Oblivious Per Usual

Charlie was, as usual, oblivious when I tried to explain to him this morning that we were going on a trip tomorrow:
ME: "Charlie, we're going to get on an airplane tomorrow and go visit Aunt Mandy and Uncle Joel and Cousin Ben and Cousin Rebecca tomorrow, for Thanksgiving."
CHARLIE: (watching tv) "Look at that monkey!"
ME: "So you're not going to school tomorrow; we're going to get up early and go have a fun weekend with your cousins."
CHARLIE: "That monkey's grumpy! Mama look at that grumpy monkey!"
Well, as usual, I tried.

Oversight

Today, it turned out, was the daycare's Thanksgiving day dinner. To say I "forgot" that it was today is a little bit of an overstatement, because while I did take note at some point in the last month that the daycare had an upcoming thanksgiving day dinner, it did not register with me enough to actually forget.

So, since I a) didn't send anything in for it and b) sent Charlie with his usual lunch, his teacher assumed that I did not want him to have the thanksgiving day dinner, most likely because of some (phantom) allergy related reason. So while the other children got to partake of turkey and stuffing and all the fixings my poor kid got a turkey lunchable.

Oh well, I suppose he is still too young to be scarred by it...

Snails Continued

Charlie continues on about snails in his crib, for the third day in a row. Last night he moved briefly on to spiders, but tonight he is solidly back on snails, and elaborated when I put him to bed tonight: "Bugs in my mouth, Mama."

I am beginning to wonder if I need to change his sheets...?

Fresh

Today Charlie said to Mike, in response to some comment or other of his: You're fresh! You're a fresh boy!"

Snails

Charlie is forever coming up with new and innovative ways to keep us all sleep deprived. His latest, which kept us all up from midnight to almost 4am last night and which he continues to run with tonight, is that there are snails in his crib that are biting him. This has necessitated multiple occasions of taking everything out of his crib to show him that there are no snails, and multiple reminders that snails don't even have teeth.

Wish us luck tonight -- we all need sleep!!

Photo Shoot

Haircuts and Portraits

This morning we got Charlie's hair cut in preperation for pictures this afternoon; having his hair cut, it appears, continues to rank right up there with getting shots -- he cried the whole time despite being bribed with lollipops.

He enjoyed his photo shoot considerably more (see above pictures). He was very happy to climb up on the stage and pose for the camera ("Cheese!" he would say whenever he was asked to smile.) The main problem seemed to be the holding still part -- the photographer would get him situated and then would come at him with her feather "tickler" in hopes of getting him to smile. Charlie, however, would shriek, get up and run. We did, however, manage to get a few good shots.

Eating Like a Bird

After our allergy appointment this morning we bought lunch and headed over to my old job to eat with my former co-workers. I had bought Charlie a grilled cheese sandwhich and myself a greek salad with tunafish and balsamic dressing. Charlie decided, of course, that he would much rather have my salad than his sandwhich, so we sat together sharing it.

This turned out to be much to the amusement of my co-workers because Charlie does not actually like salad -- he is more a fan of the dressing -- so his eating salad meant that he would put a bite in his mouth, chew it up, and then regurgitate it right back into the salad, which I continued to blithely eat.

It was, they noted, like a mother bird feeding her baby, except in reverse.

The Allergist

So while my agenda for Charlie's allergy appointment this morning was to have Charlie re-tested for his egg allergy, it turns out the allergist had a completely different agenda. Namely, that Charlie needed to get his MMR vaccine, which has eggs in some way, shape or form in it. This, apparently, was more important than re-testig him for his egg allergy, which I was reminded was a severe allergy. ("What," the allergist asked, "happens when he is exposed to eggs?" "Nothing!" I replied for the one milliionth time.)

