Proof Positive

I mentioned to you that Charlotte is not a fan of grass. Here is a quick video proving her dislike of grass. Notice how she will not put her feet down, and how damn uncomfortable she looks in that luscious grass!



And some pictures...

Signs of the Times

Chris and I have been aggressively trying to teach Charlotte some baby signs, upon learning that Charlotte's new daycare is way into baby signs.  So far, no luck, despite hearing from Miss Linda that she's been teaching her the signs for "more," "milk," and "please." Each time I try to feed Charlotte solid foods, I try to get her to sign the word for "more."  It basically consists of bringing your two hands together.  But Charlotte wants none of it. 

However, I think she understands because every time I say and sign "more?", while showing her some food, she starts panting like crazy and practically hyperventilating.  She must think Chris and I are really mean.  "More?" Of course, I want more! Can't you hear me panting like a dog?  The food is right there. Give it to meeeeeee!!!!

People of the internets for whom baby signs has actually been successful - please tell me what your trick is!

We have also discovered that Charlotte is not a big fan of grass.  She must not like the texture, because each time I take her out to the grass, she freezes.  She wants to be standing and her little legs start shaking because she does not want to sit down in that grass.  On Monday, I had her sitting on the grass, and our next door neighbor's dog, Mickey, came bounding up to her.  He licked her face; she laughed and smiled.  And then he backed away.  Charlotte, the master crawler, would not crawl to him.  She made the motions of wanting to, but that horrible grass prevented her from crawling! We hope she gets over it soon because there is a lot of grass to play in at the new house.

I wonder what the baby sign for grass is?

Sold!

Amazing!  We got an offer in at the asking price the first day the home was on the market. I think the buyers were seeing the federal homebuyer tax credit expiration date looming, so they jumped on it.  They were so quick, even with our counter offer, that we had to cancel the open house yesterday.

Done and done.

Now off to enjoy this beautiful day before another winter-like storm hits us on Tuesday...

10 Months and Crusing

It's official. Charlotte is on the move! She now "cruises," meaning she stands herself up and walks while holding onto whatever - the coffee table, the sliding glass door, plenty of other things that are not stable at all, and I have to quickly dislodge those little fingers from their death-grip before she comes crashing down to the floor.


And yes, the crashing has happened. I know it's inevitable, and Chris and I try to prevent it as much as possible, but Charlotte is now falling and hitting her head/nose/knees on things. Most times, she just gets a stunned look on her face, not knowing exactly what just happened, but other times, the anguish, the face that immediately scrunches up and she starts wailing! The good news is that she's never upset for long. The bad news is that I'm exhausted.

Charlotte is a handful! She no longer loves being picked up, but instead pushes her feet off us to try and get put down. Remember when I lamented the fact that she only wanted to be held? Those days, and I am sad to admit it, are gone. She wants to crawl everywhere. She’s mastered the stairs (going up, we haven’t dared going down). She’s cut three teeth in the past month, and given the amount she’s been drooling I wouldn’t be surprised if she cuts three more teeth next month. Bye, bye Toothless Wonder!

Charlotte continues to just love everyone she meets. I’ve read that stranger anxiety is supposed to be common right now, but Charlotte has zero anxiety when it comes to other people. Case in point. I took her back to Funtastic yesterday, while the carpet guy was here to shampoo our carpets. There was only one other boy there when we first got there, and he was probably around five or six. Charlotte was obsessed. She would crawl to him, sit up, and then laugh. I think she was confused why he apparently could not care less. Then she tried to do the same thing with the boy’s dad. Later, she was tickled pink when this sweet girl, who was seven, lavished some attention on her.

On the housing front.  Of course, our minds have been preoccupied with housing nonsense. We've spent the past couple of weeks prepping our house to put it on the market. I feel like every single moment has been go, go, go! But I have to admit, our house has never looked better. The carpets have been washed, we’ve packed up unnecessary junk, and we’ve moved extraneous furniture into the garage. I just hope that some buyer out there falls in love with it the same way we did almost five years ago. In fact, I've had to step back and try not to feel like throwing up when I think about how much money we've lost on house for no other reason than we bought it at the peak of the market. Because the fact of the matter is that the appraiser on the new house actually appraised it ten thousand dollars more than we bought it for. So that's gratifying and makes me feel a little better because in this market it is very rare for an appraiser to actually show that the home is worth more and not less!  Instant equity!

