Charliepics: Fall 2010

Two-and-a-Half Year Checkup: Perfect Health

Charlie's in perfect health, his doctor reports. 37 inches, 29.6 pounds. When he saw his doctor, he ran right to her, which is a good sign that he doesn't link these visits with anything negative. It helps that the office has an awesome playroom. As soon as we walk in, he goes to the tricked-out car, saying "My car." After he played for awhile, another kid came over to check it out. Charlie got out, and said "here you go." When I tell you this boy is sweet.

Creative Hijinks

This evening, Charlie took his toy camera to take a picture of me, requiring me to say "cheese." I then took the camera, pointed it back at him, and said "Okay, now I'll take a picture of you. Say cheese!" He proceeded to make a goofy face and yell "BLAH!" He then snatched the camera, pretended to see a picture of himself, and told me "Funny Charlie!" Good stuff.

"I got it," "thank you," "sorry," "It's Charlie!"

These are just a few of the hundreds of words and phrases the kid has in his arsenal now. In fact, He's gone flying past word acquisition, past key phrases, and into sentence construction. He knows full well how to speak in sentences. If there are parts he doesn't know the words to, he'll mumble past it, just for the sake of speaking the way adults do. It's marvelous to observe.

Hi kid. I'm back

Hi Charlie,

I've been away. Not from you in real life, of course, but from this place, my place I set up on the day you were born to keep track of all of your progress, your growth, your individual moments. I've been enjoying our time together to such a degree that I have neglected to take the time to document them. I promise to try to get back to this. It's important for two reasons. One, so when you're older, you can look back and see what you were like. Two, so when all of your family and I are older, we can look back and remember the specifics of what made us smile.

You Never Close Your Eyes Anymore When I Kiss Your Lips

Lovely moment tonight. After I put a fresh diaper on a seriously cranky child, I stood him up on the bed, just to soothe him. My usual tricks, including goofy faces and silly noises, had no effect. I went with the song route, and for no reason at all out came The Righteous Brothers. I made it to "you never close your eyes" when Charlie ran into my stomach, embraced me, and started swaying--really swaying. I kept singing and hugged him back, the joy from which I am still feeling.

So much to get out of this. Mostly, how essential music is, how communicative it is to our wiring, how perfect it is among imperfect, that is all, lives.

Mad Man

Charlie is becoming a legitimate madman. He bursts out into loud calls of the wild at any given time. He gestures with his hand while he talks like he's playing bocce at that Saugus ITAM. For reasons unseen by me he will make a break for it to the other side of the living room, panting in desperation to escape something.

I am loving every minute of his exploration into these new facets of himself: voice, expression, doing something because he can.