was 30.  Since then, she has added new words and phrases everyday.  She has recently shown interest in her baby doll and putting the baby to bed and saying, "night night baby."  She has always requested music, but now she requests specific songs - she says, "music cows" when she wants to hear this song about cows from the Philadelphia Chickens CD.

 listen here

Last week I gave her a cup of water and she said, "agua."  She picked up a little Spanish from the guest babysitters.  She asks to go "outside" all the time, and if we mention outside and she overhears she starts to whine, kind of like Poncho.  She says "thank you" all the time.  I am so proud.  She also says "mmm please" which could mean more please or me please, I am not sure.  And of course, she says no a lot!

Happiness

Mug Shot

She put the blue washable marker in her mouth.

Adventures in Babysitting

A few weeks ago, the woman who runs our daycare broke her arm and had a concussion so she needed to take a few weeks of to recover.  Charlotte has been going somewhere different everyday, which has been hard on her.  There were many days without a nap.  She got to spend a few days with her friend, Ziggy.  Fortunately for Charlotte and us, a couple of my friends volunteered to help out some of the days.  Charlotte got to know some new friends, Alma and Noah.  I think everyone had fun, even without naps.  We are beyond grateful to our friends who took care of Charlotte the last couple weeks.  I feel lucky to have friends who were willing and able to help us out.



Alma, Noah, and Charlotte



Walking Alma to school

 
Friday, Charlotte spent the day at Miriam's house, where she slept over for our big date night in February.  Miriam's house is like the Children's Museum - it has places to climb, lots of things to play with like a play kitchen with food and a room full of train tracks. 

Charlotte had fun with her new friends, but I think she is ready to get back to her routine.  Tomorrow she will go back to her daycare and hopefully she will take a nap!

A happy Charlotte

** pictures provided by the babysitters **