Charlotte loves many things, including eating outside whenever possible. She prefers the front yard and my suspicion is because it means the girls from across the street or next door may come out to see us. Charlotte is too shy to seek them out herself but social enough to want to see the kids on the block. In the meantime, this is a pretty typical breakfast scene for Charlotte on a non-school day.
Charlotte also loves our pets, especially Pancho. But she has become very attached to all three over the years. Yesterday she said "Pancho is a good boy. He's my best friend. Take a picture of me and my doggy." So I did.
And now that she claims Pancho is her doggie, she can start picking up his poop and pay for his vet bills. That reminds me, we're out of heart worm medicine for July. To the vet!
Charlotte and I were driving in the car yesterday and we were stopped a traffic light near our house, the hated 42nd and 42nd light. A fellow citizen was out walking his dog.
CHARLOTTE: That a daddy.
ME: What's he doing?
CHARLOTTE: Walking his doggie.
ME: Yeah. That's a really nice looking dog. It's called a golden retriever.
CHARLOTTE: It a golden treever.
ME: And Pancho is kind of a black lab.
CHARLOTTE: Pancho wear a black lab.
ME: No. He IS a black lab. That's the kind of dog he is.
CHARLOTTE: He wear a black lab.
ME: Okay, that dog IS a golden retriever. Pancho IS a black lab.
(five second pause)
CHARLOTTE: Pancho have a black lab on.
Thankfully the light finally turned green at this point and our conversation shifted to that.
A few months ago the art teacher at work came by my office and asked me for some manila folders. I don't know how life is for teachers in other schools, but we pretty much have to buy all of our own supplies aside from computers and paper for copying and printing. So it is a bigger favor than you'd expect for me to give her a stack manila folders. I gave her a stack in the name of a happy workplace and as a thank you, the next day, she gave me a stack of Hello Kitty books for Charlotte. And by "gave me," I mean unloaded on me yet another stack of random crap she has and is trying to get rid of. Pretty good trade: I'll give you the trash I was about to take out for those folders you'll eventually need and bought with your own time and money.
So I brought the books home and didn't think much of it until.... Charlotte found them and fell in love with them.... and Emily and I quickly hated them. I can allow for the text in the book to be horrible because the books are meant for emerging readers. Like Emily says, a computer probably wrote them. But a computer also drew them. It is the crappy artwork that drives me batty. And the art teacher gave me the bleeping books. Irony.
Alas, the books remain. And Charlotte continues to loop back to them and want to look at them nonstop for two or three days straight before moving on to the next step in her book cycle. This morning, Emily and Charlotte read the timeless classic Hide-and-Seek six times while I was out running. It is probably no coincidence she has insisted on wearing her Hello Kitty boots for the rest of the day.
Later Charlotte and I went to Seward Co-op which is still her favorite place on earth. When we got home, Pancho wanted to go outside and Charlotte did not want to come inside. So I left the two of them out there while I put the groceries away. Five minutes later, Pancho and Charlotte were on the deck together. I wanted to show how one of them could self-entertain and the other was co-dependent. I had this whole post in mind about dogs, toddlers, and how seeing the two of them together made me miss Adria. We used to debate at what age a toddler becomes smarter than Pancho. Anytime one of her grandchildren would exhibit a new skill she would ask me in a very self-assured tone, "So, now who is smarter?" And I'd always find a way to show how Pancho was still smarter. To see Charlotte talking away, playing independently, and co-dependent Pancho doing nothing but starting at the door, I was going to give a tip of the hat to Adria. I was going to use the video to acknowledge that it is clear that Charlotte has surpassed Pancho's intelligence across the board. It's okay Pancho, you're still smarter than the cats.
But then around 20 seconds into the video, something kind of funny happened. Charlotte had no idea I was filming her. I could here her saying "Hide and seek. Hide and seek" (I am not sure if this is audible in the clip below) before poking her head from one side of the support beam on the deck to the other, as if it were a tree, and saying "It is me." The close observer will note that this is exactly what the stupid dog (and all the other stupid Hello Kitty friends) is doing in Hide and Seek. This is the first time I've seen her act out a scene from a book.
And so the Hello Kitty books remain in our library.
Charlotte is beginning to use synonyms on a regular basis. I can't remember all of them, but most are animal related. However, there is at least one exception. Charlotte has three different terms for this thing:
trash
garbage
naughty dog
As you can guess, Pancho and I have teamed up to teach her that last term. Pancho does his part by getting into the trash while we are all away. I do my part by telling him he is a naughty dog as Charlotte and I clean up the mess he made when we get home. Between Charlotte, Pancho, and me, only one of us finds this fun... or funny.
In fact Charlotte thinks this is so funny, she will start laughing and saying "Naughty dog. Naughty dog" while we are on the back deck approaching the house hoping that we have a mess to clean up. Monday I told Charlotte, "Pancho is not a naughty dog. He's a good dog," feeling guilty that Pancho is getting labled and profiled. But then I saw the trash all over the kitchen floor and told Charlotte, "Nope, you're right. He's a naughty dog." In Charlotte's world this is hilarity worthy of deep belly laughs. Now whenever she passes the garbage can she will let me know it is either "trash" or "garbage" and tack on a "naughty dog" for good measure.
