Music to our ears

I've been meaning to do a random update on both boys; I'm going to start with Charlie.  And while I'm sure there are lots of other things going on, the main thing that Charlie has been up to is talking.  And singing.  And yelling.  And babbling.  And quoting movies.  He may be a little late to the party, but we're still having a lot of fun!

I truly had forgotten how much pure fun it is when your child first starts talking.  And since we've been waiting and worrying, I think we're enjoying it even more.  He had the tubes put in his ears about 2 & 1/2 months ago, and since then the improvement has been amazing -  his vocabulary and willingness to talk has just exploded.

We never really doubted that Charlie could understand us, since he found other ways to make that clear.  But I'll never forget one morning when Charlie and I were the first ones up and made our way downstairs.  Something made Koskie bark, and when I told him to be quiet Charlie looked at him and said "Shhh... Zach sleeping."  This is an echo of what I've told him on our early mornings when the rest of the family is still snoozing away.  To hear him apply it to the dog just cracked me up!

I think Scott's first "wow" moment was one day when he was sitting on the couch, and Charlie walked past him toward the kitchen and said "I eat now."  To hear a three-word sentence... hurray!!!

One phrase he has definitely mastered is "I want."  I want Daddy.  I want Zach.  I want that.  I want to eat.  I want to play cars now.  I want to play baseball.  I want outside.  This boy wants things, and we no longer have to guess what those things are.  Now we just have to figure out how to help him handle the situations when the answer is no!

When the speech therapist came last week (the first time in a while; we just started our weekly meetings now that school is back in session), she used the term "carrier phrase."  That is apparently a phrase that a person repeats regularly, and is something speech pathologists recommend.  We decided Charlie's natural "carrier phrase" begins with "hey!"  I hadn't noticed how much he says it until then, but it's often how he begins every sentence.  My favorite is "Hey!  Where Daddy go?" (or Zach, Koskie, Katie, etc).

Speaking of Katie... Charlie's new best buddy is our 11 year old neighbor.  He loves her.  It's been an interesting dynamic, since she's always been one of Zach's favorite playmates.  But she does an excellent job of balancing the two boys' demands; she'll throw a baseball endlessly for Charlie to (try to) hit and then join Zach in a game of kickball.  We're all big Katie fans in our house, but Charlie is the one who cries when she has to go home.

Katie's younger sister, by the way, is named "Ellie."  Charlie calls her "Yellie."  :)

Ok, two other favorite talking things and I'll move on!  One is when you ask Charlie how old he is.  He holds up each of his pointer fingers and says "I two."  We have it on video, but I'm not quite organized to put it out here now.  I will though, because it's darn cute.

The other thing that has made me smile is that Charlie now introduces me.  We've been in several situations lately, like meeting Zach's teacher, where someone would ask him what his name is.  (He says Charlie as Zhe-Zhe... that's the best phonetic description I can come up with).  Usually I'd say his name, and he'd nod and then point at me and say "mama."  Nice manners, huh?

Ok, one more thing - I mentioned movie quotes.  Charlie started this a while ago, and it took me a couple listens to figure out what he was doing.  He'd babble something unintelligible, and then say in a gravely voice what I interpreted as "by me!" and then laugh hysterically in that same gravely voice.  Now fortunately I've seen Cars enough times to recognize what I was hearing: the line where Chick Hicks says "That was some pretty fine racing out there.  BY ME!!! HA HA HA HA!!!!"  Charlie's imitation is great, particularly the laughing.  We've gotten parts of it on video, so I'll try to get that out here soon too!

Let's see, what else.  Well, we're starting to ponder potty-training.  I don't think Charlie is ready, but we're encouraged by the fact that he's been telling us for a while when he poops (he even says poop now, not "boop!")  A few times he's even come to me, saying "mama I poop" while pointing at the front of his diaper.  Sure enough, a wet diaper.  But he has no interest in the toilet, so we're not pushing this issue!

Charlie's car obsession continues.  It makes things easier sometimes; the day care at my gym, our ECFE classroom, and Charlie's new school classroom all have matchbox cars in them, so our boy can be comfortable in new places pretty quickly.  He also loves to tell us the colors of all the real cars around us when we're driving - blue car!  red car!  gray car!

Charlie has discovered baseball.  We have these plastic stakes that are supposed to be used for horseshoes; well, Charlie thinks they make the perfect bat.  He will stand there forever with his "bat" on his shoulder, waiting for the pitch.  Recently he even started saying something that sounds like the "batta-batta-batta" part of "swing batter batter batter, suh-wing batter" chant.  Neither of us remembers teaching him that; who knows where he picked that up!

I mentioned above that Charlie needs to learn how to handle the answer "no."  Our boy is a hitter, unfortunately, and often his response to being told he can't do something is to walk over and give us a swat.  It's often accompanied by a deep growl... ???

Hitting is also Charlie's first reaction when Zach is doing something he doesn't like, or when some poor unsuspecting kid his age thinks he can play with whatever Charlie is playing with.  We're working on this, but I don't think we've found the magic solution yet.  Most of the time Charlie laughs when he's scolded.  Sigh.

Other things I want to remember about Charlie at this age...
 - he continues to be a rock-star independent player.  It's quite amazing how content he is, mostly to play with cars, but with other toys at times too.  His teacher commented on it the first day he was at his new school.
 - He can climb just about anything.  Yikes.
 - He loves to give hugs and kisses, and all kisses must be on the lips.  Well, if he can reach your face.  Often times he'll plant some kisses on my leg, since that's what he can reach.
 - He is quite the pitcher in kickball.  And after he pitches, he runs to third base.  We don't know why.
 - All letters are "As."  Don't try to convince him otherwise.
 - He sings a mean "We Are Young" by Fun.  Another thing I think we have on video... stay tuned.
 - At the moment he will not put on a sweatshirt/coat.  We've had some cold nights, which means our walks out to the bus stop in the morning can be chilly.  The first time I tried to put a sweatshirt on him, he screamed and pulled at it like it was burning his skin right off.  So now I'm waiting for him to realize he's cold.  It may be January before he willingly puts on a coat.