Over a lot of rivers

I don't know how many rivers we went over, but we made it to Grandma & Grandpa's house. We took a late flight on Friday, leaving at 9:44 PM; always an interesting adventure. We did our best to wear the boys out at the airport so they'd sleep, and we got some help from a boy Zach's age named Tate. It really amazes me how quickly little boys can become friends!

If you had been on our flight, this is what you'd have seen in row 12, seats DEF, at about 11 PM:

Watching these boys try to sleep on the plane highlighted how different they are. We started out with Zach in his own seat between us, and while we were waiting to take off, we got him comfortable with some coats for pillows, and he said something like, ok, it's time to sleep? And off to the land of nod he went. And even when we moved him onto Scott's lap and repositioned him multiple times, he did not wake up until we de-planed. This kid is a champion sleeper.

Charlie, on the other hand, took a while to nod off in my arms, even though he was visibly exhausted. Then he slept for about 20 minutes before waking, wriggling around and whining as he tried to get into his normal sleep position on his belly. That worked for a few minutes with him in a strange position on my legs, but eventually he got restless again. So we hauled poor Zach up from his seat and onto Scott's lap so Charlie could sprawl out facedown on Zach's seat. And that's how the rest of the flight went...

But we made it! And that's all that matters. Now I need to get back to celebrating. Merry Christmas!!! More to come...

(my apologies for the quality of the pictures, but they're not bad for cell phone photos taken in almost complete darkness!)

Christmas is coming

We had our little family Christmas last night, for various logistical reasons (one of which is that we're not hauling all these gifts to Montana!). It was the sort of night that makes me think how easy it would be to buy everything our kids could ever want, just to see their happiness and joy. It was so fun to watch these two open their gifts. I don't think these pictures really do the experience justice, but here you go...

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^"Wow - a razor scooter; I've been wanting one of these FOREVER!"

Watching Zach open his gifts was entertaining. Anything that wasn't instantly recognizable was immediately set aside; he was constantly anticipating (and begging for) the next gift. One example was a "Batcopter" we got him; he was unimpressed when he opened it, but later, once he spent time actually checking out what it was, declared it one of his favorite gifts.


^Friends of ours very generously gave Zach a Nintendo DS, something they had purchased for someone else but for various reasons didn't end up giving it to her. They asked if we thought Zach would want it... if he'd mind that it was pink. Pink??? That's his second favorite color!!! We got him his favorite game (Mario Kart) to go with it, and he was in pure video game heaven.


^Shopping for Charlie was fun. We picked his gifts based on his reactions to toys he'd been exposed to at ECFE classes or while browsing at Target on outings with Dad & Zach. We picked this little cat because he's fascinated with cats; there's one at our ECFE class that he always picks up and snuggles. And his reaction did not disappoint!

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^Charlie is at the age where pushing buttons is a thrilling experience. He also loves music, so we were delighted with how much he loved this little guitar we got him. He opened it first, and I think would have contentedly played with it the rest of the night if we hadn't forced more gifts on him. Not pictured is the enormous teddy bear we got him. I never thought I'd be the parent who'd buy one of those things, but since every single Wednesday he runs straight to the big bear in our ECFE classroom and dives on it for a hug, we couldn't resist.

And to think, we aren't even done with the gift-giving...!

This last picture isn't even slightly Christmas-related. I couldn't resist snapping it this morning, when looking at my two boys on the couch, glassy-eyed as they stared in complete rapture at the tv. I should probably be embarrassed by how much they are hypnotized by the tv, but instead I'll just laugh...

About a boy

A Charliebug update:

First, here's how the injury looks now. Not good, it's such a big mark, but you can see it's healing behind the glue. I suspect he'll have an interesting scar... good thing it's on his eyebrow!

Some recent Charlie-isms:

If you are sitting on the floor, he takes it as an invitation to get a bunch of books, pile them one by one on you, and then back up (without looking) and plop into your lap. But he'd still prefer we didn't read most books to him, he likes to be in control.

He still likes to stand on his head, and has actually done a somersault on his own a few times.

Cars are his go-to toy. It's also his go-to word: "cah." We hear it constantly, whether in reference to the hundreds of Lightning McQueen-branded items in our home, or to actual cars on the road. And for some reason, he usually says it in his gravely "2 pack a day" voice.

In Charlie's world, cows don't say "moo," they say "boo." He's getting quite a few animal noises down, recognizable to us anyway, including baaa, quack, woof, and hoo-hoo. He gives cockadoodledoo a shot; it comes out sounding like "cock-a-ooo". Close enough.

Charlie has been, and remains, the kid in our ECFE class who doesn't sit down during circle time. Zach thinks this is hilarious, since there was always a child in his classes who wouldn't plop down on their parent's lap to sing songs. And now that kid is Charlie.

This boy can jump - his feet actually leave the ground!

Our short little guy has finally achieved a goal he's been working on for a while - being able to climb onto the furniture. His face is hilarious when he gets up there - he is soooo proud of himself. So now the constant refrain in our house is "sit down or get down" and/or "knees or bottom!!!" We also have to hide the remote control in trickier places now.

If you ask Charlie to do something he doesn't want to do, he simply turns his head to the side so he can't see you. I wish the "if I can't see you, you can't see me trick" worked for adults.

Oh, another word Charlie has mastered: no. Yippee.

Like his big brother, Charlie thinks all the good food is in the pantry. If he doesn't like what we gave him, he'll do the sign for more and then point to the pantry door.

You don't want to sit near Charlie at lunch. His cup sails through the air at least three times per meal.

Ho Ho No!!!

Ah, the annual tradition of taking your young children to see the scariest man on the planet - how can a parent resist?

