More Charlie Charm

Charlie's latest thing is to make whiny sounds, stop and ask himself "What's wrong?" Especially, if I don't ask him first.

He also asks himself, "That fun?"

---

He sure knows how to make us laugh. When we put him to bed at night, we used to get him calmed down by saying, "How about a song?" He has now taken the responsibility upon himself to encourage us to sing more songs, thus delaying our inevitable departure. We'll sing one song, and then he'll pipe in with "How 'bout again song?" Lately he's been so pleased with our laughing response he just says it over and over "How 'bout again song?" Until he's worked himself into a fit of giggles. We think its pretty cute, so we laugh too, and pretty soon everyone's laughing at everyone laughing but nothing funny actually happened!

---

Charlie's beginning to understand the concept of "later" and "not right now." So, when he asks me a question and I say no, he get's a big grin on his face and says very cheerfully, "Later maybe!"

---

Last month I took some coins to the Coinstar machine and let Charlie help me deposit them. When the jar ran out, I told Charlie we were finished and it was time to go. He erupted, very loudly with "I want more money!"

---

My social butterfly called out to some friends on our walk this morning, "Hi peoples!"

---

Charlie is very affectionate with his stuffed animals and will often get on a roll with kissing each of them smack on the lips. The other day he kissed his truck too.

---

Charlie is dilligently working on figuring out colors and is convinced that almost everything is blue. Or orange/blue.

---

Does your toddler narrate? Because at the park the other day, Charlie was so excited he described everything he was doing as he was doing it. "I jump on that. I climb up this! Charlie go down the slide! I'm jumpin'. My reach it. Dat blue!"

Charlie turned 2!

Boy oh boy! We have a two yearold. And we love it! Charlie's official birthday was last Friday, so on Saturday we invited some special people over to help us celebrate. Charlie was showered with love and some groovy gifts. We all ate cake (stylishly shaped thanks to some pans from Granny and Grandad). Charlie held up pretty well considering all the commotion. And of course, his favorite part was opening presents! Here are some pictures that need no explanation. Enjoy!

Charlie also received a toy kitchen for his birthday, but I have yet to retrieve those pictures from Keith's email (someone else took them!). I'll try to put them up soon. And just as proof that he's enjoying that particular git, he has been making coffee and pizza pretty consistently for the last two days.

Charlieness

Tonight at dinner we had a little battle. Charlie refused to eat his chicken and wanted to be excused from the table shortly after we sat down. Oh boy. Keith set aside one small bite of chicken and told him he had only to eat that and he could go play. After lots of tears and pleading we were in a stalemate. Charlie wasn't complaining but he also wasn't eating. We did our Bible reading and things were starting to look bleak. What, I thought, if he doesn't do it and we're still here at 7:30? I should mention that I was not having a good attitude. I was down right grumpy and silently excused myself from having to take very much responsibility. Out of nowhere, Charlie held his hand out to us and asked to "pway." So Keith prayed as we all held hands. During the prayer of course, I realized I needed to confess my uncheerfulness and apologized to Keith after the amen. Not one minute later, Charlie ate his lonely, cold piece of chicken. And do you know what he said once he swallowed? "I want more."
----
And here's some other bits of Charlie-ness for you to chew:

Lately Charlie has been putting his toy kitty down for a nap on the bathroom scale, complete with a little fussiness from the kitty. I guess it is universally understood that naps should not go unprotested.

Charlie also likes to ask questions which he helpfully answers himself. Questions like, "More cracker? SURE!"

Whenever we get to a destination, he always very cheerfully calls out, "OKAY!"

The other day I said, "Charlie, you're so cute." He responded, "Mama cute." Bestill my heart.

Oh Taste and See

Today I decided to bite the bullet, stop being a wimp and let my toddler mess up my kitchen. Charlie is always intensely curious about everything I do up on top of the mysterious counter. And sometimes I'll create a little space for him to stir and pour imaginary food. But generally, it's hands-off the real stuff. Until this afternoon. I knew it would be messy but, really, it had to be done. We were out of cookies.

Charlie surprised me. I'm not sure what I expected, but he was really rather engrossed in his task. He painstakingly put sprinkles on the dough and experimented to his heart's content. It really wasn't that bad. He didn't even try to sample anything. The only hard part was getting him to keep the cookies on the cookie sheet after they were sufficiently rolled. They kept ending up back the in the sprinkles bowls. And of course the sprinkles all wound up in each others' bowls, and eventually (at the bitter end) all the sprinkles were poured (twice I think) onto the cookie sheet. But Charlie was very good about helping clean that up.

The cookies ended up ridiculously huge. They're supposed to be three times as small, because two cookies get glued together with (woweee sweet!) filling.

I think I was in a bit of a hurry and not caring much about size because I was hoping to avoid a complete deterioration of the process.

But Charlie doesn't care, so why should I?

Tickled Pink

This morning as I was making breakfast, Charlie stood in the kitchen, looked me in the eye and laughed a big, fake laugh. Then he stopped, shook his head and said "It's so funny."

At lunch today, Charlie was working on his second helping of jam and bread by dipping it into his applesauce. He said "Mm, mm, mm. It's so good."

As I did some chores this afternoon, Charlie was babbling to himself. He suddenly noticed what I was doing and said "Good job, Mama."

I can't wait to see what happens at dinner!

A whole lotta Christmas around here!

I've pretty much been thinking about Christmas since August. And that's because I decided, unequivocally, that I wanted to make an Advent Calendar. And since making things always takes more time when one has a Charlie around, I had to plan early. Still, I'm not as far ahead of the game as you might think, even for having been thinking about Christmas as early as I was. I've got about half my shopping done, but I haven't sent out a single card yet. Anyway, that hasn't stopped us from celebrating around here. We've got lots going on!

