play time

Well, I've been back to work now for just over 2 weeks, so it was about time for a vacation. My uncle and cousins were visiting Colorado for... gosh, maybe the first time since my parents moved there, 18 years ago! I can't even remember how long it had been since I'd seen my younger cousin, so I decided to visit Colorado, too. Of course, Mom was ecstatic to hear that Charli was coming (and me, too). Charli was really good on the way out - we came on the flight at 6am, and she fell asleep just as everyone was getting on the plane. I thought, Great! Unfortunately, the flight attendant came by as we were about to leave, and said Charli could not be in the sling for takeoff. :( I took her out and she stayed asleep, but I can't go to sleep while I'm just holding her, so I put her back in after we were in the air, and THEN she woke up. And stayed up for the entire rest of the trip. She was really good, but she didn't sleep, which means I didn't sleep...

We've had a great time, though! Charli just played interactively with me for the first time ever! She was standing on my lap, and I would open my mouth really wide and she would put her hand in it. I pretended I was eating it, and she laughed and laughed. We tried to get some video of it, but of course by that point, she was tired of it, or forgot how it worked. It was so cute while it lasted! Then she played with Grandma; at least I got a cute picture of that.

Kim and Brent have been preparing like crazy for their Pacific Crest Trail hike. They are leaving on May 14! They are finishing boxes that get sent to various towns along the trail to provide themselves with the food and equipment they need for each stage of the hike. They are also making a lot of their own equipment. Whenever Brent is not hunched over in front of the sewing machine, he is rehearsing for the symphony. Charli really enjoyed listening to him practice - she cried at certain chords and passages, and listened and wiggled and drooled happily to the rest.

Yesterday Mom wanted to take Charli to the park, so we went, and true to form, the instant we got there, Charli fell asleep. This time, however, we had time to kill, so we had a picnic lunch there and basically waited around until Charli woke up, and then Mom took her to see the geese. Then we also went swinging, and Charli loves that! This video is actually from a different park (the one from today), because we weren't smart enough to bring the camera that takes video yesterday.



Today we went to an even better park - it's amazing the things they have at parks now. The toys? games? rides? whatever it is they have at parks, they are way more fun than they used to be. I thought they just had swings and things to climb on. Not so! I want one of these things in my back yard, but Dad doesn't...

5 months

Wow! 5 months, and we haven't killed the baby yet! Happy 5 month birthday, Charli!


It's a good thing Charli is so much hardier than our plants. Crying is definitely a survival skill; I'd hate to see what her condition would be if she merely wilted quietly.

Well, just as the emailed pictures dropped off considerably when Brian went back to work, the blog posting is also having a drought now that I've gone back to work (good thing Brian can post right from his iPhone...). Lots of things are happening, but now I'm so tired all the time I pass out in the evening before I have a chance to blog. Add to that the fact that I have been trying to migrate computers, which makes it hard to update our website, and we have a complete lack of communication with the Charli fans in various parts of the country. So sorry!

For her 5 month birthday, Charli gave me a gift: she slept from about 8pm until 7:25am. Normally Brian gets up in the wee hours to give Charli a bottle, but he is currently feeling under the weather, so he slept in a different room so as not to give the baby a cold. I usually sleep through the 4am feeding, and I thought I probably would last night too, but I figured if she really started wailing I would definitely wake up. I was out until 7:25am, at which time I realized Charli was awake and perfectly happy, making noise and wiggling around in her crib. Hooray!

Charli has adapted well to our work schedules. Indeed, I don't think she even notices that we don't spend the day with her, because she is having much more fun with her nannies than she ever has with us. Nina blows bubbles and fingerpaints with her (see Charli's first piece of artwork, currently hanging on our door because our refrigerator doesn't stick to magnets), and lets her jump in Annabella's jumper. Maria takes her on the swings at the park and reads her books and successfully puts her down for naps. It's enough to make a mother feel inadequate!

So many accomplishments since our last post! Charli is sitting up much better now. She can support herself, although her balance is not so great and she falls over after a little bit (it's not so bad, Grandpa Jerry!). She held her bottle after the ballgame, but she can't get it back into her mouth if it falls out. She had a good session eating her toes after she collapsed onto them after sitting up for a while. She also had a good session of thumb sucking, although now she is back to sucking on all of her fingers individually and together. She has now eaten oatmeal, butternut squash, sweet potatos, and peas. She might be slightly allergic to the butternut squash - a day or two after we gave it to her, she developed a rash over most of her body. It didn't seem to bother her, fortunately, and I can't say for sure that's what caused it. Now it's gone, and it's left her skin a little drier than usual, so I am dousing her in lotion each night; it helps a lot. Next time we have butternut squash, I'll give her some more and see if the same thing happens. She regularly rolls to the left now, too (still no front to back).

