2/3 of a Year!

On Sunday, Charly turned 8 months. 2/3 of a year!

Daycare is proving to be a great experience. No matter how hard it is for Kelli to drop her off each day! Mel, our daycare provider just loves Charly, and she's not the only one. Everyday, adorable Kiera (4 years old) meets Kelli at the door after school and gives her an update on Charly's day. She even gets Charly's carseat ready. On most days when Kelli arrives after school, Charly can be found in the arms of Mel's junior high daughter Haley, navigating Facebook, helping with Haley's homework, or being shown off to friends. And best of all, Charly's first friend Violet. Each morning, Violet squeals and squeals and crawls as fast as she can to Charly's carseat, as if to say "Get outta there! We got playin' to do!" Charly's little face lights up as soon as she gets over the shock of Violet's squeals and becomes equally as excited. Violet is the daughter of a fellow teacher at my school. She is one year old. As the two get older, Mel may have her hands full!

Two things happened this month, causing us to see Charly in a new light. Sadly, she no longer feels like a baby. First, she's gone mobile! She speed crawls everywhere. She follows us into every room, including the bathroom, she chases Elliot, and she pulls herself up to a standing position near our couch, entertainment center, chairs, laundry baskets, inside her crib, and up our legs. She doesn't stand on her own quite yet (although we have seen glimpses of it), but any day, we swear, she's gonna take off walking. We had to lower her crib for the first time because of this!

Second, her baby cousin Cruz was born. Charly is only 8 months old, but it feels like forever ago that she was Cruz's size. He seems so tiny comparatively. Our little girl is no longer the littlest of the family. While visiting Cruz in the hospital we also discovered that Charly can be a little territorial. Kelli was holding the little guy while Ashley played with Charly. Charly appeared to be in good spirits until she spotted the tiny creature in her mommy's arms. She stared at the people in the room and stared dumbfounded at Cruz. Then she started whining and grunting and holding out her arms and kicking away from Ashley. We all laughed hysterically while Kelli handed Cruz off to Beau and took Charly. Charly immediately whipped herself around in Kelli's lap, found Cruz, and grinned triumphantly. What can we say? She knows her mommy and daddy and loves us very much!

Last Wednesday, Charly was scheduled for 8-month photos. We were to meet our photographer at 4:30. Kelli and I don't get out of school until 4:05 so Grandpa Merle and Grandma Dolores were going to help out and pick up Charly from daycare (for the third time). They were going to have her changed and ready to go for us when we got home. Instead, we had to cancel pictures. Charly had an uncharacteristically whiny day at daycare and never really settled for my grandparents. Opened their eyes to a whole new Charly! Charly is rarely fussy so we knew something was amiss. Her bottom gums looked swollen and white so we chalked it up to teething. It wasn't until Friday, when Kelli was tipping Charly upside down tickling her that we noticed not one, not two, but THREE teeth poking through in her upper gums! No wonder the poor thing was out of sorts. Since then, we've even spotted a FOURTH up there!

Other 8 month highlights include:

• Traveling to her third state.
• Witnessing the Twins collapse vs. the Yankees in her first ever MLB Playoff experience.
• Experiencing the best October in recent memory and playing in the leaves. (Although she was more interested in eating the leaves!)

• Waving "bye-bye" to Kelli. Just once.
• Eating breakfast at Great Grandma Gail's.
• Staying overnight at her counsin's in Des Moines and cheering on her mommy while she raced a 5k.

• Shotguning juice out of a sippy cup.

• Beginning to turn pages in books and even gave herself her first papercut!
• Perfecting the art of making fish lips!
  
• Changing her hairstyle. Her hair is too long and hangs in her eyes so we're now forced to tie it up in a long ponytail on top of her head. It's actually pretty cute!

10 Things We Love About You

Last Friday Charly turned 7 months. Here are 10 things from this month we learned and love about her . . .

10. Charly loves men. She's going through a phase where she's not too sure of anyone besides her mom and dad however we've noticed that between men and women, she sure tends to warm up to men quicker. If she was a little older, I think the college aged Fareway meat-man she was flirting with the other night, would've tried to get her number!

