Posts tagged Charlotte

Recently, I’ve come to the realization that my first born is very much past her baby years and fully into her toddler years.  Actually…she might even be a border-line tween in my opinion!  She has really developed her own little sassy and sweet personality since she turned two.

Awhile back I did a post on “10 things you didn’t know about me”. I thought it would be fun to write a similar post about sweet Charlotte.  I’m curious to know if these are Charlotte-isms or if every toddler shares similar stories!

1.  Charlotte will NOT let anyone watch her shows with her.  Or dance with her.  Or sing with her.  She watches 1-2 episodes of Barney a day…and if we try and cuddle or even stay in the same ROOM as her, she yells ” Mommy No!” and points towards the door.  She is proving to be a little bossy already…

2.  For naps and bedtime, Charlotte HAS TO HAVE a little friend.  It started out with just one “friend” (teddy), but has quickly turned into a whole classroom full of “friends”: teddy, Rudolph,  Rudolph’s friend Clarice, a pretend lipstick, a little doll from China etc….

3.  During said “naps”, Charlotte will drop one of the friends out of her crib on purpose so I come in to get it.  This is in an attempt to delay any kind of rest, so today I decided no more friends at nap time.  As you can imagine, this created a huge meltdown.  Her naps have been awful!  So goodbye friends, hello sleep?  (Hopefully….) 

***update: as I’m finishing up this post, there is now SILENCE.  It worked!  No more friends at nap time!!***

4.  Every time I give CG any kind of dip at mealtime (peanut butter, ketchup, syrup etc) she ends up eating it all with her finger instead of actually dipping the food into it.  I started giving her these dips hoping she would eat a larger variety of food but NOPE!  Didn’t work.  Still a picky, picky eater.

5.  Charlotte loves saying prayers.  Every time we sit down for a meal she will fold her hands and say “pree??”.  She always helps with the prayer, and my favorite part is what I say “thank you for—-“.  Last night she answered with, “mommy, me, daddy, eddies (Ellie), toys and coat.”  It’s always different and SO cute.

6.  CG LOVES big girls.  We were at a restaurant the other night and a few 8 and 9 year old girls came in.  She pointed and shouted “GIRLS!”.  She idolizes them!  The rest of the dinner was spent with her spying on them and waving.  Sorry Charlotte, you will only have a little sister in life..no big sisters!

7.  I’ve mentioned this many times before…but my little girl does NOT LIKE leaving school.  She throws a fit 4 out of 5 times.  Last week, I let her stay for lunch in the hopes that she would be excited to see me since she stayed longer.  WRONG!  It was even worse…because she made a “big girl” friend.  The older girl tried bringing her over to me saying, “Your mommy is here!” and she ran away sobbing.  Am I that awful to be around?!?!  (kidding…I’m glad she loves school and I would rather have THIS problem than the opposite)

So—does my toddler seem pretty typical? Does anyone else share some of these toddler “quirks”?  I’m curious to know!!

Well, the month post is here.  The one that 10 months ago I thought about—because—Charlotte Grace and baby #2 are going to be 22 months apart.  That means baby #2 is almost here!

I have mixed feelings about writing this.  This is most definitely going to be the last month post I write for Charlotte as an only child.  22 months together—just us three.  It’s overwhelming to think about.

But—my 22 month old has grown and changed SO MUCH over the months!  Today, she is more independent than I could have ever imagined.  I look back to when she was only a year old, and she was SO clingy and such a mommy’s girl.  Now, she is in LOVE with her daddy, and warms up so easily to most family members and even new faces!  Especially the “big girls”.  Charlotte loves older “cool girls”, and it is so funny to see her admire them at church, on the playground and at restaurants.

Speaking of restaurants, Charlotte has been to quite a few recently.  She is hit or miss at a restaurant.  Most of the time she just wants to “get down” and run around and do her own thing.  But put a pizza and chocolate milk in front of her?  She will sit until it’s “all gone”!  Our girl is a typical toddler.  She loves junk food, and hates veggies (ugh).  Thank goodness for those Plum Organic veggie pouches!

Charlotte’s current favorites include Barney (still!), playing with all her “friends”: stuffed animals, teddy bears and baby dolls; puzzles, magnetic letters, sticker books, “make up”, her toy school bus and coloring.  She still loves books, and I read to her every night—but lately she has preferred to look at books on her own.  Just another part of her independence!

Something I don’t think I have mentioned here on P2P is that Charlotte is no longer a thumb sucker.  Just as fast as her thumb sucking came on at 4 months old, it suddenly disappeared.  I actually have a picture of the last time I remember her sucking her thumb about 2 months ago.  I think once her molars started coming in she just decided it didn’t feel good anymore!  Honestly?  It makes me really sad.  I feel like she has become a little girl right before my eyes, and I just LOVED her “sucky thumb”.  