A few weeks back (the week of November 4th to be exact) Charlotte went through a three day stretch where she insisted her baby doll (that her Suze got her) wear Charlotte's pajamas. The result was a baby who walked the fine line between looking ridiculous and looking creepy.
Unfortunately I was never able to get a good picture of Charlotte holding the creepy ridiculousness, but then one lazy Sunday morning we were hanging out and she decided all her favorite dolls/stuffed animals should sit on the rocking chair. So hopefully this video does the doll justice. You can also see try to give Pancho his toy even though he is nowhere to be seen and meow at the cat. Like I said, it was a lazy Sunday morning.
Day two of my gradual release of all of Charlotte's birthday videos. This video is from Thursday. Charlotte is discovering the concepts of presents in this video. As a result, the process is long and drawn out, but some highlights happen along the way.
1. She scolds Nacho for being Nacho, just like I do. She lets the dog in.
2. She sees me filming her with my phone and comes over to it saying "Charlotte" because she wants to see pictures of herself. Right around three minutes I give her the phone. Her first movie she has ever filmed. It's a stupid movie. Boring, plotless, and poolry shot. Mercifully this tour de force is only about five seconds long. Then we look at Nacho being filmed on the phone WHILE looking at Nacho right in front of us and Charlotte's mind explodes. Well if it did, she keeps her feelings close to her vest. If only she could be so stoic when Emily brushes her hair or I give her sweet potatoes instead of squash.
3. One of the presents (from Beth, Justin, and Hannah) she treats like a step and says "big step" as she walks all over it. Like I said, she is still figuring out the concepts of presents.
4. Our house is messy. We should clean it up today.
So the package arrived two days ago, but since Charlotte marches to the beat of her own, slower than Christmas, drummer, she is opening one or two presents a day. All the videos I shot are pretty funny but I am biased. This one is long.... perhaps the kind of length only a father could love. More such unedited videos to come.
Emily had a good idea this afternoon. We got out one of our sleds, filled it with water, and let Charlotte splish and splash in it. Maybe this is just something all Minnesotans with babies know to do with sleds in the summer. Regardless, Charlotte liked swimming in a sled a lot more than Pancho liked the bath I gave him after filling Charlotte's sled with water. But as you can tell, both were happy as can be when the hose was finally turned off.
And as you can see below, Charlotte and Pancho now have a common ground to base their budding friendship on. They both have a shared interest in sticks. I had to take Charlotte's stick away from her when she tried to put in her mouth, but let Pancho chew on his. I figured it was a good teaching moment for Charlotte to learn that life isn't fair.
Sumer weather has finally kicked into full gear here in Minnesota! I feel so fortunate to have a job I love that gives me a schedule I love even more. I am really looking forward to the time I will spend with Charlotte. I really want to focus on keeping our days simple and linear. And I also want to focus on keeping them outdoors.
This next picture is one of the rare times I've been able to get Pancho to sit or lie next to Charlotte. When she was a newborn he quickly became protective of her. And around the house he has become more protective of our house, barking a lot more at people and dogs passing by, and guarding the entrance to whatever room we are in. He still does that, but he chooses not to interact with Charlotte. He is more focused on the attention I give her. Pancho doesn't seem resentful, just kind of bummed.
But I have already started working with Charlotte and Pancho to make sure that they are indeed good friends when the time comes. He will learn that Charlotte is the biggest blessing a dog could ask for on the Throw Me A Ball and Give Me A Treat fronts. I think the walks and trips to the park we take together this summer will also help a lot. I mean heck, look how happy he was this morning.
Now that we all live under one roof, I am on paternity leave, and we found the cord to upload our photos from the digital camera, I have the time and means to get caught up with the blog. As a result, I just cranked out five posts to get caught up with news from the last week. Also, Emily posted a picture this morning. So that's six posts on one day. Sorry for the onslaught of posts. I guess when blogging, I pace myself the same way Charlotte does when feeding off the bottle. Glug glug glug glug glug glug. Post post post...
We made it the river and back. Good for a one mile round trip. Charlotte stayed warm. Emily stayed energetic. And Pancho stayed patient. Right after this picture, we bumped into one of Emily's co-worker, who is a pediatrician. He had no concerns.
Three of my favorite living beings (Pancho, Charlotte, and Emily--not that guy on a bike although I'm sure he's good people too). Doesn't Emily look great? In a week winter will make it's debut so we are going to get out with Charlotte as much as we can this week.
We are finally home with Charlotte. As I type this Emily is napping with her, if you define napping as getting mad at the cats every two minutes for snooping around Charlotte.
I am off to Gladys' house to get Pancho and introduce him to the newest member of the zoo crew. Gladys is the dog of our friend Doug and Erin, so technically it's their house. So there is a lot of good information on how to bring a baby into the house for the first time when you have a dog, but not a whole lot to go on in terms of bringing the dog into the house when the baby got their first. I have a plan though.
I wonder whose world will be rocked more: Pancho's or Charlotte's?