First of all, we've got lots of snowing going on. White Christmas!

We have a lot more than the pictures above show, but this was Charlie's first experience in his snowpants.
Here are some iceicles hanging next to our wood stoop. These formed in just two days of snow!

Charlie listening to Christmas music on Pandora. No, I wasn't drinking wine in the middle of the day, the bottle was still there from the night before... Yes, I'm a slow housekeeper...occasionally.

Here's a shot of some of our decorations. I try to center my "seasonal" decor around the hutch. That's our homemade advent calendar on the left there. Unfortunately, our beautiful orange dining room isn't very photogenic. The result is much brighter and more cheerful in person. You'll just have to come by for coffee and see it yourself!

And Keith's parents sent us this one specially for Charlie, along with a whole bunch of other pre-Christmas goodies!

Like this train! I know what you're thinking. How can you keep that out when you have an almost-two-yearold in the house? Well, in fact, the train scares him! Silly boy! But it is rather festive and as long as we don't turn it on, everyone is happy!
Here's our crazy tree topper.

This is my "red remnant cheater Christmas quilt." Basically, I bought remnants, fat quarters (only on sale) and big chunks of red fabric at garage sales, besides mining my own fabric "stash" to put this baby together (Mom? Margaret? Recognize anything?). Its a cheater because its actually a duvet cover, not a quilted quilt. I really want to make matching pillow shams, but I'm still panting from the effort to get this thing done in time for the Advent season, so we'll see.

One more of the sweet pre-Christmas gifts my in-laws sent. Aren't these salt and pepper shakers just the cheerfullest little guys?

Hope you're having fun preparing for Christmas!

Christmas in July (and the other way 'round)

This Christmas we decided to stay home. Travel during the holidays can be messy for us, especially with Charlie. And besides, we spent a lot of time away from home this summer. Staying put for a while has its appeal.

Knowing they would be deprived of their only and cutest grandson during the holidays, Keith's Floridian parents took a chance on our flighty Idaho weather, and hopped a jet to visit us in the middle of July. You can see from their expressions below, they were very happy they took that chance. They came for the most perfect five days of weather the Northwest has to offer.

We met them in Spokane the morning after their flight, stuffed ourselves at Perkins (or was it IHOP?) and then drove to Coeur d'Alene to spend the day. We visited downtown and had to stop in FigPickels, er, PickelFiggels, er, well this really cool toy store. If Charlie had been any older, this could have been very unwise. But we had a great time.Yes, that's me picking the moose's nose. No one else realized I had done this, but the moose appreciated it. ... Okay moving on. After walking about a bit, we hopped on a ferry to take a tour of Lake Coeur d'Alene. It was a lovely ride, the same ride Keith and I took on our second anniversary. And I got sunburned then too. And Charlie slept when he wasn't giving me a heart attack by leaning and standing on the railings. The end of our ride wasn't so serene though. In fact, we felt like we were in an episode of Bay Watch, minus the scantily clad rescue team.

Here's what happened: Just as we were nearing the shore, we were all watching the fancy moves of some windsurfer. He had his big parachute thing that was pulling him around. Everyone on the boat oohed and awed for a while. Then there was a lull. And then a woman behind me said "Oh no." Just "oh no" but in a voice that makes you realize something very very bad has just happened. And I heard and felt a sort of "bump bump" under the boat. Keith ran to the back of the boat and peered around. People were saying "Where is he? Where did he go?" What?!?! Did we just hit someone? Well, yes actually, we had.

Somehow, or other, a windsurfer (a different one) and our boat met up. Our boat cut off his wind supply and he was dead in the water (so to speak). Then he collided with the boat and just... went under. Our boat was going slow, but still had the propeller going. Are you following? You can guess what I was thinking, what we were all thinking: The guy's a gonner. But then, he popped up! Yes, there he was floating in the water and yelling something. At first I thought he was saying "I'm okay!" But then he was holding his leg up and repeating what he had said. "9-1-1!" And then we all got a look at his leg. (Insert shudder here.) His calf muscle was flayed open in a long gash, six inches at least. Keith said he saw the white flash of bone. Oh my. To end this story quickly, he got on an ambulance (finally) and we all got off the boat after leaving our "information" with the police. I don't remember exactly, months later, but I think we heard about it on the radio and he was alright. Whew. Welcome to Idaho, Dimelers!The rest of their visit, thankfully, was much less eventful. But we did have a lot of fun! We went to the farmer's market, watched the neighbor's house get all kinds of work done on it, basked in the sunshine and shade of our backyard, went to the pool, took a stroll through the arboretum, ate a lot of food, and drank a lot of wine and beer (responsibly, of course). And then is was Christmas in July. After watching Charlie endlessly "digging" with a trowel I picked up at a garage sale, Granny and Grandad decided it was absolutely necessary to get Charlie an early Christmas present. A sandbox! Ooooooooh, does Charlie love it. And we do too, even if I am occasionally surprised to find sand pouring out of his pockets during a diaper change. Hey, that's what vaccuum cleaners are for, right?

Keith also sent his dad out on a motorcycle ride. Looks like a natural, don't he?

And of course, Mom-dime needed to feel the Idaho wind. Go-Granny-Go!

Their last day we drove up to Spokane and had a delicious meal at Luigi's Italian Restaurant. Everything that was ordered was scumptious (I know, I ate the leftovers... later that is. For lunch. The next day. I'm not a pig! I even shared with Keith.) And then we sent them off.

So here we are, nearing Christmas, remembering July. Thanks for Christmas in July Mom and Dad Dimeler!