pigtails and picture books

After two years of infancy, Charlotte Jane is finally starting to look like a toddler.  The pigtails help with that, but she has also gotten taller and much sturdier in the past six weeks.  It must be a growth spurt or something!  Despite the fact that she is still wearing size 9 - 12 month clothes, she is looking more her age.

She has recently developed a love of "reading," which consists mainly of pulling every book off the shelf, flipping through a few pages, tossing that book, digging through the stack for another, and repeating the process.  She especially loves books that can be sung to her ... Hush Little Baby, Twinkle, Twinkle, and Hickory, Dickory Dock are her favorites.

Yep, there's no denying that she is most certainly behaving like a toddler.

And, folks, toddlerhood is exhausting.  Why didn't someone remind me of that?

Having a toddler  is also a lot of fun!  Charlotte is so funny.  She cracks herself up ... and I laugh along.   She smiles with her whole face and has the best giggle!

Just today she found a pair of Natalie's sunglasses ... made faces in the mirror and played peek-a-boo ... just so pleased with herself!  I managed to catch her in the glasses ... with her mouth wide open!

camouflage

This morning NHV came into our room - as she does most every morning - and hung out while Chad and I were "transitioning" from blissful sleep to the realities of caring for two young children for 12 hours straight.  Trust me, it requires a transition.

Anyway, our sweet four year old was sitting on the floor chatting away ... telling us about her dreams from the night before, asking about our plans for the day, ... the usual onslaught of NHV banter.

For about 30 seconds it got quiet.

And then we heard, "Mommy.  I picked a booger from my nose because it was giving me a distracting feeling."

To which I replied, "Well, where did you put this booger?"

"On the carpet."

Yuck!  "You need to get a tissue for that booger."

"But I can't see it.  It's the same color as the carpet.  It's a camouflage booger!"

Chad is laughing hysterically at this point.

And I would much rather be sleeping than having this conversation, so I reply, "The fact that there's a booger wiped on the carpet is giving me a distracting feeling!"

At least I can safely say that Natalie has a firm grasp on the concept of camouflage, which is a survival strategy ... so that's a good thing, right?

Now I need to go vacuum and hope to capture a cleverly disguised booger!

the fruit snack incident

CJV has recently developed an appetite for fruit snacks.
You know those little pouches of chewy, gelatin-like "fruit" snacks.
She loves them ... like she once loved yogurt melts.
It's serious.  The sight of a fruit snack pouch makes her so very happy!

Which is awesome.  Except today, I made a mistake.

I opened the pouch and dumped the fruit snacks onto the high chair tray.

I thought I was doing her a favor.
I thought wrong.

She flipped out!  And Charlotte doesn't ever really flip out.
But she was not happy with my actions and did a good job of expressing it.

And since it was {clearly} my fault, I quickly picked up each one and put them back into the pouch.  Once she noticed what I was doing, she started to calm down and just watched.

{I should've known she as formulating a plan of her own.}

I handed her the {newly filled} fruit snack pouch.

She smiled that fabulous full-face smile of hers.

And then she turned that pouch upside down and proceeded to dump the fruit snacks onto her tray.

Note to self. Charlotte wants to be the one to dump her fruit snacks onto her tray. What was I thinking?!

She handed me the now empty pouch and said, "Yucky!"

Which was her way of saying, "Could you be a doll and throw this away for me?"

She also repeated my directions, "chew, chew," before she popped a fruit snack in her mouth.

I LOVE that sassy little peanut of mine!

sweet charlotte jane

 i found my sweet two year old at the top of the stairs

playing with big sister's dollies

and, boy, was she pleased with herself!

she was also plenty pleased

to see me ... and my camera ... "cheese!"

and then she sang a little

dolly song ... la, la, la ...

oops!  the dollies fell down ... and 

I could swear she said, "ashes, ashes"

and I know that was followed by 

"uh-oh" and "sorry"

charlotte is going down, too

love this booty-scoot she does!

one last sweet (yet aloof) pose