Earth Day

I don't like to blame everything on the baby the way that Carlos does ("Where did the baby put my wallet? The baby took the tool...The baby took the keys..."), BUT Charlie does seem to be the culprit in the latest camera loss. He loves to look at pictures of himself and to carry it around saying 'cheese.' I think he must have put it in a special place because we can't find it anywhere. I've been taking pictures with my blackberry so the quality isn't very good...

After spending most of the week in Atlanta we had a fun weekend all together. For the second week in a row we went to listen to jazz at a church by the waterfront. Charlie walks around like he owns the place. He mainly liked roaming around outside, but came in for the good soul food they serve and proceeded to eat most of my dinner. Here he is with Mauricio practicing the drums on stage and wearing Aunt Mary's glasses. Nice look.

He also had 2 recent encounters with sandboxes. We made it to the house of some one who had a sandbox only after led astray by a man with brain damage who claimed to have superhuman strength. Bad call to follow him! Charlie had a fun time once we made it there though he refused to actually get inside the sandbox. He subsequently pushed the little boy to get him away from a toy which was horrorific to me. He often pulls at a toy if he doesn't want to share, but he has never pushed a kid (at least that I know of) so I was mortified. The whole way home he kept saying "Nice to the baby" so I'm hoping that he felt some remorse. On Saturday we found another sandbox set up on the mall and he found dinosaur bones! What a discovery!

We've been trying to get him used to the idea of a baby brother by giving him a baby doll that my mom brought. He is nice to the baby doll though he carries it around by the neck which probably isn't a great habit. He feeds, dresses and lays down with the baby, but clearly that doesn't seem to translate to being nice to other real babies yet.

Recently I have been feeling like my threshold for fulfillment in life has been recalibarated to wanting a healthy and happy family. I was thinking that was me lowering expectations but Carlos informed me that it was just that I was finally gaining perspective on life. And now after gaining perspective, I can also say that my life is complete! Charlie and I saw Sting perform at the Earth Day rally on the Mall!! I've always wanted to see Sting in concert; in fact when I was 9 I thought I was going to marry him. I wasn't the only happy one - Charlie had a blast. He loved the music (especially Robert Randolph's version of Purple Haze) and the crazy costumes. James Cameron was there along with some Blue People. They were kindof scary looking, but I couldn't resist taking a picture. Charlie especially liked a bunny running around with a sign saying "this bunny opposes Cap and Trade." Random. He especially liked the $4 hot dog I bought him. $4.15!!! I hope that is the most I ever pay for a hot dog.

Last weekend we also had fun as Rachel Ralles came to visit. We went on the White House Garden tour (with 10 million other people). Charlie was most impressed by the playground that the Obama girls had installed. I told him if he became the first hispanic president he could play on the playground anytime! That was of much greater interest than being 30 ft from the Oval office (all of which is much smaller than I imagined!). Here is the oval office and Charlie and Carlos in front of the main residence.

Cherry Blossom Fun

Last Saturday Charlie and I went to cheer on the Cherry Blossom parade. I really don't understand parades - a Magic Mountain car would follow a local high school marching band followed by a big balloon garfield - but Charlie loved it. We stood on a ledge and I held him for 1.5 hours as he danced, clapped and cheered.

After that cousins Wallis and Eli came to play which was so much fun. In fact we had a full house - my brother, his wife and two kids along with my mom and my friend were all staying over. It was an interesting set-up - my mom, me and charlie in one room, Nathan, Soogy, Wallis and Eli in another, Janine in another and Carlos on the couch! Unfortunately Charlie woke himself up with a big poo and not wanting to wake everyone up with his crying I took him downstairs where he proceeded to play until he finally curled up next to me on the floor at 4am! It was the craziest evening ever.

The next morning Nathan snuck out early to run the Cherry Blossom race, Soogy, the kids and my mom went to see him run and when Janine's car battery had died Charlie and I rushed her over to the Vice President's house to attend a baby shower! We weren't cleared to enter so she had to proceed on foot from the gate. But the report was the the house is beautiful, tasteful and everything was on schedule - with everyone getting kicked out exactly 2 hours later. The dead battery became a family affair as my brother and mom tried the jumper cables to no avail. Hertz sent a repairman which turned out to be a man in a beat-up Chevy with his 6 year old daughter and a chihuahua in the back. His car died when he tried to jump the car so my brother had to jump his car which in turn jumped Janine's car. A 3 way jump! His daughter had to turn on the car because the chihuahua wouldn't let others in the car! too funny.

In the middle of all this aunt Mary came to work on the garden and Charlie and Wallis had a great time digging in the dirt. Everyone got absurdly dirty.

2 of My Favorite Things

Good weather and 20 months!! We've been having nice weather and 20 months is my new favorite age! I was sure the other 17 months (definitely not the first two months....) were my favorite, but this really is my favorite. Charlie is becoming our little buddy and is very affectionate (especially after he does something he knows he shouldn't do). With the nice weather we've been sitting on the stoop in the morning to wait for Sandra or to watch the trucks come by and unload. In the afternoon we've been working in the garden together. Neither one of us seem to be very good at gardening, but it hasn't stopped us from enjoying being outside before the mosquito invasion. He has his own shovel - or 'shobul' as he says - which he likes to use, but he has limited tolerance for getting dirty. If his hands get too dirty he puts them in my face and says 'durty, durty, durty' until I clean them off.

He has been working on his ABCs as well as his counting. He says ABC, but then skips to J. Who really needs D-G anyways? He says "uno, dos, tres" but only when he is about to throw something. bvgAnd speaking of throwing he has been working on throwing the ball upwards. He looks like he is going to throw it really high in the sky, but like his jumping, it's a whole lot of winde-up and not a lot of distance.

