12 Months Recap

While I wait for fun birthday party pictures, I needed to get this into the blogo-file. I like to look back and have it at my fingertips.

As I mentioned, we took Charlotte to her 12 month appointment a couple weeks ago to get the doctor to sign off on her health for her new daycare.  Besides proceeding to shove a finger up my nose and cause it to bleed, Charlotte is right on track.

Charlotte has finally doubled her birth weight!  I know she was huge to begin with, but it took a year to happen.
Weight: 19 lbs, 15 oz - 38%
Height: 30 inches - 85%

She's growing, but has certainly slowed down her aggressive pace of height.

Anyway, Charlotte continues to be a joy to be around.  She's happy, she sleeps like a dream (12 hours straight from 7PM to 7AM), and she looks at the world in wonderment.

• She shows very little interest in reading.  I try to read to her every night, but usually have to pin her down because there are just too many other things to look at.
• Charlotte appears to be allergic to peas (peas!).  Twice now, she's broken out in a blotchy rash on her face and then furiously rubs her eyes until they're both bright red.  It's strange because she's had peas before with no adverse effects, but maybe allergies develop over time? No idea. The Kaiser Advice nurse dubs her a "sensitive" child.  Anyway, Benadryl is now on hand.
• She's developing a very independent and stubborn streak. I mentioned that she now has an attitude, whereby she has to do everything herself.  I think that's why she's not walking yet. She needs to do things on her terms.
• Speaking of walking. She's close. It's all about confidence, and Charlotte doesn't think she has any. She'll walk for days if you're holding her hands, but the minute you let go, she drops to the floor.  Each day, however, she'll sit herself down a little more slowly. If we surprise her, she'll stand on her own until realizing that ohmygosh I'm standing! Without holding onto anything! And she'll tumble to the floor.
• Talking.  Not much of it. But boy does she understand a lot.  She can give us high fives, go "je suis grande!" ("I'm so big" and lift her hands up in the air over her head), clap to music, pretend wash herself with a dry washcloth, brush her hair, and more.
• She claps when she eats something really good. I gave her a piece of a churro yesterday, and after tasting, chewing and swallowing, Charlotte looked at me, gave me a big smile and clapped.  Sugar and cinnamon seem to be winners!
• We're weaning her from the bottle.  She still signs for milk. (Breastfeeding ended about three weeks ago when she bit me, I yelled bloody murder, and we stopped. It had already been a while since I stopped pumping at work and Charlotte was more and more frustrated with my dwindling supply, particularly after we came back from St. Louis, so it was time).  She still throws the sippy cup on the ground more times than not, but for the past two mornings, she's willingly drunk milk from the cup and not even gotten mad. Progress, people!
• She loves every cat she sees, but is unsure of dogs.  We saw our friend's big chocolate lab and he started barking. Charlotte turned to me, her face all scrunched up, and started crying.
• Tandy is still her favorite living creature.  Charlotte can't wait for the day that she can move fast enough to catch her.
• Charlotte does not cuddle.  She squirms and squirms and won't calm down.  She just has limitless energy and things to do! The best money I think we'll have spent thus far is to have bought Charlotte her own seat to Hawaii.  I found an amazing deal last week and decided that I was willing to pay to not have to hold her down for six hours. (She is also a routine queen and refuses to take a nap unless it's in her crib or in her car seat -- makes things tough when we're out and about).

Anyway, what else can I say?  This girl just charms the pants off of just about everybody she meets.  She's become a favorite of the 3 and 4 year old teachers at daycare, who stop in just so they can hold "Baby Charlotte."  

Baby in a Box!

"Walking" with Grandma and Grandpa Berry

Here's to an amazing year, Charlotte.  We can't wait to find out what the next year holds.

Love,

Mommy and Daddy

A Tale of Two Chairs

I still don't have photos from those who attended Charlotte's first birthday (hint hint), so I'll have to show you Charlotte's birthday present instead! I got Charlotte an "Anywhere Chair" from Pottery Barn Kids with a slipcover that has her name embroidered on it.  Actually, I ordered the chair insert from EBay, and it took forever to get it.  But we finally have it, and hands down, it is Charlotte's favorite thing ever.  She can climb right on it and tumble off it, and we don't have to worry about her getting hurt.  It's so cute.

She looks like a giant, but really, it's just a tiny, toddler-sized chair.

Don't you love my summertime pajamas?

Yesterday was our first triple digit day, with the mercury topping 103, so we had some fun in the pool.  There is a shallow ledge that is perfect for little swimmers, and Charlotte enjoyed cruising in the water while holding onto the side.  She doesn't really like floating yet, but we'll keep trying.

After she was done with the pool, Charlotte discovered a new itty bitty chair.

Okay, so it's not as itty bitty as my other chair, but it's still easy to climb on.

This is fun!

The other thing we did this weekend? Meet Baby Samantha.  She was born on Charlotte's birthday, and is absolutely beautiful.  Mom and Dad seem to be doing really well too.  I see shared parties in our future...

A Year in Seven Minutes

June 19, 2009

June 19, 2010

And now, a video to make the grandmothers cry...

