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 **