Two New Loves

The baby's first Christmas!! I was pretty excited about it and read him the Night Before Christmas a million times. But he just tried to tear the pages and slept through most of the morning gift exchange. oh well. He did however like the Christmas tree lights, grabbing the ornaments and hanging out with his uncles. Uncles Seth and Charlie take credit for teaching him how to roll over by dangling things just out of reach. Uncle Seth ceases to be amazed by how helpless Carlito is. It reminds me of my favorite questions from the Ralles': "Does he know any tricks yet?"

He did get to try cereal for the first time which was pretty amusing; He just moved his mouth up and down moving the mush around, but definitely not swallowing much. Actually he looked much tastier than the rice cereal mush so, tempted to eat him, we put him on a platter with some big serving spoons. Check it out:


It turns out that Carlito has two new loves - and neither of them include me. Number one is his thumb. Thumb - where were you when I needed you a couple of months ago?! and number two is his feet. It turns out that his feet ARE attached to him - this is major revelation for him. He is very taken by his feet; he plays with them and tries to eat them but his chub often gets in the way.

Our Type of Eventful Week

It might be a sad indication of our lives that I think this was an eventful week. It started with a Sunday trip to Pittsburgh for a newel post and a monday morning trip to small claims court by Carlos with us (Carlito and I) waiting to be called to provide the necessary I-have-a-baby-so-I-can't-be-that-bad support. Luckily we just got updates by text and didn't have to make an appearance. After sitting and waiting for hours they entered mediation which is required prior to going to court in DC. I have to give Carlos credit for being a naturally skilled negotiator - as opposed to me: the easy push-over. Somehow he got the mediator on his side, managed to look like the good guy and get yet another continuance from the judge. I'm not sure that even Carlito's smile would have been that effective.

We scrambled yet again to get ready for the final electrical inspection. How many inspections can you possibly have??! And that's not the last. Another one on monday! I am opening a bottle of wine and will drink the whole thing myself when and if we make it to that last inspection. That is if I can find our wine glasses... Everything is still in boxes. I found some plates but have been using plastic utensils as I can't find the silverware. The thing that is killing me is the coffee maker. Where are you coffee maker???!!! We're not really unpacking until the last inspection so I've been making daily runs to Starbucks - usually in a slightly disguised pajama outfit.

On to baby news: In our preparation for the inspection Carlito spit up on the electrician and the framing guy!! The electrician was holding "Junior" (as he calls him) as I wrote down all the things we needed to finish before Thursday. Clearly Carlito wasn't happy about the prospect of all that work either so he let the electrician know by a good spit up load. The really bad one was on the framer. Carlos was holding Carlito and leaned over the stairwell to peer at the progress below and...well I guess Carlito wasn't happy about the progress. He spit up and had 15 ft of gravity to intensify the experience. Poor framer - as if we haven't put him through enough!

Carlito has been kindof grumpy this week and his schedule seems to be changing. He used to like 3 short naps, but this week he has had one or two longer naps (like 1 or 2 hours). He did have a fever this weekend and still has a cough. I thought that those symptoms combined with his unstoppable drooling might mean that he was getting teeth, but I guess it's normal to get them around 7 months.

Check out this picture of Carlos when he was little - I guess I can't deny that Carlito looks like his father...Also - I couldn't resist kissing his bald spot. I also kissed his rear, but am saving you and him from that picture.

Back in DC

Carlito is back on his non-schedule schedule after returning from Hawaii which is 5 hours behind. It was actually much easier heading east than west in terms of baby jetlag, but harder on us...though it may have just been that we didn't want to leave Hawaii and return to our dust bowl house. I got sick, then Carlos got sick, then Carlito got a temperature, now I have a sore throat...

I told myself that I was going to start sleep training after we got back from Thanksgiving, but I haven't been very consistent - which I think means automatic failure. Of course I want him to come out and be social with mom and dad when we want to go out and go to sleep at a reasonable hour when we aren't going out. What a selfish mother. He likes to socialize too - look at him hanging out with his buddies during happy hour this week:


I did however try letting him cry when he wakes up in the night. He cried for 10 minutes and went back to sleep! I can't believe that I've been putting myself through this every night - jumping up to get him when all he needed was 10 minutes to put himself back to sleep. We'll see about tonight....

On the house front we had the bank appraiser come out in our seemingly never-ending quest to refinance the house. It was classic us as we had everyone -including my mom and the painters on their hands and knees cleaning in the minutes leading up to his arrival. Unfortunately he came a few minutes early and caught us on all fours. It was slightly embarrassing. It looks good, but we're holding our breath until the closing is set, come and gone.