We also had a lovely visit with Kelly, who came out last Thursday and just left yesterday. Any family resemblance there? :) We got off to a bit of a rough start, as neither Brian nor I was home when Kelly got to the front door... I thought she was arriving in the evening, but I was wrong; she arrived around 1:30 in the afternoon, while I was at lunch with Daisy - oops! But we found each other and everything worked out OK. We ate a lot of breakfast, went to a party in Palo Alto, and went to a couple of wineries in Napa. It was a lovely weekend; we have to try to get out to St. Louis soon, I think.

So that's all for now. I did manage to update the website; there's lots of new pictures now!

Picnic!

So rather than try to get a bunch of vineyards in today, we bought a
bottle here at St. Supery and got a spot on their lawn. They loaned
us some wine glasses and we brought somebread and cheese (and wheat
thins) and we set up camp. Pictured here, Charli takes charge of
dispensing bread and cheese rations...

Another day of tasting!

This time Kelly is here, and ready taste the best that Napa Valley has
to offer. Our first stop, pictured here, is St. Supery vineyard - a
longtime favorite. We brought the stroller this time so that Charli
can sit and relax and overlook this establishment's board of fare.

Honest Jim, we aren't giving Charli anything but a sniff!!

First ballgame!

We'll have more pictures later, but because we can, here is some real
time first ballgame blogging! Getting here was a little rough, since
I forgot my card key to get into the office, but once we got in the
ballpark and checked the stroller things were good.

Now we are relaxing in the field club, feeding Charli. It looks like
she may be going down for a nap here in the top of the sixth.

rattlin' around

Well, things are pretty different now that I'm working again. Charli has been mowing through my stored up milk while I'm in south bay, and I can't really pump fast enough to keep up with her - it's stressing me out. In my efforts to keep from running out of milk in 2 weeks, I get up at all hours of the night to pump, which makes me way more tired than I was a week ago. I often fall asleep now at 9pm, and I might get up 3 times during the night to pump. It's much better on the days I work at home, when I can just feed her myself.

Charli is doing great though - she is sitting up better and feeling more sturdy all the time. She reaches for things, and she still loves her pears. Yesterday, she found her toes. They deserve some close inspection, but they don't seem to be very appetizing. At any rate, they haven't been in her mouth yet. Today, she figured out how to use a rattle. She is really quite proficient, although she is not at her best in this particular example:



Some days she is very vocal, and some days not so much. This would be a vocal day...



And this is how Charli felt to find that her Grandpa Lawler was in the hospital (where they don't serve any Jack). We hope you are better soon!

nose to the grindstone

Well, today's the day - my first day back at work (and I'm already slacking by writing this blog post! Don't tell my boss). I'll add a picture later. I dropped Charli off with a minimum of fuss (especially given that she was sound asleep), and made the long journey, mentally and physically, to work. Everyone keeps asking me if I'm excited to be back at work, and I'm all, "Ye... No. But I'm excited to see everyone again!" Our office moved while I was on maternity leave, so I spent a little time wandering around the complex wondering where we live now. It turns out we are in the first building I went into, just as I thought, except there are no signs identifying it as Software AG either on the building or at the reception area inside the front door. Indeed, the sign there is for Minerva Systems or something, which was the main contributing factor to my confusion. We are on the second floor. With no sign. I know that now.

But enough about me! Last night, Charli rolled over from front to back - so exciting! And a whole bunch of other milestones I forgot to post about: Right around the beginning of the month, we started taking baths in the big bathtub. Charli loves it! She kicks and kicks and smiles and smiles. And when she turned 4 months old, she caught her first cold. It was very mild, but she was coughing and her nose was running. She wasn't grouchy, though. And now that I am having to get up in the mornings, we are starting to leave Charli in her crib all night, instead of bringing her into bed with us after her early morning feeding. We'll see how long that lasts - she doesn't mind at all, but I miss her...

I hate to leave you with no pictures, but I'm on my work laptop which means I don't have the newest pictures anymore. So, you'll just have to settle for an old one (about 2 weeks old). :)

anj largesse

My friend Anj sent Charli some hand me downs from her daughter, Quirin. When I say "some", I mean "a ton" - 3 boxes full. Charli will be in cute clothes until she is at least 2 now. See Charli! See Charli surrounded by piles of new clothing! Brian and I spent Saturday going through all the outfits - it was like shopping, but everything was free! Now I have to go make sure all the outfits that Kelly has given us get added into the right size boxes. We don't want to be losing any clothes, or not trying them on until they are too small!

In amongst the treasures was this awesome pair of sunglasses. She's mad about the style!

