Well Babies

Charlotte and Happy had their well child visits last week.  Here are the deets in tabular form.

	Charlotte	Abigail
Age	3 years	5 months
Height	36.5 inches	26 inches
Weight	36 lb	12 lb 12 oz
Likes	reading books eating Play Doh drawing and painting running with daddy	Charlotte Toonces eating wiggling around laughing
Dislikes	having her hair brushed having her hair washed pooping on the potty	sleeping during the day

Jesus: Found.... And Apparently He Needs a Nap

Much like a bottemless cup of wine, the Baby Jesus in front of our neighbor Mary's house is the gift that keeps on giving.

A little background here.  Let me go waaaaay back with this background.  All the way back to one of my favorite movie scenes ever.  The first 30 seconds of this clip I could watch everyday, if I had the time.

Emily and I once toyed with making lists like this for ourselves.  But we found it was too hard to do because the small soothing things we like are so embedded in our day-to-day life, it is impossible to tease them out.  But when I made my list I came up with the following: 

new, warm socks

turning north onto River Road off of 42nd street at the start of a run

the first drink of beer after the first bite of a quality hamburger

maps, anywhere, anytime

found objects

I have a need to look at all found objects on walks.  About five years ago I was walking Pancho by Mary's house and I found a piece of notebook paper in front of her street.  It turns out someone had stolen their baby Jesus (mean).  Mary's daughter was seven-ish at that time and made a LOST sign for Jesus, the same way we make signs for our lost pets, complete with a description and picture of the missing Jesus.  So it just said, "LOST: JESUS" followed by a blurb about how he was two feet all and made of plastic, and then the rest of the paper was devoted to a giant drawing of what the plastic Jesus looked like, as best as a 7 year-old can draw it with a #2 pencil.  I imagine she pinned it to the telephone pole by their house, but did a crappy 7 year-old job of doing so.  As a result it ended up in the street and then in my possession.  

"LOST: JESUS" in the midst of the commercialized Christmas season.  It was brilliant.

Well, Mary (the neighbor) never found Jesus.  Instead Mary the neighbor just bought another Biblical Mary, only Mary the neighbor's new Biblical Mary is holding the Jesus, and it's all one molded piece.  And for some reason the type of guy who wants to steal a baby Jesus has no interest in stealing a Mary holding Jesus.  And this is good for me and Charlotte, Jesus, as tired as he must be in Charlotte's world, remains unstolen and in our life.

Today as we were driving home (Baby Jesus now gets drive-by shoutouts in addition to all the attention we give him on our walks) Charlotte said, "Oh nooooo!  Baby Jesus crying.  Baby Jesus go night-night.  Night night Baby Jesus."

The plastic Baby Jesus on 45th Ave S and 42nd Street: bringing laughter and joy to the Nawrocki household since 2004.

2 Year Well Baby Visit

Charlotte had her 2 year old check up.  She is 35 inches tall and 29 pounds.   Now that she is walking, she is starting to slim down a little.  She can even wear skinny jeans now.  I got her some super cute purple ones. 

Charlotte is becoming such a little person.  She has lots of preferences, but is still the easy-going baby we know and love.

Likes:

• any fruit, if she could she would eat nothing but fruit and pancakes
• playing outside
• pushing her doll stroller
• taking her plastic dog for a walk
• reading in bed
• music
• playing with diapers
• balloons
• Nacho, Toones, Poncho
• bathtime
• cooking
• doing dishes
• going to the coffee shop
• brushing teeth

Dislikes:

• most green vegetables
• being told what to do
• getting her hair brushed or washed
• drinking from a regular cup, unless it is in the bathtub

Likes and Dislikes at 16 Months

Charlotte is 16 months now.  She is still butt-scooting all over the place.  In the last week, she started crawling in the more traditional fashion aaaannnndddd she has been pulling herself up on furniture.  Looks like we have to baby proof for real now.   We've been so spoiled!  Since she is still butt-scooting for her main mode of transportation, she always looks so small and short.  Seeing her pull herself up on the coffee table or in her crib it is kind of shocking to see how tall she is!  It's fun to watch her be so physical.  She gets into some funny predicaments.  This morning we were visiting a new day care and she was trying to climb on top of this activity center that was under a piano bench and she got kind of wedged in there.

Likes:

• saying hi and bye never gets old
• frozen mango (mommy likes this too, we share)
• music
• outings - she gets really excited when we get her coat out to go anywhere
• when daddy runs around really fast with her in his arms
• looking at books
• taking baths
• pancakes
• climbing on stuff (low stuff)
• Throwbackjamz
• taking the newspaper out of the recycling basket and spreading it around
• being outside

Dislikes:

• green vegetables (exception - broccoli with stir fry sauce)
• drinking from a cup (she is being kind of stubborn about this one)
• waiting for food

Likes and Dislikes

Haven't done likes and dislikes for a while!

