Around Here

Baby blankets adorn furniture, the swing, the carseat, the pack-n-play. Burp cloths can be found in all major areas of the house. Grocery sacks are filled in a day and a half with itty bitty diapers. Desitin is under my fingernails. We've got a baby in the house!

Excuses, excuses...

I will give you none! I have perfectly legitimate reasons for not posting recently. Morning sickness for one. Oh, wait! Forget I said that because "No excuses!" So. To show you we are all just fine and Charlie is as cute as ever (maybe cuter), I will appease you for now with some of his most recent remarks.

As I made lunch, Charlie came into the kitchen and said "Look! You found lunch!"

As we got out of the car, it started to rain. Charlie said "Its rainin' again. God turned on the rain!"

Charlie doesn't miss much. At the playground, every once in a while he will overhear a mom calling to her child. She might say something like "Come on David." Helpful Charlie often chimes in "Come on David! Come on David!" The mom usually smiles. I'm not sure how David feels about it.

Strangers at the park beware. If you so much as smile at Charlie, he will start pontificating. He will lecture you in his semi-gibberish language about fans, generators, the slide, ladder, whatever. Its best to smile again, and walk slowly away. He won't stop until you do.

We are currently working on getting Charlie to ask for things nicely/politely instead of outright demanding them. It's not sticking so far. Last week at the grocery store, the change slid out of the cash register. As I picked it up, Charlie loudly and clearly said "Give me some money!"

Lately, when we get into the car, it can be rather warm if not hot. Before I say a word, Charlie pipes in with "Its not hot. Its warm." Which I can only take to mean that its hot.

When Charlie likes a particular food item, he'll say, while eating it, "I'm so hungry, hungry for yogurt" Or, "I'm so thirsty, thirsty for juice."

We often remind Charlie that Mama has a baby in her belly. The other day I ate something and Charlie asked me where it went. I told him it went in my belly. He said "The baby's eating it!"

He is a little confused about the baby in the belly. He really thinks he has one in his belly too. I hope this clears up when I start to show more.

I guess with early verbal skills come the early questions. Charlie wants to know how everything works. While we drive along, or walk along, or just sit around, Charlie will find something, anything, even if he already knows what it is and ask "Mama what's that?" My answer is promptly followed by "What do's wiff it?"

For instance: "Mama, what's that?"

"Those are trees."

"What do's wiff it?"

And then there are often the reptitive questions:

"Where's my hammer?"

"Downstairs."

"Where's my hammer?"

"Downstairs."

"Where's my hammer?"

"Downstairs."

"Where's my hammer?"

"Charlie, Mama said DOWNSTAIRS."

"Where's my hammer?"

(Me cluing in) "Shall I get it for you?"

"Yeah."

A Little Trip

A couple of weeks ago, Charlie and I took a little trip over the mountains to visit my family, while Keith stayed home and hunkered down with his studies. (One month to go!) We had a great, relaxing, fun time. The timing was perfect for us as it was spring break for some of my nieces and nephews. Oma (my mom) ended up babysitting four of those rugrats, and so Charlie had some quality time with his cousins. One thing I discovered about Oma is that rules have changed since I was a kid in the house. An option for lunch was chocolate sandwhiches. Yum!

Here's Charlie with cousin Johnny. Surprisingly, Charlie wasn't too fond of his chocolate sandwhich, but peanut butter cookies made up the rest of lunch, so it all worked out.

Chillin' with Uncle Dawit. The way to a toddler's heart? Let him play with your cell phone.

This picture with the bad lighting is of my niece Emma. She's nine and plays a mean game of Monopoly. My brother Dawit had to take over for me. The competition was just too intense! (And Charlie's messy diaper might have had something to do with it...)

The next day, we had a playdate at my brother's house, where three of the same cousins live. Charlie had a great time with their amazing train set!

We took a couple of trips to Opa's farm. Charlie gets very excited about trackers and cows. He kept saying "Hi cows. How are you well?"

Once we spotted Opa, it was all over for me. Charlie wanted to be wherever Opa was and even coerced him into playing in the fabulously big mud puddles on the farm. Charlie also go to sit in one of those amazing trackers he admires so much.

Unfortunately, trackers make loud noises once you turn them on and the charm was a little lost for Charlie after that. Oh well! Maybe when you're bigger, Char Char, you'll have fun riding, and not just sitting, in that good ol' John Deere.

Thanks Oma and Opa for a great visit!