This was the best picture we got of both boys and the jolly old elf:


Not bad, considering this is what the experience really looked like:


In the past, when we've taken Zach to see Santa, he has never sat on the big guy's lap. We would just encourage him to walk up to Santa and say hello, and we'd take pictures of him standing close and talking to him. This year, Santa persuaded Zach to climb up and tell him what he wanted for Christmas, and it was cute to see how uncharacteristically shy Zach was!


The fact that Zach was on Santa's lap was why we tried just plopping Charlie down too, which obviously didn't work. If we attempt this again next year, I think we'll go back to our strategy of letting Charlie approach this stranger at his own pace.

Too-crazy glue

Today marks 20 months for our Charliebug, so we celebrated by taking him to the doctor to get his head glued back together. Oh, how I wish I was kidding.

I've blogged before about Charlie's 2 head injuries when Zach tackled him into a side table. I've since moved that table. Apparently we need to get rid of all of our wooden furniture, or else decorate everything with bubble wrap. Because today there wasn't even a big event, just a simple trip as Charlie ran towards me while I sat on the floor against a chair with wooden legs. That's all it took, one little stumble, and he looked like this:

This was taken about 20 minutes after the incident itself. He cried pretty hard, especially when we were trying to put pressure on the wound to stop the bleeding. Once we stopped doing that to see if it would clot (it did), he picked up some cars, chased Zach around for a while, and then settled under the kitchen table to play.

Once we got another good look at the gash, we headed for the doctor's office. It seemed just too wide to heal on its own. We were hoping for glue instead of stitches, and that's what we got. It works pretty darn well, except... that glue sticks to everything. Including the gauze pads the nurse was using to hold the wound together while the doctor applied the glue. So we ended up with a nicely closed up eyebrow gash, and two gauze pads glued to our son's face.

Oh, and did I mention that in order to put the glue on in the first place, they had to strap Charlie down in a straightjacket-like contraption? I'm sure you can guess what he thought of that. Unfortunately, while the glue application was quick, the removal of the glued gauze pads was not. Since the pads were so close to his eye, they had to be quite careful what they used to try to loosen up the glue. After all this, our little man was quite worn out, and fell asleep within minutes in my arms when we took him out to give him a break. So very very sad to see.

And now, other than the slightly swollen and bruised gash on his head, and the matching bruise on his cheek, you'd hardly know anything was wrong. If this had happened to me, I'd have spent the day lounging on the couch feeling sorry for myself. Charlie spent the rest of the day racing Zach in endless loops throughout our house, playing cars, and reading books. The resiliency of this kid is amazing.

My little helpers

I debated about putting up our Christmas tree this year, since we won't be here for the actual holiday, and I had no idea what to expect from Charlie. But I was in the right spirit, so up went the tree shortly after Thanksgiving.

Zach was a fantastic helper; together we sorted through all the ornaments, putting the breakable/dangerous ones near the top. And so far it's worked out well; I find ornaments in random spots throughout the house every day, but the tree has remained standing!

^My helper who is actually helpful.


^Not so helpful.

Cousins

As I mentioned in my Thanksgiving post, I love to watch Zach, and now Charlie, have fun with their cousins. That means, of course, that I took too many pictures of them...

My brother enjoyed mocking me for going outside and raking a big pile of leaves* for the kids to jump around in, just so I could take pictures. But they had a good time, and I did too!

* I don't recommend trying to make a leaf pile out of willow tree leaves. You rake and rake and rake, but you're left with a sad flat pile. If only my parents hadn't already taken care of the maple leaves...

Cough-giving, gift-giving, thanksgiving

Yes, we celebrated Thanksgiving when everyone else did. I'm just waaaay behind!

We went over the St. Croix River and through a lot of woods to Grandma & Grandpa Klicka's for the holiday. The drive was marginally better than other long drives with Charlie, but I'll be optimistic and call it progress.

This post is titled as it is because Zach had quite the cough as we approached Thanksgiving (vetted by the doctor as "just" a cold). He had the generous holiday spirit and shared it, fortunately with just one person. Unfortunately, that person was Charlie. :( But they did ok, even sleeping reasonably well considering they weren't in their own beds and were in the same room!

We spent Thanksgiving day with my parents and my brother and his family. The day started off well with a Packer win, followed by a great meal (check out Chase's turkey leg!), and then some non-traditional gift-giving! That's right, not only did we give thanks with my family, we also gave Christmas gifts. We're off to see Scott's family in December, so we decided to do our gift-giving early, to Zach's great delight.

It was very fun to watch Zach open his presents - he was absolutely thrilled with everything. He could barely sit still in his excitement! He has since taken the Mario "guys" he got from my parents to show 'n tell at school (and just about everywhere else he goes), and one day he declared that he was "so thankful" for his new Mario Super Sluggers Wii game, and he was never going to play any other game.

Charlie, not too surprisingly, showed limited interest in the unwrapping process, but he loved all his new loot. He is fascinated with kid-sized furniture, so one of his gifts was some chairs to go with the little table we already have. He climbed right on, and since then he's only fallen off a few times!

Also to Zach's great delight was lots of playtime with his cousins (Chase is 7, Sophie 5). They get along great; it's always amazing to see how they just start playing like they saw each other yesterday. Lots of wrestling, Wii playing, car driving, bike-riding, book-reading, you name it.

We visited my aunt, uncle, and various cousins on Friday. Once again, we got to view how easily kids bond. My cousin Julie was in town from Virginia; her son Spencer is essentially the same age as Zach. This was probably the 3rd time these two boys have ever laid eyes on each other, including once when they were babies. But within minutes, they were wrestling with tremendous enthusiasm:

Some more shots from our fun weekend:

We hope your Thanksgiving was also filled with blessings to be thankful for.