Like

Likes:

• saying hi
• saying hi again
• scooting around on her butt like this (but she's much faster now!)
• looking at books
• taking books off the bookshelf
• fruit
• beans
• singing
• music
• feeding herself
• outside

Dislikes:

• green vegetables
• having her diaper changed, especially on the changing station*
• when it is time to put away the musical instruments at music class
• having her hands messed with
• drinking from a cup

* Charlotte's dislike of the changing station may have something to do with an unfortunate accident a couple weeks ago.  I was getting her dressed and digging in the drawer for some socks and in a flash she rolled right off and landed in the drawer!   I shrieked!  And Mike came running up the stairs.  Charlotte was unharmed, thanks to the soft landing in the clothes drawer, but she was rightfully scared.  I was traumatized.  It kept flashing before my eyes the rest of the weekend.  Now I change her on the floor.

10 Months

Name:  Charlotte Nawrocki

Height:  28 1/2 inches

Weight:  21 pounds

Last seen:  wearing a onesie

Likes:  

• playing with stacking cups
• splashing in the tub, pool, or lake
• going for walks
• listening to music
• talking
• feeding herself
• sitting in the grass
• swinging
• books
• Nacho, Toonces, and Poncho

Dislikes:

• being fed with a spoon
• having her arms monkeyed with (i.e. pulled through sleeves)

Happiest Baby on the Block

Actually, Charlotte was the only baby on the block until a few weeks ago.  But seriously, she is a very happy baby.  She loves to play, and eat, and talk, and take a bath, and go for walks, and read books.

Superbaby!  

Any self-respecting child born in the aughties needs to know about digital self-portraits.

Me, with my new bifocals.  I am officially old.

8 Months

Charlotte is 8 months old!  She is living up to her nickname, Superchunk, weighing in at 18 pounds and just under 27 inches.  That's between the 25th and 50th percentiles in case you were wondering.  This girl loves to eat - cereal, sweet potatoes, carrots, avocado, banana, pears, peas, rutabega, blueberries, squash, apples, black beans, spinach, turkey, chicken and combinations of any of the preceding foods.  The only things she has refused so far are greens with brown rice and turnips.  She also eats these crackers called Baby Mum Mums that look like surfboards and taste like rice cakes.

Working on a Mum Mum

Our girl is doing all kinds of grown up things now.  She has been sleeping through the night for a while.   She will usually sleep from about 7 pm to 6 am.  It is so awesome!   We are a well-rested family now!   She can sit for a little while before she wobbles over.  She can roll over, but I can't tell if she is doing it on purpose.  Charlotte is such a laid back, happy baby and she doesn't seem to be in a hurry to get anywhere.  She is happy to lay on a blanket with her Indestructibles books.   She also enjoys playing with scarves by waving them around and lifting them in front of her face.  Then she removes the scarf and gives you a big grin.  Charlotte also enjoys being outside, going for walks, listening to music and babbling.

It's Chow Time

Charlotte 6 months old in her birthday chair.

We recently started solids with Charlotte.  Like good new parents, we took oodles of pictures and made a video, but then our home computer was out of commission for a couple weeks and we couldn't share them until now.  Here are some pictures from Charlotte's first meal of rice cereal.

Before.

 

After.

She really seemed to enjoy the process of eating, but wasn't so sure about swallowing.  In fact, she did this trick a few times.  After a few successful days of rice cereal we branched out to avocado.   You can't tell in this picture but it was a big hit.  Since then, we have also tried sweet potatoes, which she liked so much that she was angry that I wasn't feeding her fast enough.

Likes and Dislikes

To borrow a page from my friend Cathy's blog, I'm going to list our little girl's likes and dislikes.

Likes

• smiles
• sitting in her swing
• batting toys on her activity mat, especially Mr Sun
• grabbing Mr Sun's earrings
• when Mike sings the Gambler
• when Em tries to sing Rainbow Connection
• being held
• being walked around
• her babysitters, Tana and Bubbe
• Tana's son Ryder
• Zantac
• her pacifier
• shiny things
• to stare at art on the walls
• TV (she has sneaked a few glances)
• Aunt Jessie's singing voice
• putting her hand in her mouth

Mr Sun

Dislikes

• baths
• being put in her carseat
• sleeping by herself
• falling asleep
• wearing a hat