It turns out that getting your MMR vaccine when you are supposedly allergic to eggs is a big deal. They first had to give Charlie a skin test to see if he reacted to the MMR vaccine, which involved poking him with a little bit of the MMR vaccine (or the antigens or antibodies to it, or something), a control prick, and then a prick of histamine. Charlie did not like this procedure at all because, aside from all the pricking, the histamine produced a large itchy hive. Once they ascertained that Charlie had not reacted to the MMR vaccine, you would think they could then go ahead and give him the shot, right? Nope. They then proceeded to dilute the vaccine and give it to him in 3 stages (read 3 different shots) with a half hour wait in between each shot and again after the last one, apparently still looking for a life threatening reaction.

By the end of it poor Charlie was pretty much beside himself, depsite the lollipops administered after each shot and the promise of Dunkin Donuts afterwards.

As for whether or not we will ever get the OK to give Charlie eggs? Who knows.

Weekend Activities

This week my "weekend" is friday and saturday, because I am working sunday so I can take the friday after thanksgiving off without having to use a personal day.

So I am kicking off my weekend tomorrow by taking Charlie to the allergist. The allergist grudgingly agreed at our last appointment that we could re-test Charlie for his egg allergy after he turned two, probably just to get me off her back, seeing as our last appointment we went around in circles. (Allergist: "Charlie will never outgrow his egg allergy unless you completely elimintae eggs from his diet until he turns atleast 5 or 6." Me: "Charlie has never had an allergic reaction to eggs or anything with eggs in it." Allergist: "But if you don't atleast try to significantly limit his exposure he'll never outgrow the allergy." Me: "But he's never...") Please wish for me that tomorrow's appointment is somehow more productive.

Saturday we are taking Charlie to get his hair cut in the morning and then for professional pictures in the afternoon in his new holiday duds so we can get our christmas cards made and sent out in a timely fashion this year. Wish us luck with that endeavor too.

Mom Of The Year

Last night Charlie slept terribly -- he was up from 12am to 3am straight. He has a cough that woke him up, and once awake he was shrieking, playing, and generally carrying on noisily in his crib. I had given him Childrens Dimetapp before bed and it hadnt done anything at all, so I resorted to Vicks Vapo Rub. Two seconds after I rubbed it on his chest, Charlie started yelling:
CHARLIE: "Take it off! Take it off! Hurting my chest! Too hot! Too cold!"
ME: "Do you want more?"
CHARLIE: "No!!"
ME: "Then go to sleep!!"

Not exactly one of my finer moments as a mother.

Contrary

There is no other word to describe Charlie this evening. After a rough night of sleep last night and not much of a nap at daycare today (both thanks to bad dreams and a cough) he was in quite a state by dinnertime tonight. Dinner itself was an ordeal:
CHARLIE: (picking at his spaghetti and meatballs) "Don't want this. Want sandwhich."
Then, two minutes after I place a turkey sandwhich in front of him and he has painstakingly picked it apart and eaten none of it: "Don't want this. Want chicken nuggets." Then, 30 seconds after I place chicken nuggets in front of him: "Don't want this. Want cookies."

Nice try.

Charlie the Menace

Charlie was an accident waiting to happen today, even more so than usual. I didn't even get to witness most of it, because I worked and got home with only 2 1/2 hours to go till bedtime. But in those 2 1/2 hours Charlie outdid himself.

When I got home he was trying to hop up and down on one foot in front of an Elmo video. Unfortunately Charlie does not know how to hop up and down on one foot. He kept accidentally hopping up and down on *no* feet -- basically leaping up in the air and crashing down on his bottom.

After dinner Charlie decided he was going to play on his slide -- i.e climb to the top of it and swan dive off of it into his ball pit. Then he decided to make things interesting by climbing to the top of the slide, turning around, and keeling over backwards off his slide. I had to catch him and drag him away from the slide, enticing him with a game of kickball, which I erroneously thought would be safer.

About two minutes into the game Charlie dove for the ball and crashed head first into his toool bench. I felt a wave of Mommy guilt for luring Charlie away from the slide only to have him hurt himself anyway.