The Sans (Francisco/Jose/Ta Cruz) Days 1 1/2

When we traveled to Florida for Christmas last December, we had a somewhat trying time, ending up with a three-day delay. But in return, we received a voucher flight to anywhere in the US so long as we used it within the year. With time running out, and a strong desire to avoid flying during the holidays again, we decided to make a whirlwind trip to San Francisco and the surrounding area before Keith had to start school again. We just got back and have loads of fun pictures to share with you all.

We flew into San Fran on a Wednesday afternoon, picked up our rental car and immediately got lost. But it turned out all right because Keith has relatives in San Fran and they directed us via a lot of dropped phone calls (cell service in that area is sporadic due to the hills) and we ended up taking Market Street straight (almost) to their house. Market Street, apparently, cuts right through downtown and so we got to see a lot of the city right then and there. Aunt Peggy and Uncle Gil live on a high hill that overlooks a large portion of the city and just a short drive up Twin Peaks ends in some spectacular views.After a lovely evening of wine, cheese, dinner, and homemade pear crisp, Peggy and Gil led us to our hotel. We got to drive down Haight Street and see the ornate, beautiful old houses that cost gargantuin amounts of money to live in. Once we got to our hotel, we were surprised to find that our room was not cleaned. It was twenty minutes to 8 in the evening! The poor hotel clerk was all alone (housekeeping had left long ago) and he quickly gathered up linens and started getting our room ready while we went on a walk to kill time. When we finally got into our room, we noticed that indeed the linens had been changed, but that's all. The bathroom was not cleaned, nothing had been vaccuumed, and we were pretty tired. I was tempted just to let it go, but left-over soap and hair in the shower stall convinced me otherwise. I requested a bottle of cleanser and some rags and cleaned the bathroom myself. Once that was taken care of we actually had a nice night. Charlie, proving our fears futile, slept wonderfully right next to us in a pack/n/play and we drifted off to a better night's sleep than we anticipated.


The next morning, after getting lost some more, we decided to drive down Lombard Street and across the Golden Gate Bridge while Charlie took his morning nap in the car. (A lot of our planning surrounded Charlie's naps. We had to time it just right so we could do something, and then drive around so he could sleep. Fortunately, a lot of places took a while to get to because we'd get mixed up or confused by one-way streets, so Charlie got decent naps. :-) ) We drove over the Bridge in the fog, which bummed out Keith but I liked it, got a coffee on the other side in Saucelito, and drove back over (still in the fog and still with Charlie asleep).
See how the fog makes it look like the bridge is just suspended mid-air? Or as if the cables go up forever? Makes it rather mysterious and eerie. At least, I thought so. Keith still wanted the fog to lift.

We finally stopped at Golden Gate Park, which is huge, and found some fun things there for Charlie (including a carousel which, according to the guy at the hotel, is the second oldest one in the world). We also found a picnic table that gave us a close up of the wild-life: namely a bold blue bird that ate some of our goat cheese and a gopher that fearlessy popped in and out of his hole, hard at work making things difficult for the park groundskeepers.

When we'd had enough of San Francisco nature, we tottled on down Fisherman's Wharf. We'd been warned it was a tourist trap and that was no foolin'. Yikes! (We heard later that American Idol auditions had been held in SF that day, so that might have made things worse than normal.)Crowded beyond belief, we managed to walk down a good portion of the area and ended up in a sweet little arcade with odd games and, well, I don't know what you'd call them really, but we spent a few quarters there. My favorite part of the wharf.

After grabbing some chocolate at Ghiardelli's, we made our way to San Jose to visit some former Moscovites and spend the night. Sadly, we realized we'd taken no pictures of our time there. Perhaps because we weren't wholly impressed with Silicon valley... Still, dinner was delish and the company most welcoming. So ended our first whole day in California.

Life around here...

Well, I can see that its been a while and of course, I know all Charlie fans are wondering-- how IS that awesome kid? Well, I'll tell ya! He's awesome. More details? Ok, he walks everywhere now. And Keith and I just sit around and watch him in amazement. He can also now say "Mama" with much certainty and clarity. We know he knows what he means. He loves to look out the window (he's doing that right now). Even more, he loves to play outside, so much so, he can say it: "Ow sigh?" That means, "can we puh-lease play outside now?" Unfortunately, its been raining a lot, so not much ow sigh time. He can't say "Papa" yet, but looks hopefully at the front door everytime I say "Papa." Oh yeah, and we walks right to Papa when Papa gets home from work. That makes someone very happy.

Charlie's sippy cups have built in straws, so he'll bite down on the straw and wrap his little arm around the cup so he can walk and drink at the same time. Sometimes, if he needs both hands, he can just use his teeth to hang on to his cup. He loves his sippy.