Music: "Isn't She Lovely" by Stevie Wonder

(note: first attempt at video editing)
(second note: we had a party - more on that later - as a result, we have very few pictures)

What to do about the 'tude?

I have started two posts, both of which are just too long to finish. One is on our great trip to St. Louis (which was already a month ago almost!) and the other on Charlotte's new daycare.

But I'm tired!  We're getting ready for family visiting (Grandma and Grandpa Berry tomorrow and a whole slew of family and friends on Saturday) in advance of baby girl's first birthday.

Let me just give you an update and a request for advice:

• Charlotte is developing an attitude when it comes to food! Our sweet, easy-going baby is undergoing a fundamental personality shift, and Chris and I are at a loss at what to do.
• Charlotte does not like us to feed her anymore. She wants to do it all herself and turns her face away if we attempt to bring a spoon to her mouth.  This makes feeding her anything other than finger foods impossible and frustrating.
• She is suddenly obsessed with the texture of foods and will take a piece of food, like banana or ground beef, hold it in her hand, squish it, and then drop it.
• The same is true with her bottle or sippy cup. Charlotte is just tickled pink with the discovery that you can upend the bottle and it will stream out all over the high chair.

So what to do? We take the bottle away when she starts to play with it, we take the high chair tray away when it's obvious she just wants to play with the food and not eat it, but I'm concerned she's now not eating enough.  Any simple discipline tips that are suitable for a one year old?

Of course, I use the word no when she goes after the electrical outlets.  Charlotte will stop, turn around and give me this grin, as if to say "watch me try again." Maybe she's just starting to test her boundaries, I'm not sure.

Okay on an unrelated note, we sold our house. It closed yesterday, so we no longer have two mortgages. Hurray!!!  Now we can get back to saving.

And I'm kind of ridiculously excited that as we speak there is a team of people doing a deep clean on our house.  The old owners weren't the best at cleaning (the grout in the foyer is disgusting and don't get me started on the hall bathroom upstairs), so we really need a deep clean to maintain the house. 

Learning the Quirks

We’re five days in to living in our new home, and we’re starting to get an appreciation for both the really cool stuff and the not-so-cool stuff.

Cool:

• The pool.  The pool is awesome, and Charlotte loves splashing away in this really great blow-up floatie thing.  It has holes to stick her feet in, along with a canopy to protect her from the sun.  Although it takes a few minutes for Charlotte to warm up to the water (literally), once she has, she just has a blast.
• The bike trails.  Folsom has an amazing network of bike trails, the majority winding their way near creeks and around oak trees.  I’m reminded that although it’s only 25 miles east, Folsom does not have the same topography as Sacramento at all.  We are in the beginning of the Sierra foothills and there is wildlife!  Yesterday, I took a bike ride (first time in more than 18 months) through the bike trails.  I saw quails and beautiful black birds with red chests and almost ran over a squirrel.  The best part? The bike trails are so well-designed that you never have to cross a street because the City built the trails under the major streets.  I went all the way to the west edge of the city, although I could have kept going and connected with the American River Parkway, which would have taken me all the way to downtown.
• The marshy parkway.  The bike paths closest to our house wind through this really cool marshy area.  I took Charlotte on a walk yesterday, and we stopped at a pond to see a little boy and his grandpa feed bread to the ducks.  Charlotte was so excited that if I had let her, she would have gladly gone straight into the pond to grab all the baby ducklings.  I have a feeling that we will be visiting that pond quite often when Charlotte is walking.
• Ceiling fans.  We have ceiling fans in all of the rooms, something we couldn’t have in our old home because the ceilings were pretty low and the attic was so small.  This has made a huge difference (see not-so-cool below).
• The big bathtub!  We have a sizable bathtub in our master bathroom.  Charlotte loves taking baths in there because she can stand up and cruise around the tub.  It’s so deep that I have started just standing in there to wash her hair, because it’s easier than lunging over. 
• Space.  We obviously have oodles of space.  Our master bedroom is so large, I don’t know what to do with the very ample sitting area.  I guess we’ll have to invest in some nice reclining chairs at some point.

Not-so-Cool:

• Teenagers.  One of the reasons we moved was because our old neighborhood is aging and there aren’t a lot of kids.  There are plenty in Folsom.  But apparently because our new home was built in 1990, there are plenty of teenagers living nearby.  Now, this could be cool because we might have our pick of potential babysitters for Charlotte, but right now? Not so much.  We have no fewer than 5 backyards touching ours.  The one that touches ours the least happens to have the “popular” house that each night you can hear teenaged boys yelling.  Friday night they hosted a party.  It was so loud I couldn’t sleep, even when we closed the windows.  Would it be as big of a deal if we could sleep in? No, but since Charlotte wakes up no later than 7, it’s impossible for us to.  Anyway, after enduring shrieking and yelling after midnight, I got dressed, walked around the corner to view the address, and called the police department.  It was getting warm, so we tried to turn the air conditioning on so we could keep the windows closed and eventually get some sleep, which brings me to the next not-fun discovery:
• Broken A/C.  We’ve had an extraordinarily mild Spring so far this year so we haven’t had to turn on the air conditioning, but this weekend was the first hot one.  Figures that it would be then that we discovered our A/C isn’t working.  Luckily, we required that the sellers buy us a home warranty to cover any problems in the first year, so all we have to do is pay a service fee to get someone out here and look at the unit.  Chris called yesterday morning and was promised a return call within 24 hours.  By yesterday evening, we were baking.  Chris called again and was told that the only way they could get us faster service was if the house was 105 degrees inside.  105? Please. We’d never be able to breathe.  We were uncomfortable enough at 85.  Chris played the young baby card, and our request was bumped up.  We’ll have someone here tomorrow, but I can tell you that it is hot!!  Fortunately, the ceiling fans and ample windows have helped some, but I still put Charlotte to bed in a diaper and nothing else.  However, keeping windows open last night required me to put in ear plugs to drown out the noise of those damn kids! 
• Other weird things.  The water heater is on the complete opposite end of the house from the master bath and kitchen.  Therefore, it takes forever for the water to heat up, thereby wasting gallons in the process.  This makes me feel horribly guilty, so maybe I should collect some of the water and use it to water the plants? That’s what my dad does, as my parents’ house in San Diego has the same problem.
• The carpet in the computer room smells horribly of wet dog or pee or worse.  The sellers had two large dogs, but I never smelled anything when we were looking at the house.  We had the carpets cleaned before we moved in, but I think it just brought those smells to the surface.  Ick.  I bought some powder to sprinkle in the carpet, but I can’t use it until we’ve unpacked the room and brought the vacuum back from the old house.  If it doesn’t work, I may have to replace that carpeting sooner rather than later.  (I can smell dog in the carpet in certain other rooms like the living room, and what was the sellers’ young son’s room, but not nearly as strongly as in that computer room).  In the meantime, it is hard for me to stay in that room for very long.
• We have a lot of stairs as it’s a multi-level house. This doesn’t actually bother me at all, except for the fact that the house is much taller than our last.  Yesterday, Tandy fell from the second story all the way down into the living room.  We were really worried that she was hurt, but she seems fine.  It was about a 14 foot drop.  What I’m worried about is that there is a much higher drop from outside the master bedroom (you go up a handful of steps from the other bedrooms).  There is an open spot that looks down into the family room.  It’s got to be 18 feet? Not sure, but I just know that Tandy is going to fall from there too.  Charlotte is very interested in the railing outside our bedroom, but we’ve been keeping her away.
• The commute.  I have a long commute now, somewhere between 30 and 40 minutes without bad traffic.  Chris has been the one with the long commute for ten years, but now it’s switched.  I’m making it work by leaving for work at 7AM.  This avoids most of the traffic toward downtown.  I leave for home at 4PM for the same reason.  Fridays I’ll be working from home and every other Wednesday.

On the whole we love our new house.  I just hope we can meet some cool neighbors, ones that don’t think it’s fun to have parties into the wee hours of the night.  (I realize this makes me so old and crotchety, but you’d feel the same way if you had no power over what time to wake up on weekends because of a baby.  And now that I get up at 5:45 to get ready for work, I need my sleep!!).

One more fun story before we go.  I mentioned that I had to take Charlotte to her 12 month well child appointment.  I was sitting in the exam room, holding her while chatting with the doctor when Charlotte, who had been wriggling nonstop, suddenly jammed her finger up my nose.  It hurt a lot, but I didn’t realize the damage she had done until my nose started bleeding profusely.  Charlotte’s doctor stared at me, his mouth agape, as though he’d never seen anything like it before, and then handed me a dozen tissues.  It kept bleeding all through Charlotte’s subsequent blood draw (a test for anemia).  The next day, her doctor emailed me to let me know that everything was normal and said, “I hope your nose is okay now!” I guess that’s one way to be remembered.

Moved

This will be short since we don't have internet installed at the new house, and I'm doing this at work.

We've moved! Last night was our first night in the new house.  It's strange waking up in a new place, even when all of our furniture is the same.

It's a bittersweet move since our house in Greenhaven was our first home, we love our neighbors, and we love our grocery store.  Luckily there is a Nugget up one freeway exit, and it is so worth the drive for nice people, good wine, excellent produce, and an amazing cheese department.  The closest grocery store to our new house just pales in comparison.

I had to take Charlotte to her 12 month appointment two weeks early because the new daycare requires a signed statement from her physician that she's in good health.  This meant going to her new doctor in Folsom, whose medical assistant measured Charlotte as having shrunk by a quarter inch.  Despite telling her that this was impossible, she didn't believe me.  When I told Dr. M, he looked at her chart (it's all on an electronic medical record after all), gave an exasperated sigh as though this had not been the first "user error" and re-measured her.  She's 29.75" not 28.5". Eighty-fifth percentile versus the incredible shrinking baby. :)

Another quick observation: apparently we moved to a lower-crime zipcode, as we just received rebate checks in the mail from our car insurance carrier.  That helps!

Okay, back to work.  New post once we have the internet up and running.