At that point I decided it was time to go upstairs to start his tubby. I turned the water on and left the bathroom for one nanosecond to throw Charlie's socks in his hamper, only to hear "AAAAAAAHHHH!" coming from the bathroom. I rushed back in time to see Charlie's feet sticking out of the tub; he had leaned over the side to get a toy and toppled in.

As soon as I fished him out he bolted out of the room. "Play catch you!" he yelled, wanting me to chase him. He promptly ran headlong into a laundry basket on my bedroom floor and went sprawling.

At this point I marveled that not only did we not end up in the ER tonight, but we never have.

I'm sure I just jinxed myself.

Rainy Saturday

Aka boring post.

It has been rainy and windy all day today. Charlie miraculously slept until 7am and then cuddled relatively quietly in bed with us until eight, watching Curious George. We didn't manage to get out of our pjs until almost 11am, when we decided to go to Kids Club FunLand, the only indoor playground in the area (you would think with sucky Massachusetts winters there would be more, but no.) Charlie had a fun time playing ski ball -- anything that involves throwing balls is right up his alley -- and playing in the tunnel gym. Unfortunately he is not quite at the stage where he will go in entirely without one of us -- he would climb in and disappear, only to start yelling a few minutes later: "MOMMA!!! MOMMA!! DADDY!" where upon one of us would have to climb in in search of him, only to find him perfectly fine. "What you doing in here?" he actually asked me once, after I came in after him. Ummm, coming in after you because you were screaming your head off for me, derr.

Now Charlie is down for a nap and we are contemplating going out for Mexican food when he wakes up, taking a walk to the restaurant if the weather cooperates.

Big Butts

This evening in the car Charlie was singing along with one of his childrens' cds when all of a sudden he said, "Mommy, I want to sing Big Butts! I want Big Butts!"

Oops -- which one of us was it that got him listening to Sir Mix A Lot?

Dreams Of A Two Year Old

Charlie woke up sobbing last night -- I went into his room to comfort him and he explained, "Bad dream Mama -- someone pushing me!"

Poor kiddo. I suppose it is the first of many...

Beach Bums

Cancun was a blast! Here are some pics:

Please stay tuned....

to Mandy's blog for now for updates and pictures of our trip to Mexico; I can't upload my pictures to her computer so I will have to wait till I get home to post them. Rest assured we are having a wonderful time though!!

The Comprehension of a Two Year Old

Tonight at dinner I tried to explain to Charlie that I would be going away for a few days, and that he would be spending a fun weekend with daddy.
ME: "Charlie..."
CHARLIE: "What?"
ME: "Tomorrow Mommy is going to take a plane ride to see Aunt Mandy for a few days and you're going to stay here with Daddy."
CHARLIE: "Mommy, you want a meatball?"
ME: "No, honey... So mommy will be away for a few days but I'll talk to you on the phone and I'll see you very soon..."
CHARLIE: "I got Coke in my mouth!"
ME: "Okay bud? So Mommy's going to go away for a couple days but I'll be home before you know it and you're going to have a special weekend with Daddy."
CHARLIE: "There're bubbles in my Coke!"*

In retrospect I lost him after "What?"


*It was caffeine free and I only gave him a tiny bit, I swear.

Congratulations President Obama

From Charlie

Bugs In There

This evening Charlie and I were reading "Mother Goose Nursery Rhymes" at bedtime when he all of a sudden thought a little girl in one of the pictures was picking her nose. He sat bolt upright, pointed, and shouted: "No picking nose!! There're bugs in there!!"

To The Inventor Of Daylight Savings

You obviously didn't have any children.

Please explain to me and my child, who has been up since 4:30am, why you decided to bestow this misery on our houseold.

Doesn't Take Much

Sometimes it just doesn't take much to make Charlie happy. This evening we were out to dinner and we ordered him a make your own sundae for dessert. The waitress brought it out and put it in front of him and Charlie's eyes lit up: "OH!! WHAT IS THIS?? HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!" he exclaimed before digging in.