9. Charly is figuring out how her hands work. She'll study her hands, opening and closing, forever it seems. Not quite sure how those fingers are working. She seems to do it more often when she wants something and we swear there's been a few times where she's waved goodbye at a grandma or grandpa.

8. Charly crawls all over the house! One day, we noticed that Charly was pushing herself up on all fours and rocking back and forth. The next day she made her first moves, crawling forward and backwards. The following day, she was speed crawling throughout the entire house! She follows us everywhere. If we leave the room for even a brief instant, she's at our feet in a heartbeat. She can even sit herself upright from crawling and she does the splits!

7. She says "Mama". Or at least we think she does. It's kind of jibberish but it definitely sounds like a run-on of "Mama-mama-mama-mama" and she definitely mumbles it when she wants something. Or someone . . .

6. She's a good eater. She eats just about any kind of fruit or mixture of fruit (other than peaches), and is coming around on her vegetables. We don't try very hard at home but she gets her fill at daycare!

5. We love the way she wakes up in the morning. We hear movement in her room, slowly crack open the door, and every morning are greeted by her smiling face peeking over the railing of her crib. She can hardly contain herself with excitement as we pick her up out of the crib.

4. She can be surprisingly independent. She enjoys playing with her toys and sitting in her interactive saucer seat.

3. She's a cuddler! When Kelli picks her up at daycare the first thing she does is rub her cheek into Kelli's face and hold it there, cheek to cheek. She loves to play with our faces and refuses to fall asleep if we're not holding her.

2. She's still incredibly laid back. She ate bugs for crying out loud, and it didn't even phase her! She's easy to take places, she smiles and giggles all the time, and she rarely cries. Unless of course, a bunch of strange women enter our house for a baby shower. Then she cries a lot.

1. She holds her arms out to us when she wants to be picked up. It melts us everytime.

6 Months

Last Monday, Kelli and I started school. On Tuesday, Charly turned 6 months. One half-year old!

This month Charly has really explored her voice. She's gone from happily yelling to fake coughing to this soft, yet in a way, high-pitched little squeak. She's quite the jabberwocky!

She started eating baby food this month. We started with applesauce (on her Grandma Henning's birthday), and the look on her face was priceless. She was loving her cereal and opening her mouth at the sight of her bowl but the look of disgusted confusion on her face when something other than cereal entered her mouth was hilarious! She's gone on to enjoy oatmeal and pears and she's learned to tolerate apples. She's not the biggest fan of bananas and hates peaches. What can I say, she's her father's girl!

A little less than a month ago we noticed Charly scooting backwards. Soon after, she began sitting up on her own. Her pediatrician was very impressed with how well she sat up on her own for a 6 month old. We tend to think she's somewhat of a prodigy!

She had her first overnights at both Grandma and Grandpa's houses in Allison while we took a weekend away with friends in Chicago. She went on her first mini-vacation to Minnesota and made a new friend named Norman and loved her bathtime in Shawn and Kali's kitchen sink.

She loves to get on all fours and rock back and forth. Sometimes she gets rocking so fiercely, we're sure she's going to take off across the room! Kelli hated going back to school, for many reasons, but also because we knew that crawling was just around the corner and she didn't want to miss it. Well, unless our daycare provider is lying to us (which would be okay in this instance), we didn't miss a thing. The other night while rocking, Charly discovered that moving her knees could move her forward. She was tickled to discover there were more ways to move around the house than backwards! I wouldn't call what she does full-fledged crawling, but it's enough to officially say she has crawled!

She loves watching Elliot and Elliot is getting more and more interested in Charly. We can't wait for the day these two really begin interacting!

Going back to work was hard for both of us, but especially Kelli. She was a blubbery mess. It's not ideal but she does like teaching and seems to like her class this year. I too, think I've been blessed with a good group of kids. That will make it easier. Plus the fact that our daycare provider loves Charly and Charly loves kids! She's easily entertained by kids. She's happy as can be after school and loves spending time with us at night. The only problem is, I don't know how we're going to get any schoolwork done!

Backwards . . .

We think Charly is getting ready to crawl. But there's something not quite right with this picture . . .

Starting Position:

Ending Position:

Good to know she has her father's sense of direction!