We’ve also had to work double-time to find new daycare for Charlotte. Folsom is not the Pocket neighborhood. There are thousands of young children and only so many daycare spots. So we’ve had to deal with waitlists.  Waitlists!!! Part of the issue is that we won’t need care for Charlotte until sometime in early June and because she’s turning one on June 19th, she’s in that weird transition period, meaning that she will be too young for the toddler room, but one of the oldest in the infant room. This has been a problem because in some instances there have been slots available in the infant room, but not the toddler room. Or vice versa. All in all, very stressful. However, I am happy to report that we’ve found daycare. It’s literally right around the corner from Chris’s job, and has easy freeway access for me. Plus, we loved the Assistant Director and the toddler playground. It wasn’t our first choice, which is actually where our friends’ son goes and where our other friends' daughter will eventually go. That place doesn’t have a spot available until September! Oh well, we’ll make a decision then about whether we want to move her. In the meantime, I’m happy with our choice.

So that’s what’s been going on here at the Berry household. Two more months until we celebrate Charlotte’s first birthday!

Movin’ on Up to the East Side

We’re moving to the East Side.  As in thirty miles east to Folsom.  We’re in escrow on a really nice house.  It has five bedrooms, three bathrooms, a pool, and a wooden playground for Miss Charlotte.  If all goes well, we’ll be moving in early June.

Chris and I have been pretty conflicted about our decision.  On the one hand, we’re ready for a bigger house.  Charlotte barely has any room to move around downstairs, and we know we want another baby at some point.  On the other hand, we really love where we currently live.  We’ve lived here for almost five years, and it’s become a home.  We have great neighbors, we have good friends who live barely a mile away, there is a beautiful greenbelt that extends for a mile in each direction, and we’re close to downtown.  At the same time, we’ve been worrying about the direction of our neighborhood.  It’s in a bit of a transition as most of the original owners are retired or close to retiring and their kids are grown up and out of the house.  There aren’t a lot of young children, as evidenced by the fact that two elementary schools have closed since we moved here due to lack of enrollment. 

Folsom has excellent schools, thousands of children, and an intricate network of bike trails and parks.  As we were mulling our decision to make an offer on the house, we decided to take a walk around the neighborhood to get a feel for it.  It was a Saturday, the weather was gorgeous, and yet the street was eerily quiet.  Where were all the kids that Folsom purportedly has?  And then we saw it as we turned the corner--Folsom Kids Play Park, also known as “Castle Park” because of the turrets and other castle-like features.  And we heard the children’s gleeful shrieks before we saw it.  There must have been a hundred kids playing!  And just down the street from Castle Park is a top-notch elementary school.  That, combined with bike trails around this marshy area with plenty of birds and other animals pretty much sealed the deal for me.  Oh and seeing three wild turkeys cross the road didn’t hurt either.

The not-so-exciting part of this?  Having to sell our current house.  Originally we considered holding onto it as a rental property, but the more we thought about it, the more we realized that it would be too much of a hassle and a risk to hold onto it.  So we’re getting the house ready to sell and hope to have it on the market in the next two weeks.  Here’s hoping it sells quickly!

We’re very excited and hope to celebrate Charlotte’s first birthday (and Chris’ not-quite-first birthday) in our new home. Tanning by the pool.

I Need Some Bunny to Love...

Both of Charlotte's grandmothers asked if the Easter Bunny visited her this year.  Sadly, he did not.  He knew that she doesn't need anymore stuff, especially after said grandmothers mailed her Easter packages, including the bunny ears!  Instead, the Easter Bunny will make an appearance next Spring, when Charlotte is old enough to hunt for Easter eggs and hold on to her own Easter basket.

We made a trip to rainy Oakland to spend Easter with my bestie, K. and her husband.  The meal: a ham, lovely sides of mashed potatoes, sweet potato casserole, green bean casserole, delicious wine, and strawberry shortcake (I made the dessert, in honor of "Charlotte aux fraises").  The game: Trivial Pursuit. Guys vs. Girls.  The girls won, naturally.

Despite our best attempts, Charlotte is now refusing to take more than one nap a day.  I'm not sure why.  She also has gone from one tooth broken through at 9 months to three more, in a matter of two weeks.  In any case, she's been a bit grumpy at times.  I'm blaming the teeth.

 She also has had a nasty cold, as witnessed by the snot running down her face.  Oops!  And she will not stop wanting to climb on everything.  Chris lowered her crib mattress as far as it would go this weekend because she kept standing up in her crib and giving us enough worry that she'll climb right out of it.  Oh and today? She started climbing up the stairs (supervised, but still!).  Chris and I can barely keep up with how fast she's growing and changing...