We are also heading to small claims court tomorrow to face the stink eye of our neighbor. Should be a fun face off. I wonder if Baby Carlito will smile at her....or maybe he'll spit up on her....:)

Baby on Board

Baby Carlito logged almost 10,000 miles since our last entry!! We flew to Lihue, Hawaii to spend Thanksgiving with Carlos' family in Hanalei Bay. Unfortunately after making a 14 hour journey it turns out that he doesn't like the ocean much! At least not yet. Hanalei Bay is infested with dedicated surfers and one woman who was 55 and still surfing everyday said that she took her baby boogie boarding at 6 months! what?! yep, she put those little arm floaties on and rode waves. Carlito isn't even eating cereal yet, let alone riding waves!

We had fun, but the plane ride was L-O-N-G and short of beating me up before getting on the plane there wasn't much more the airline could do to make our trip more uncomfortable. Besides charging for every service beyond the pressurized cabin air they felt that it was a good idea to seat Carlos and I in middle seats apart from each other even though we had a "lap child." On the 4.5 hours back from Phoenix to DCA I sat in a crappy middle seat between two big guys with the baby on my lap the whole time. He did amazingly well - in fact I think he did better than I did...

Since being back we went for the 4 month doctor appt and shots and the big news is that he is slipping in the rankings! He is now only in the 97th percentile for weight and height at 18lbs 6 oz and 27 inches.

Bigger Than a Bread Box...

It turns out that Baby Charlie is bigger than a bread box. In fact he is bigger than a baguette and a fire log, but smaller than a guitar. He also has the cutest cankles ever! yes, cankles can be cute though I had to get toddler socks to fit his cute cankles. I'm not sure the photo below does them justice. Nor does the one of his wrist which to me looks like two little marshmallows stuck together.

Carlos was exceedingly pleased with himself this past week because he made our mean neighbor go through the bureaucratic nightmare of small claims court only to find that we had been granted a continuance. She was so pissed upon arriving home 3 hours later that she even dared speak to him! She said something sinister as she took pictures of him. I also realized that our tenant for the other house has probably confirmed that we are insane by the fact that she most likely has "unfrozen" our neighbor. Yes, I took some one's advice (yes, actual advice) and froze the name of our neighbor in water. It's probably defrosted now which is probably why she unfroze her lips long enough to murmur a few words to Carlos.

Studio Shots

Baby Charlie had a very cultured weekend; we took him to the Philadelphia Museum of art and Winterthur museum (http://www.winterthur.org/ it's so great!). He enjoyed the visits - especially because he doesn't get museum legs! And while the artwork was nice, he mainly appreciated the opportunity to suck on the front of his baby bjorn. The uptight tour guide was very pleased that he didn't interrupt her given that he was too busy soaking his ride through and through.

Some one else inquired if his name was Bjorn - and it took me a few moments to realize they were reading the flap of his Baby Bjorn carrier. It reminded me of the Calvin Klien scene from Back to the Future. And speaking of movie reminiscing the baby has twice reminded me of The Princess Bride. Once because Carlos' mom immediately looked to see if he had six fingers on one hand!! I wouldn't know what to do if I had the six-fingered villain from my favorite childhood movie!! The other time was last week when he was concentrating on something in front of him so hard and it was clear that he wanted to grab it, but his hand-eye coordination needs a little work....Then with what seemed to be all his strength throughout his entire body he managed to flop his left arm on top of the object. "To the pain" I thought!! Or perhaps he just isn't left handed...:)

I finally got the CD with the (not many) pictures of the boo-boo!!

Election Night...& Record Poo

Tuesday was such a momentous day. Baby Charlie and I went to vote around 9am after the line died down. I tried to tell him that he was part of an important historical moment, but he mainly just liked the attention that he got at the polling station. My little brother never got his absentee ballot so he drove 6.5 hours from Vermont to Philadelphia to vote and then got back on the road! He single-handedly made Pennsylvania go blue....! I told him he should have tried to sneak into the Dixville Notch voting booth in neighboring New Hampshire - I'm sure that they wouldn't have noticed...

Anyways, here's a picture of us going to vote. I just noticed the sign in the background - I guess you can get your car washed, hit the flea market and vote all at once.

We got to see DC go crazy after Obama won. We were near the White House and hundreds of people were in the street dancing, screaming, holding signs and yelling for Bush to get out of the White House. People in cars were honking and high-fiving strangers they passed. I can't imagine that people would have been that excited had Kerry won 4 years ago. It's Obamania. It's so amazing to me that the first president that Baby Charlie will grow up with will be an African-American named Barack Obama. What a world of difference from growing up with Carter & Reagan - not that I remember anything about Carter or Reagan....Here is the baby awaiting the elections news - clearly he is excited....