And teeth?  She now has a whopping 11!  Ha!  They have been coming in pretty regularly recently, and she has been a really good sport about teething.  She is still a picky eater, but I’ve noticed she will take bigger bites and seems to not spit as much out because she has teeth to help.

More than anything else this month, we have seen a change in Charlotte’s personality.  She is SO expressive, and really knows what she wants and how she wants to get it.  I think this quality is an awesome one to have (even if it is tough for ME right now!), and she never fails to make us laugh on a long day.

Charlotte is the sweetest angel I’ve ever met.  Even with all the tantrums and battles we fight together almost daily—she is still my sweetheart.  I know our hearts will grow even more in the next few weeks as we add a baby to the family…but Charlotte made me a mommy, and I will never forget these 22 months we have had alone together. I love you, angel girl :)

Now that Charlotte is no longer a baby (tear…) and has her own personality, Andrew and I will sometimes stay up late at night talking about all the funny things she did all day long.

She is our form of entertainment.  Who needs cable?!

Some of our favorite “Charlotte-isms”:

• Charlotte loves Barney.  It’s a borderline obsession.  But her new favorite thing to do when Barney is on is to dance with the kids and actually dance to their routines!  I’m not kidding.  Charlotte will squat down and throw her arms up in the air just like the kids are doing.  She sways side to side and claps her hands on cue.  Could it be possible she will be better at picking up choreography than her “non-dancer” mama?!

• CG does a new thing, where if she is in a bad mood (and trust me….these happen almost daily around here!) she will close her eyes as if to say, “don’t look at me!”.  She knows I think it’s funny, so sometimes she will close her eyes and run across the room.  This was a bad idea, and the bump on her head shows it!

• We brought out CG’s old baby swing this weekend, and she is LOVING IT.  Unfortunately for me, I didn’t really want her to think it was for her own dolls so I only talked about using it for the new baby.  Well…about 20 mins after introducing the swing to her, I was in the kitchen and watched her take her baby doll and Barney doll, place them in the swing and start swinging it VERY roughly back and forth.  UGH!  But, I couldn’t help but smile as she then took the blankies and placed them on her friends, and “fed” them cheerios.  She is going to be an awesome big sis, but I may need to put the swing away and use something else once the real baby is here.

• The random cuddles.  These are SO sweet.  Sometimes I will be doing chores, or cooking dinner and all of a sudden I will feel the hug of a little person on my leg.  It’s the best.  I love that Charlotte loves her mama and dada so much—she is such a lovey girl, and makes me so proud! :)

The past few days have been a little “off”.  Every chance I’ve had to sit down and write a blog post, I’ve decided to nap instead.  I haven’t been feeling totally myself, and I thought it was pregnancy exhaustion…but when Andrew came home sick from work today and Charlotte spent a few hours up during the night crying—I’m starting to wonder if we are all coming down with something :(.

This weekend was fun.  So much fun, that I actually didn’t document much of anything with my camera!  Saturday during the day Charlotte and I went on a shopping date with my mom while Andrew was working (yes, on a Saturday…).  It was a hot day, and Charlotte was loving being outside, seeing all the people, and of course her favorite dog, Reilly.

She is so funny around her grandparents.  On Saturday she visited with both sets—what a lucky, spoiled little girl!  She was just so happy, laughing and running around.  It was a HUGE difference from Friday when she was super grumpy with me. I think she saves the bad behavior for her mom….no one else ever gets to see it!

Little Angel :)

Saturday night Charlotte stayed with her Grams and Grandpa while Andrew and I had a much needed date night.  We had not been out just the two of us since Valentines day—not even to go to the grocery store or run errands!  We ended up going to a burger and shake place called Burgatory.  Even though it was Cinco de Mayo…neither of us were in the mood for Mexican food, and since I can’t drink a margarita anyways so we opted to try something else.

We waited over an hour and half, but it was worth it!  We didn’t mind the wait, because it gave us time to catch up and relax.  It was so nice to have some time together. We have both been incredibly busy with school, work and life…we have not been prioritizing our own relationship.  We laughed, ate delicious food and took our time enjoying each others company.  AND Charlotte spent the night at my in-laws, so we even got the chance to sleep in (til 8:30!) on Sunday!

Nutella milkshake… amazing!

Sunday we enjoyed being outside in the gorgeous weather.  We spent the whole day together as a family, and walked and played in the park with our cutie.

I’m so thankful for laid back, family centered weekends.  I think that is just what we needed to re-group before another busy week :)  

Yesterday Charlotte got all dolled up for a date with Alex: 16 months.  Alex is the nephew of my childhood best friend “Uncle Jake”.

She was a little nervous at first…

And checked him out for awhile.  But hey—cool toys, cute kid—sure, why not?!

They played in the water—and Charlotte had a BLAST until she dumped water all over herself.  A little embarrassed on her first date!

But Alex took her hand, and told her he thought she was pretty anyways :)

Charlotte gave him a big hug, and decided this might work out afterall!

Cheers to a great first date!

Let’s do it again sometime—ok?