Figured Out

As I was putting Charlie to bed this evening he said, "Daddy goin' upstairs to push the buttons!" (i.e to play his video games) and then he said, "Mommy goin' upstairs to her computer!"

Boy, does he have us figured out!

Tuesday Blues

The first words out of Charlie's mouth to me this morning were: "Is it Friday yet?"

Bathroom Hogger

ME: "Are you done yet??"
CHARLIE: "No-- go away!"

Charlie has taken to monopolizing the bathroom with his new found potty time. Saturday he almost made us late for his swimming lessons because he had to have his 20 minutes of quality time on the pot, and this evening I had to resort to using the downstairs bathroom after waiting in vain for him to finish his business in the upstairs one.

Jeez, if this is what it is like already, just wait till he becomes a teenager!

A Busy Weekend

We had a full Saturday today; Charlie had his swimming lesson this morning (see below for pictures) which involved being dunked under water for the first time. He seemed fairly unfazed, and is getting the hang of kicking, blowing bubbles, and putting his ear to the water.

After swimming lessons we went right to Kayte & Brian's house for Drew's 1st birthday party. Charlie enjoyed playing in their ball pit and thoroughly enjoyed the Elmo birthday cake (although he got upset when informed that it was in fact Drew's birthday and not his own.)

After the birthday party it was home for a nap (for all 3 of us!) and then up at 4pm to go to the 5:15pm showing of Monsters Vs Aliens. It held Charlie's attention the entire time -- at one point he even handed me his bag of M&Ms so that he could watch the movie with zero distractions -- and when it was over he promptly started whining, "I wanna see it again...!" A successful movie, in my book.

Tomorrow I am working and Mike is taking Charlie up to Grammy & Grampy's for the day, where I am sure he will have a fun time tormenting their kittens.

Swimming Lessons

Shiner

Charlie came home from daycare with a black eye today; seems he was on the wrong end of a throwing incident involving a toy fire truck. The daycare called us in the morning to inform us of the incident so we wouldn't be surprised when we picked him up. They, by policy, do not give the name of the offending child in an altercation. Charlie, however, has no such policy and happily threw his assailant right under the bus, telling us multiple times who did it.

Here he is with his shiner:

And saying "All better now!"

Do You Remember?

Charlie's new catch phrase is "Do you remember?" Unfortunately, his memory for most things is still about 30 seconds long so he is constantly asking me if I remember things that happened about 15 to 30 seconds ago.

For instance, this morning I chased him around the living room playing "catch you" before I herded him onto the stairs to put his shoes on.

CHARLIE: (Still out of breath from running) "Mommy -- do you remember when we played 'catch you' and you chased me?"

ME: (finishing getting his shoes on) "Uh-huh."

CHARLIE: "Mommy -- do you remember when you put my shoes on?"

Sea Monsters And Dinosaur Bones

As I was tucking Charlie into bed this evening he all of a sudden got a far away look on his face.

"What are you thinking?" I asked him, not really expecting an answer.

"I thinking about going to the zoo and seeing lions and zebras and sharks and hippos and dinosaur bones and sea monsters!" he replied.

I am not sure if this was randomly out of his imagination or if he was remembering going to the Natural History Museum on Sunday which did, arguably, contain all of those things.

Dino Sweatshirt

I bought Charlie a dinosaur sweatshirt at Old Navy on Sunday, which has since become his favorite article of clothing. He has worn it all day yesterday and today, refusing to take it off until tubby time. Here he is showing it off:

The Power of M&Ms

Charlie's angst about pooping on the potty has all but disappeared with the purchase of a family sized bag of M&Ms last week; we have been rewarding him with M&Ms for poops on the potty and he has jumped so far on board with this that he will now race to the potty and strain until his little face turns bright red in an attempt to get M&Ms. I have gone full circle from being afraid he was making himself constipated by refusing to poop, to now being afraid he's going to give himself hemmorhoids or an aneurysm or something, from trying to force himself to poop. Go figure.

Charlie At The Harvard Museum of Natural History

This morning we went to the Harvard Museum of Natural History; it is free on Sunday mornings for Massachusetts residents, and as you can see from the following videos it keeps Charlie thoroughly entertained. (You can also see in the first video how parents shoo their children away from my umm, energetic, son...)

Like A Big Girl

Charlie continues to be a little bit confused about his gender, apparently. For example yesterday he announced "I holdin' my napkin like a big girl!" This is the 2nd such comment I have noticed this week, so this time I asked him "Are you a boy or a girl?" to which he promptly answered, "A girl!" Which leads me to wonder, when will my child figure out he is a boy?

Just Not Much Going On (AKA 'A Post About Nothing')

Only a few random things to report midweek:

Charlie has been having a successful week with the potty training so far -- only one outfit chnage in 3 days = successful.