Thursday was also a momentous day because the baby and I separated for a whole day!! ahh!! I went to Atlanta for work. The day started at 4am when I woke him up to nurse and then left for the airport at 4:45am. He had to deal with formula for the rest of the day which I hear didn't start out so well. He refused to take it if my mom held him close to her chest, but finally he would take it sitting in his bouncey chair. So much formula might not have agreed with him as he did a record-sized poo that went all the way up his back - even to his armpits!! Sorry mom! The funniest thing was that she told me that she kept the diaper in case I wanted to inspect it. No thanks.... The good news is that waking up at 4am is no longer difficult! I felt fine the whole day - how sad. I'm not sure if he was happy to see my when I got home, but I was soooo happy to see him.

I decided to spare you a picture of the poo, but here are some others...

Where the Wild Things Are

It was Halloween morning and when I awoke I didn't find Baby Charlie in his bassinet. Instead I found a Wild Thing. He growled and grunted and kicked and demanded food. We tried to put him in a pumpkin to keep him contained. But he would have none of it. He wanted Halloween candy! So we took him trick-or-treating and tucked him into to bed. In the morning our little Charlie was back again.

The Cheering Section

This weekend Baby Charlie and I headed down to DC to cheer on Carlos with the house and my brother in the Marine Corps marathon. We all - brother, Carlos, and baby & I had varying levels of success. After a successful sighting at 17 miles, Soogy, Wallis, Charlie and I attempted to make it to somewhere in the 20+ mile range to cheer on Nathan. We knew he would need it given that he somehow forgot to train for the marathon...(shockingly similar to the last two years - one of which ended up with him in the medical tent). In our enthusiasm we ended up following what we thought was the race route....but there were suspiciously fewer and fewer people cheering. We were merging onto the bridge across to Virginia as were the runners, but there was one important thing separating us: a large divider. In fact we were merging onto highway traffic - not the path with all the runners. The bugaboo stroller is a decent ride, but wasn't going to stand a chance in the fast lane so we had to solicit help to lift the stroller - with baby Wallis inside and all the absurd mounts of baby gear one ends up leaving the house with latched on - over a divide and into the middle of the race. There we were - stuck on an seemingly endless bridge of unsightly concrete going to Northern Virginia (itself rather unsightly) surrounded by thousands of runners. No one else was dumb enough to cheer there so we were literally IN the race - there were participants walking next to us, we'd get passed by runners and then pass them as they stopped to stretch or vomit over the bridge (nice!). I felt like we should have had our own race numbers. At first baby Charlie loved it, but the bridge was way too boring for him and he fell asleep. It worked out well as we caught Nathan at mile 24 and was able to give him a coca-cola. He said he was in a bad way, but he looked fine and was still ahead of the women dressed in a tutu and the superman guy who actually ran 26 miles in a cape (did he think it would help?).

Back at the house front Carlos and my dad worked on the basement's kitchen cabinets in preparation for a big inspection this week. As you can see from Carlos' hair in the picture - he has been lacking a shower and using drywall dust as hair gel. Luckily now there is electricity and a functioning toilet. Though he did say to my dad as he was leaving at 10:30pm - "Are you sure you don't want to pee in the drain for old time's sake?" It was the baby's and my first night staying at the house which was scary, but ended up being fun. Baby Charlie was especially reluctant to leave and signified his displeasure with a really juicy number two in his diaper.

The really fun part of the weekend was carving pumpkins with the SAISers. I am pretty impressed by our work - though I did decapitate a star, one eye on Obama is missing and I think that Palin got a nose job. But overall I think they rock.

I definitely got scammed on the photo shoot of baby Charlie. yesterday we went to view the photos that the woman took a couple of weeks ago and I ended up paying loads for a mere 3 digital images - oh, and "One free Print." The really bizarre thing is that for some reason it takes 10 weeks to mail me the image on a CD!! I'm pretty sure she could have burned the images onto a CD right then and there. Maybe the 10 weeks makes it seem really handcrafted and hard. Which brings me to another point - I noticed that she touches up the photos. okay - maybe that is what they are supposed to do as professional portrait people, but I happen to think my baby is really cute as is. Clearly I'm too defensive to be a good portrait studio person. At least the lesson learned is a fun one as I get some cute Charlie shots. I'll make sure to post them...in 10 weeks when the arrive....



Charlie is smiling a lot but I guess I'm not funny enough to get some real laughter. Here's a video of me trying to make him laugh with my crappy duck noises. His reaction makes me laugh which seems to amuse him more than what sounds like a drunk donald duck.

He isn't laughing yet, but he is trying to sit up incessantly. He sticks his tongue out, strains and mostly just lifts his head forward. But he is very proud of himself and when I sit him up he is very entertained...until his head gets too heavy for him and it slowly starts falling forward against his greatest efforts. It is, afterall, still a very big head.

As for the house, well, let's just say that I'm still in philadelphia...