Brian then spent Sunday spring cleaning (he sprung cleaned?). He cleaned out the pantry, the freezer, the spice rack, and worked on the fridge. He installed a magnetic knife rack, hung up our little mixy thing, made Charli some more pears, and made us dinner. I, um, dyed my hair. And wait, no, I set up the Monday share care too! As he was straightening the spice rack, he put aside a few things. Thus, we can now unveil to you: The 2008 Sodium Collection.

*sniff*

Today was the day. I took Charli to share care, put her down, and drove away. Waaaah! Of course, it didn't go that quickly. It took me about 45 minutes to actually leave. Charli was happy as a clam the whole time, but I couldn't quite make it to the door... I came home and was vaguely depressed, although I've managed to fill my time in with some reading and going out to lunch and getting my laptop more up to speed. Mostly I've spent a lot of time watching my screensaver randomly show me adorable pictures of Charli. For instance:


Nina's been very understanding. She has sent me 3 pictures of Charli already today - Charli taking a nap, Charli eating pears, Charli taking a walk... Did I mention before that Charli loves pears? She LOVES pears. I never seen a girl eat so much pears.

BTW, share care is when a nanny takes care of children from more than one home at the same time, and the participants are charged less per hour than a nanny that only takes care of one child. I am now participating in 2 different share cares. Maria comes to our house 3 days a week and we share care with Jillian, who is 2. The other 2 days a week I will take Charli to a different share care with Nina and Annabella (where she is now). I initially planned to get daycare for those 2 days, which is why I didn't just get a nanny all week - I wanted to save some money. Unfortunately, daycare for infants is not so easy to find. 18 month waiting lists? I wasn't even planning to get pregnant 18 months ago! Was I? I can't remember that far back anymore... But even if I was, there's no way I could have planned that far ahead. I mean come on, I can't even manage to make dinner reservations.

*sigh* I guess now I can go back to work...

wiggle

Charli does this cute new thing! See it here! You can also listen to her make some not so cute noises at the same time... That's me and Maria laughing in the background.



Speaking of which, Maria, our nanny, started today. She has been here a couple of times before, but only for a few hours at a time. Today she spent all day, and our share care buddy, Jillian, came over for the first time also. She was so cute. She is 2, and she went and dug through all her old toys for her favorite monkey toy that she liked when she was little, and brought it over to share with Charli. They all had a great time - went to the park, played here, wore themselves out...

I had a great time too, although I was a little depressed when they went to the park and I stayed at home. I was having a lovely time doing things without being interrupted, but having Charli go out the door without me wasn't very good. And then, the weirdest thing - I was in the house... by myself. It used to happen all the time, but that seems so long ago... It was so quiet, and lonely, and boring. Before I could re-accustom myself to it, I went out for a nice lunch by myself at which I didn't have to worry whether or not the baby would wake up and start screaming. Later that afternoon, I got my hair cut! I was so excited; I haven't had a haircut in 8 or 9 months. It was so relaxing, I was falling asleep in the chair.

Yesterday we spent almost the entire day at Alexis's apartment. She has a daughter, Lucia, who is about 7 weeks older than Charli. She lives about 2 blocks away, so we hang out quite a bit. Charli spent much of the day eating Lucia's toys. We are going to start trading dinner nights - she is coming over tomorrow night after Charli goes to bed so we can go out to dinner, and then I will go over to their place after Lucia goes to bed, I think on Sunday, so they can go out. I hope we can do this once a week.

upgrade weekend

Here's a post to remind everyone that we actually have lives outside of Charli. This past weekend we upgraded all kinds of important things.

I got a new laptop that is actually mine, rather than just using my work laptop for personal use. Why? Because they are cracking down on that sort of thing at work, and I need somewhere to look at all my pictures of Charli.

I also got a new mobile phone! Now I can have pictures of Charli on my phone too! Yay! In addition, it's also got way better sound quality, and so far, it rings every time I get a call. My old phone... well, sometimes I'd be sitting right in front of it, and have 5 bars of reception, and for some reason it wouldn't ring and I'd miss calls. Not to mention it was so primitive it didn't have a camera, so how was I supposed to get Charli backgrounds on my phone?

OK, I have no life outside of Charli. :)

Brian also upgraded things, but he's not very technologically oriented, apparently. He got:

New running shoes! He's been running at o'early thirty, training to get ready to climb Mt. Hood for the 9 Guy Trip in July. O'early thirty is after he feeds Charli in the morning, which usually ends up being around 5:30 or 6am, but is occasionally as early as 4:30. Running in the dark... I'd say it's only for insane people, but I think that about running even during the day. :)

And wow, did he need new bike gloves or what?

I guess Brian has a life outside of Charli. But it all involves exercise, which must be why I don't have it...