The Blackberry Phase

No one sleeps in this household these days. Charlie continues to break new boundaries with his bizarre sleeping issues and add to that the fact that he has the flu and you get a week of blurry-eyed mornings (for us). Diego seems to have RSV and hasn't been able to sleep well either. My initial enthusiasm for Charlie going #2 in the toilet has waned as it seems to have an unforeseen consequence of him not liking to ever have a diaper on...even when going to bed. Every night we put a diaper on and then watch on the monitor how he takes off his pajamas, removes his diaper and then puts back on his pajamas (often times backwards). The only thing to do is wait until he passes out and then put a diaper on him. But the timing doesn't always work out in our favor and he's gotten everything wet various times. On top of that he thinks it's fun to wake us up at night telling us that he needs to go pee in the toilet. And still other times he seems to have nightmares - which usually involve a big 'mono' - and yells out. This morning was one of those mornings when I was glad to see daylight because I'm tired of battling all night, my eyeballs sting and I'm nauseous from not sleeping. Fun start to the weekend!

Other than the week long illness we are doing well. Charlie is endlessly amusing with his sayings and his reasoning. He is working on his letters, but is hopeless when it comes to colors. He knows all the colors - he just doesn't know which is which. He likes to point out "Cs" and scream "C for Charlie" though alot of time it's an O, or even something random like "7."

Diego has entered his blackberry phase. It's a phase I think all babies of this generation go through until they graduate to the iphone. Charlie will have nothing to do with my blackberry ever since he found that it didn't have a touchscreen. But Diego loves it. He still has shown no interest in moving anywhere, but he does like to sit up and play and watch his brother. He has the cutest sad face/cry that must be unique to younger siblings. I feel like I never saw this on Charlie because no one ever took his toy or hit him the way that poor Diego suffers at Charlie's hands. When Charlie takes his toy Diego instantly puts on a sad face and wails. It stops immediately once I return the toy to him. It sounds terrible, but it's so cute that I laugh when he does it sometimes.

Last weekend we went to see The Singing Lizard and here is Charlie the groupie dancing with Diego

We also had the SAIS band get back together for another gig. Good stuff.

TMI

Yesterday was the first time Charlie has ever asked to go poo in the toilet! sorry - too much information - but I wanted to record it for posterity sake. I guess it is the silver lining of him giving up his nap as he no longer has a chance to have a diaper on during the day.

Lipstick

My apologies to the grandmothers for being so delinquent....

I just arrived back from Atlanta for work where it's nice to get a full night's sleep but not worth the grumpy husband on the other end of the phone. Poor Carlos had the babies for 3 evenings!

In addition to my travels we've had some of Carlos' family friends from Chile staying with us for the last few weeks. I'm pretty sure they thought we are crazy! Seeing our life with 2 small kids through the eyes of people without kids is comical. Something is always going wrong, some one is always crying or being loud or getting hurt, some one is always waking up at night....On top of that you should have seen the look on the one woman's face when she saw the pile of lumber that my husband made me carry up three flights of stairs in the freezing cold. I haven't seen some one so mortified in a long time.

The boys are doing well. Last night our little monster Charlie refused to wear his diaper to bed. We put him in bed with the diaper on and 10 min. later he yelled down that he took it off. This happened 3 or 4 times before we decided that he won and let him go to sleep without a diaper. When he was totally passed out I put a diaper on him. I brought him Fanta flavored chapstick from the Coke store because they don't have much else for kids (they aren't allowed to market to kids) and he slept with it under his pillow. He LOVES chapstick - which he calls "lipstick."

My bag of sugar Diego survived my travel, but not happily and now he has a cold.

Here are some pictures from the last 2 weeks....It seems that Charlie still fits in the Bjorn....just not very well:

We played tour guide and went to Mount Vernon:

I caught half of the alphabet on video:

I'm really glad that I installed a gate at the bottom of the stairs. Here is Charlie sliding under the handrail to climb up the stairs. And yes...he does it all the time.

Charlie's "Ling Ling"

My bag of sugar:

Last weekend our favorite 'manny' Mark and Sarah came over. Not only did they bring good food but they had a jam session with Charlie.

Here is another "ling ling" session - Charlie trying to play along with his favorite song....Actually I think he is mostly just in love with the little girl singing the song and who can blame him!
When I said that Charlie is back to being sweet I think I lied or was in denial. He has pretty much given up his naps completely and even quiet time is going out the window because it was becoming 'destruction time.' We cleared out every possible fun distraction from his room which made it kindof a sad place. But that didn't stop him - with no toys or books to entertain himself he turned his attention elsewhere. For instance one day he took every item of clothing that was hanging up in his room off the hangers and shoved them under his crib. Another day he found a box of wipies and meticulusly took each one out and piled them on the floor. He is usually proud of his endeavors so it's tough to get too mad, but we have cut the quiet time significantly...

Here are Charlie and Diego enjoying teatime with Sandra and Lesli