We managed to get what we owe in taxes down to about $3,800. We were going to file an extension, thinking we would have more time to pay but discovered that if you owe money to the IRS you still have to pay it by April 15th even if you file for an extension. Whoever thought that rule up obviously didn't get the fact that why else would you file for an extension except if you needed more time to come up with the money you owed the IRS?

I sent the deposit in for Charlie's birthday party and have been working on the invitations. I am almost happy with them so I might order them this weekend. I am hoping to get them in the mail by April 1st at the latest.

That is about it, I guess, other than I have been waiting for an opportunity to bust out the new camera again but between working 6 days a week and the weather still being pretty crappy the opportunity hasn't presented itself.

The Trials & Tribulations of Pooping on the Potty

This weekend Charlie successfully pooped on the potty 4 times. "Wonderful!" you say, except you do not know the amount of time, energy, drama, and tears that this entails.

"Have to go change!" Charlie announces, clutching at his behind. If we are lucky we are home and not, say, at the playground or at a restaurant. I bring him to the bathroom and sit him on the potty where he sits for about 2 seconds and then jumps up."I don't want to sit on the potty! Want to go play!" We play for 5 minutes, then it is back to the potty.

Up...down...up....down, like a little jack in the box until he *really* has to go and starts running in circles like a maniac, crying. At this point he must be wrestled onto the potty where he clings to me for dear life sobbing, "Don't wanna go poopy! Read me a story, mommy!" I read to him from his dolphin book (now in the bathroom for expressly this purpose) until he finally manages to do his business, much to the relief of all parties involved.

Boy I hope this gets easier...!

Baby Crocodiles

I have no idea where my child comes up with these things sometimes; I swear I did not tell him about the baby alligator that is coming to his birthday party...

CHARLIE: "I want Charlie and Mommy and Daddy to go see baby crocodiles today."
ME: "We're not going to go see baby crocodiles today, honey; we're going to your swimming lesson."
CHARLIE: "NO!!! I WANT TO SEE BABY CROCODILES!!"

Booked!

Charlie's birthday is shaping up, to be held at the YMCA on May 3rd with special guests Curious Creatures! What could be better -- baby alligators, skunks, snakes and CAKE!!

Here...

...is where we will be the week of Memorial Day, thanks to Grammy Bess & Grampy Paxton! The Copper Top Beach House

To say I can't wait is an understatement!!

Potty Training Milestone

Charlie came home today IN THE SAME OUTFIT I SENT HIM TO DAYCARE IN!!

Need I say anything more?

Charlie & Kittens

We went to Grammy & Grampy's house today where Charlie spent most of his time peering under furniture trying to play with their new kittens (who were, predictably, in hiding 99.9% of the time we were there.)

My New Camera

The following are somewhere around a million pictures that I took this afternoon with my new Canon Digital Rebel which I am already totally in love with!

Imaginary Friend?

This evening in the bathtub Charlie looked up and complained, "Mommy, Louis hit me. Louis hit me in the tubby." He gave me a pouty look.

Confused, I asked "Who's Louis...?" He has, after all, named a few of his toys -- Julian the lemur after the lemur in Madagascar, and a tiger unfortunately named Teeth.

Charlie pointed to the air next to him. "He's right there."

"Where?" I asked again, still thinking maybe I was missing something obvious.

Charlie waved in the same general direction again. "Right there."

"Oh," I said, deciding to play along. "Louis, you need a time out for hitting Charlie."

Charlie nodded approvingly, apparently satisfied with the punishment handed out to his imaginary friend. Hopefully they will play nicely in the future.

Refinanced and Charlie-proofed.

We finally refinanced our mortgage today; we are saving over $200 a month. We rolled our variable rate home equity line of credit into our fixed rate mortgage so we are saving between $210 and $280 per month depending on what the variable interest rate home equity line was doing (some months the minimum payment was as low as $100, others as high as $170.)

We also had a contractor come in over the past couple days and put a banister on top of the 1/2 wall on the third floor so that Charlie can no longer potentially fling himself to his death. We just have to stain it to match the wood trim on the wall. Here is the unstained but otherwise finished product:


So all in all a productive Monday.

Potty Training Update

The potty training is going as well as can be expected, I think. Charlie is an expert pee-er on the potty, not implying of course that he actually *asks* to go, ever, but if you put him on the potty he will pee! He also, I have discovered, will pee on the kitchen floor and the bedroom floor but atleast he comes and gets me after said incidents: "Mommy! I peed on the floor! I PEED ON THE FLOOR!!"

There also, I hear, was a traumatic poop incident this morning, that from what I gather involved poop in some very unfortunate places, but neither one of my boys will talk about the incident so it leaves me to only wonder.