For One Night Only - TODDLER TANTRUM!

For One Night Only - Playing in Franklin Green and Cannonwood - Your Favorite Punk Band - TODDLER TANTRUM!

By popular demand -- the DIAPER DANCE!

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Reading the Halloween Card

Great-Great Aunt Bev and Great-Great Uncle Leo sent Charlie a Halloween card, so Charlie sat and read it to us before bed.

Once upon a time . . .

And then . . .

The end!

Puh-kin!

We carved Charlie's big "puh-kin" tonight. Not this puh-kin, but the big one.

We set up on the floor, and I realized that this could get messy. So, we got her clothes off.

Charlie was not interested in getting all messy, and instead did her happy diaper dance while I carved.

She kept close, and chatted with us while I carved and Niki shot pictures. She played with the puh-kin tools.

Happy Halloween!

CJ and her new room

Despite the dour look on her face, Charlie Jo loves her new room. We took this shot after we hung up the puffy "Charlotte" letters made for CJ by one of NanaB's friends. Now, the box springs are back and there are white bed rails, and some day we will set up the headboard (along with the rest of the bedframe), which will make the height of the letters make more sense. For now, they look a little high. I have the material to make curtains for the windows and we need to recover the chair currently draped in an old sheet, but otherwise CJ's room is just about complete!



Seeing CJ climb up on her bed and curl up with a book is just about the cutest thing ever. She also loves to drag various stuffed animals up there and then throw them off. Oh Charlie...

SUCCESS!!! -- a post script

Okay, so I may have declared our success with little Charlie Jo and her big girl bed a leeeeeetle bit early. We had some more rolling out of bed issues, so we decided to push the mattress up against the wall on one side and shove some big plastic tubs up against the other side to make a pseudo crib. That took care of the rolling out of bed problem, but her room looked a little like a storage locker.

Then, we had an exciting weekend of houseguests (Auntie Ernie and Cousin Sonia!), and that probably led to some problems getting CJ to sleep through the night. We bought some mesh bed rails and set the mattress back up onto the box springs, but we apparently didn't place the rails close enough to the head of the bed. Somehow, CJ managed to squeeze out of a 16-inch space at the head of the bed (whether on purpose or by accident, we don't know) and fell off the bed again. Once we got the bed rails placed up higher, CJ slept through the night without a single peep.

SO, whereas we didn't have a horrible frantic scene with CJ throwing herself at her old crib and insisting on sleeping in it (or some other scenario forcing us to completely abandon the big girl bed and put her back in the crib), things didn't go quite as smoothly as I thought they might. I'm still so proud of my little baby girl! Oops, I mean my big girl.

SUCCESS!!!

She did it!! Charlie Jo slept through the entire night in her own big girl bed (well the mattress anyway - we even took the box spring out of there since it still seemed to high off the ground!) with only one small hiccup. At about 2:00 am, Corey and I awoke to the sound of crying. We went into her bedroom and found Charlie Jo sitting next to the head of her bed. Did she fall off or crawl off? Who knows.

Regardless, she instantly calmed down when I cuddled her and laid her back down in bed. We sang the usual "pregame routine" (the alma maters of Vanderbilt, Michigan State, Duke, and Placer High School before a final made up song about CJ) to her and left the room again. She never got out of bed or woke us up again for the rest of the night until 8:00 am. At that point, she woke up and cried a little, so I came in and we did our usual good morning routine. This consists of lying in bed (usually mine, but today hers!) together and talking about all sorts of things (Daddy, Pacey, Connie, cars, pumpkins, etc.) until one of us decides it's time to get out of bed. Too bad Corey was already at work because he loves to do this routine on the weekends. (Ah, the life of a lawyer...)

I'm so proud of little Charlie Jo! And to think that I have been stressing for about five full months about this transition...

Another step on the journey toward becoming a big girl

We needed to get Charlie Jo transitioned to a big girl bed in order to clear the crib for Peter's arrival. Step one: clear out the guest bedroom and paint it two shades of purple suitable for a precocious toddler. Joslyne and Demetri came over to help Corey paint while I stayed away from the fumes and watched CJ and ZoZo in the bonus room.




The best part of hanging out with the girls was helping them diaper various baby dolls and stuffed animals over and over and over and over and over and over and over again. Here, the girls were trying a synchronized diaper change. Pretty soon after, they demanded more help. Sigh.



Step two: buy CJ a big girl bed (which we set up on the floor without the bed frame until we could be sure CJ wouldn't fall out of it at night). We have been letting her play on it since it was delivered yesterday afternoon so she could get used to it. She absolutely adores it.