The other day, Charlie saw me washing windows. He picked up an extra rag and started wiping the window he was closest to. Then the next day, at a babysitter's house, he used up all her kleenexes wiping down whatever surfaces he could reach. If he spills milk, I hand him a napkin and he wipes it up. He also helps me load the dryer (he gets to put in the dryer sheet and press "start"). I haven't taught him to iron and vaccuum yet, but we're definitely on the right track. Oh, and he takes to resetting Keith's alarm clock almost everyday. Wants to keep us on our toes, I guess.

He's still blond, still has a sweet, generally cheerful disposition. We like him.

What we've been doing lately.

Mama got a hair cut! Charlie has this "thing" about getting into stuff. As I'm sure most babies his age do.

He as another "thing" about cuddling up on our bed.

He doesn't stay in one place for very long,

but will move around and snuggle for a good fifteen minutes.

And don't worry, he's very good at getting off

the bed without hurting himself.

And I'm never very far away.

Now there's a handsome fella!

Unfortunately, I don't have any good recent pictures of Keith,

probably because he's so busy!

School, work, homework, play with Charlie, kiss the wife, back to homework.

What a trooper!

Flying Feathers

Well, it has happened again. The Dimelers have had another Adventure, charting new territory. About a year ago, we had a big adventure when we had Charlie in the hospital. Strangely, our New Adventure brought us to... another hospital!

But let me back up... On Monday, I found myself sitting in a courtroom among some 30 or so other prospective jurors prepared to accept my fate, give up a week of my life and a small bundle of cash to a babysitter, when our gracious Heavenly Father miraculously freed me from my patriotic duty and I was "excused." The next day, I was able to take Charlie in for his one-year well-child checkup. I'm so glad I was able to do that! Our wise doctor noted that he looked a little pale, too pale, and suggested we do a blood test to see if he was anemic. So, I went straight to Gritman and Charlie got a poke (he didn't even cry!). The next day, our doctor called to tell me that Charlie was definitely anemic, in fact, he needed a blood transfusion and that he was referring me to a pediatric hematologist/oncologist in Spokane. Um... what? I thought anemia just meant low iron? Well, no. In fact, anemia is caused by about 100 factors; 90 of which are no big deal and 10 of which are, well, a big deal. Well, all right then. I packed a bag in a hurry and whisked Charlie up to Spokane, about an hour and a half away. Keith was able to come up the next day, and brought a lot of good cheer (along with some shampoo) and took over chats with the nurses and doctors, much to my relief. He also had fun playing Wii and chasing around other children in the ward. Let us hope they recover (from Keith AND their illness).

So, after a couple very long nights of pokes and prods and countless sleep interruptions, Charlie's levels are back up to normal and we are home again. His cheeks are rosy and his disposition matches. But we still don't know what caused his anemic state, so we are now playing the waiting game. At this point, the hematologist is leaning toward some of the less serious possibilites, and the scary ones (cancer-related) are off the radar screen (for now). Once a week we'll do a blood test (at our local hospital) to keep an eye on his levels as we pray and wait for test results. Praise God for good doctors who follow their hunches, for release from jury duty, for good traffic and weather for driving, for kind and attentive nurses, for coffee, for a son who was able to bounce back from a lot of invasive and uncomfortable procedures, and for being able to come home so quickly. We are grateful for our Father's profound and pervasive care of us and for our sweet Charlie.

Aaaaah.

Wha? A open window? In Moscow? In March?

Guh-lorious weather today. Nearly 60 degrees! These pictures may not look like much, but can you see where the signs of spring are? That, my friends, is a little sunshine.

A quick shout out to...

Jamie Soles, whose tunes have helped Charlie fall asleep after midnight feedings for a week now.

And... Peter and Claire for giving us his fabulous CD. Thanks guys!

Domesticity

So we're coming out of the fog a little at our house and I'm able to manage some housework from time to time. Hooray! The vacuum cleaner missed me. I'm only writing this because I'm very excited about being the new owner of a Swiffer-Vac-- sweeper and vacuum in one. Why am I excited? Our dog has been shedding- a LOT. That's all the news over here I'm afraid.

Ahhh... the good life.

In the last twenty-four hours, I've officially been pooped on, peed on (twice), spit up on (more than twice) and snuggled on (much more than twice).

Babies

While we wait for our baby to arrive, we have a substitute to console us and fill our laps. :-)


Pepper, what will you do when you have competition?

The Nursery is Ready!

Nothing super special, but some memorabilia and (hopefully) lots of functionality. Come on kiddo! We're ready for ya!

No, we haven't forgotten a bed. This cradle will be downstairs with us for a while.