Here he is at a DC United game - he only made it through the tailgate before deciding it was time to go home.

Charlie and I went to see the Cherry Blossoms and while they were beautiful it is a little hard to enjoy when you are sharing a 4 foot wide path with 10,000 other people. Every year I say that I'm not coming again during the festival, but then I always make the pilgramige.

We had a great time visiting my grandparents in Cleveland this weekend and the trip went pretty well. Of course "pretty well" included me packing for all three of us, putting everything in front of the door and still having Carlos arrive home too late for us to make our flight. I rolled my eyes and paid a change fee to leave later which meant we had 4 extra hours in Baltimore. To take advantage of the time we visited the C&O train museum and ate at our favorite restaurant there. Charlie LOVED the train museum and tolerated the restaurant. The visit to the museum went like this: Charlie running around pointing and screaming "tren, tren, tren! TREN!!! otro tren! tren, tren..." Here he is:






Once we finally made it to Cleveland we had a great time. He called my grandparents "Franny and Popis" instead of Franny and Popsie. He especially liked the fact that they had a ramp in their house. He also got some court time throwing tennis balls everywhere - unfortunately I think it'll be awhile until he perfects his backhand.

Last week Charlie got to play with Isaac and this week with Isaac and Ian. They are so cute together but Charlie can't stand sharing. He doesn't even like sharing with Sandra's daughter Leslie. It's terrible.

We've had a fun and eventful few weeks. Charlie got to visit Grandma in Philly, I logged a lot miles (London, Brussels, Bruges, New York & Philadelphia) and Carlos took up construction on various parts of the house (upstairs deck, door frames, the big staircase wall). AND we found out that we are having another baby boy! There is not a chance that I would have been able to tell the sex from the sonogram -at one point I asked if we were looking at his head and was told that we were looking at his butt....Here is a profile picture after the baby started cooperating and brought his feet down from over his head.


As for Charlie he had a great time with Grandma. She lives near a train station so they took numerous daily trips to watch the trains. She also seems to have more and better toys than we have at home so he had no shortage of activities. One of his favorite was the slide which he would stand at the back door, point to and longingly say "play."

Charlie also had a lot of fun when he got to visit with his friend Salem. They both loved to run up and down the hallway. At 2.5 Salem is super fast and Charlie had a hard time keeping up, but he sure tried. It was great because the next morning he slept until 8:45! He loved following Salem - or Salmon as he called him - around and almost nagged him like a little brother.





In addition to running, Charlie loves to sweep - and for some reason he likes to where this hat while cleaning.


Here are some pictures of Bruges - which is not quite as mystical as the movie portrayed but it is certainly beautiful.

West Virginia

We had our first family getaway last weekend to take in the waters in West Virginia. We started out by meeting my mom and aunt in Farmville, VA to visit the Greenfront wharehouse for rugs. Our floors are getting battered by the baby and construction and our tenants probably don’t appreciate Charlie’s evening exercises (he does the indoor 40 in which he races up and down the hallway at night, usually screaming “ahhhhhhh” as loud as he can). Of course we PLANNED to take off Thursday night at 8pm, but Carlos showed up at 10pm and - need I say - hadn’t packed yet. So we go on the road at 11pm and found our way to Farmville around 2am. I had booked a bed and breakfast which is about the worst idea when traveling with an 19 month old. The house creaked like crazy and the walls were old and thin so any baby noise traveled widely. All of this meant that we ended up not-so-cozy all together in an old queen bed. On Friday we somehow managed to spend 6 HOURS(!) looking through rugs. Poor Charlie was exhausted - here he is on a pile of rugs.



From there we went to the Greenbriar which was hysterical. It is an over the top resort in West Virginia which was converted to an army hospital during WWII and then reverted back to a hotel under the design auspices of Dorothy Draper. Think big floral patterns, bright colors and stripes. But in the end we had a great time - Charlie loved being able to run around the hotel and it's seemingly endless network of hallways and staircases. Everyone was so nice about having a young child (except the casino staff...). His absolute favorite was listening to the live music. While he like the pianist at tea time, he really like the band on Saturday night. He clapped his hands and danced and at the end of each song he would scream "Bravo!" A group of older ladies were dancing to the music and their boring husbands wouldn't join them so they turned to invite Charlie to join. He stared at them and then ran over to put his head in my lap embarassed. His second favorite thing was drinking from the water fountain and then came the carpeted staircase. His least favorite thing was the gun club where Carlos and I shot skeet. It was my first time shooting and wow - I thought I had strong arms but that gun is really heavy. I didn't even get through my 25 shots. Of the 10 or so I took I only hit that target 2 times.

Here are some photos of Charlie enjoying the Greenbriar, our trip to the range and the official family portrait from our stay(!).

Truck

Charlie and Carlos had quality time together last week as I was traveling for work. Unfortunately I chickened out on telling work about baby #2. There was a conference one day and an all day meeting the next day so I didn't have a chance to talk to my boss and given how busy people were I don't think they even noticed. BUT I really need to have the conversation this week. I'm traveling again next week and I think it'll be painfully obvious by then. Here's a shot of the little one - any thoughts on the sex?


Charlie was excited to see aunt Mary who came over just in time for our pizza party on Sunday. She brought a truck for Charlie and he went nuts over it. Unfortunately his pronunciation, like his aim, needs some improvement. He replaces the "tr" in truck with "f". I think it's hysterical, but it definitely raised a few eyebrows. I also raised a few eyebrows when I almost burned my hair off taking out the first pizza. Luckily I'm pregnant so any hair I might have lost seems to already have been replenished....Here he is playing with his "f"ruck:



Finally we can start getting some labor out of Charlie! Here he is helping to put the groceries away. Carlos has been waiting to tap into the cheap child labor to get the house done, but I'm keeping him from heavy machinery for a few more years.