Pacey likes it too. He's pretty sure we got it for him.



Step three: Get that toddler to actually sleep in the new bed! Tonight we begin the grand experiment. I couldn't believe that we were able to leave her lying down in the bed with the lights out and didn't hear a tiny fist pounding on the door and a squeaky voice demanding "Mo-MEEE!" within seconds of closing the door behind us. I have the baby monitor on for the first time in many many months (I usually only keep it on upstairs while we sleep so I can hear when she wakes up) and I haven't heard any unusual activity up there. Just an occasional thup-thup-thup of her sucking her thumb. I'm dying to peek in on her but I'm not quite ready to accept the fact that CJ is not my baby anymore. I'm definitely not going to miss hauling CJ's 24+ lbs. in and out of that darn crib though. Cross your fingers and hope the night goes well!

Here's CJ practicing her sleeping skills in her new bed. We'll let you know tomorrow how the night went.

CJ and ZoZo over the years, er, year

CJ loves her BFF, Zoey. They met a little more than a year ago at a mom's group playdate at ZoZo's house.



Sometime later that fall, CJ and I invited Joslyne and ZoZo to our house to play, and the rest is history. Here are the girls in December '08.



They both look totally dour in this next photo, but trust me when I say that by April they were really starting to interact like playmates rather than just playing near each other.



Now, they play little games with each other. Here, they were busting a move in their "boats". Moments before, they were seated, rocking back and forth and giggling like maniacs while we sang "Row, Row, Your Boat."



Can't wait to see how the friendship develops in the years to come!

Little painting monkey

I'm ready to paint! Someone hand me a roller...

30 weeks along

As of yesterday, I am 30 weeks pregnant. 30 WEEKS PREGNANT, PEOPLE! That's 3/4 of the way toward giving birth. Possibly more, if Peter's born before his December 16th due date.

Does Charlie Jo know what is coming? Well, she points to my belly and says "baby". Then again, she also points to her own belly (and Corey's) and says the same thing. She thinks it's fun to put a diaper (well, she helps me put the diaper on) her baby doll, but it seems she actually enjoys taking the doll's diaper off more. That could make things a little tough if she decides Peter might be happier al fresco.

This weekend, Charlie Jo's new bedroom (our former guest bedroom) will be magically transformed by elves into a toddler's dream room. Actually, Corey, Joslyne, and Demetri are going to paint it a lovely purple while I get to hang out with my favorite gals (Charlie Jo and Zoey) away from the paint fumes. Stay tuned for photos of the madness.

Little Peter is kicking up a storm as I type this. He's got to toughen up in there before birth in order to survive his big sister's enthusiasm. Do they make newborn-sized onesies with full-body armor?

The great little pumpkin

Charlotte has been talking nonstop about "puh-kins" for the past few days, so when I found myself with her at the grocery store this afternoon after her nap (NEVER her best time of day) I knew just what to do. We swung by the gourds section of the vegetable aisle and picked up a 99-cent baby pumpkin for her to hold during the shopping trip. It worked like a charm. She cradled it like a baby, petted it, kissed it, waved it around, showed it to people, and repeated "PUH-KIIIIIIIN!" over and over and over and over. It was better than her fussing and insisting on being held while I steered a heavy shopping cart in my eighth month of pregnancy (yes, we have done this several times). At the very least, it was worth the 99 cents it cost to take that slobbery orange lifesaver home.

Here is CJ with her beloved pumpkin. This was taken immediately after a smooch, so just imagine her still making the joyous "MWAH!" sound that one makes after an enthusiastic kiss.

Animals animals everywhere!

We took Charlotte to the Nashville Zoo for the first time and she was hysterical to watch. She just about lost her mind at the meerkat exhibit. She jabbered excitedly and pointed them out to us over and over again.



At the petting zoo area, she decided a goat needed a little accessorizing.



But the best parts were just watching the monkeys while snuggling with her daddy. Well, except when the siamang got a little close to the edge of the exhibit and CJ started repeating "bye bye monkey, bye bye monkey", shaking her head, and saying "no, no". Maybe she was flashing back to this summer's gorilla incident at the Santa Barbara Zoo?



We only made it through about a third of the zoo before CJ tired out, so we can't wait to go back. We didn't make it to the elephants this time, and they're sure to be a big hit given her excitement every time she spots one in a book.

In Charlie's World . . .

In Charlie's lifetime . . .

MSU has never lost to UM!

Go STATE!

Shop 'til you drop

Look what CJ bought at Kroger today! A cute little BFF named Zoey. Can we keep her?!?!?