it's a new year

For my new year's resolution, as you can see, I have decided to spend less time blogging and more time with Charli.

Actually that's completely false. I hardly ever blog when Charli's awake anyway; I'm just trying to come up with an excuse for why I haven't been posting at all (one that sounds better than the truth, which is that Kim got me started on those little flash point-and-click computer games, and that's how I waste all my free time now). But now that I'm back, we can catch up on all the news! Because it certainly isn't as if nothing's been happening...

For one thing, we're practically empty nesters. All of our visitors have left, and once again, it's just me, Brian and Charli here. It's quiet and lonely and we have to take care of Charli all by ourselves (it's hard, but we have a lot of space). Fortunately, Brian's parents are coming for a visit in a week, and Sam is coming back while they're here and staying indefinitely, so it shouldn't last long.

Before everyone left, though, on Friday, January 2 - I so wish I had a picture for this - Charli tried her first spicy food. Oops! We were at a place that serves sort of an Indian version of burritos, and my mother popped a chunk of chicken tikka masala into Charli's mouth (she didn't think it was hot). The sauce was spicy (not fire engine hot or anything, but way spicier than anything she has had plain before; I had been feeding Charli very small bits of it doused in raita and she was OK with that), and Charli just had no idea what was happening. She had been very happily eating whatever we fed her, and then THIS. She got a VERY worried look on her face, and opened her mouth up as wide as she could, like she was trying to prevent the food in her mouth from touching her anywhere. Her eyes and her nose got red, but she didn't cry. I got her to spit the chicken out into my hand, but she still wouldn't shut her mouth or make any noise. I tried to get her to drink some of my mango lassi, since yogurt is really effective at cooling spicy stuff, but she wouldn't close her mouth to suck on the straw, so I had to take the top off the cup and just pour some in her mouth. After that she drank a bunch more lassi, and then she was OK, and she ate more food even (so trusting!), but it was really hilarious. Sam said her face was so expressive that it wouldn't have mattered what language you spoke, anyone who looked at her would know exactly what had happened. I really wish I could download some of my brain onto this blog, since even I, who will happily feed Charli sour food so I can take pictures of her while she's eating it, will not subject her to that again just so I can video it and put it up here. You'll just have to imagine how funny it was.

Charli has found some orifices (orifi?). One is cute (belly button). One is not so cute. She likes to find other people's belly buttons, too, and stick her finger in as far as she can, under the pretense that she is tickling you. She also likes to tickle feet, and she likes to stick her finger into my or Brian's ears, which really IS very ticklish. Honestly, she likes to stick her finger up my nose, too, but I'm not very fond of it so it only happens when I'm not paying proper attention.

We got Charli more gear. This one will last until she goes into a booster seat, whenever that is. It's quite a bit bigger than the previous car seat; I love the print, but occasionally while I'm driving, when I look over my shoulder, I get the momentary impression that there's a large animal right behind me.

Charli talks. She says "uh oh" very clearly, and is pretty good with "wow!". We can hear her say "what's that?", "what IS that?", "look!", and "cuckoo clock" (from her favorite song). And she might be starting in on "hi daddy", but it's hard to say for sure. She had a funny conversation with Sam while she was working on her computer:
Charli: What's that?
Sam: Microsoft Outlook Web Access.
Charli: Wow!
(repeat)

This past Tuesday, we started a new share care with a nanny named Carolina, and another little girl named Parker, who is 21 months old and lives just 3 blocks from us. There was a bit of crying at the beginning, but everything went fine after that. On Tuesdays, Parker comes here, and on Thursdays, Charli goes to her house. *sniff* There could be some crying on my part over that, but they are so close and Carolina was really nice and brought them over for a little bit during the day, so I didn't have TOO much Charli withdrawal.

Brian had the first release of his product at work. It was presented during a keynote at the CES in Las Vegas, by John Chambers, Cisco's CEO (wow!). Charli seems to be pretty excited about it, although I don't know if she realizes that Laura Izibor's website is not actually her dad's work, but rather was built using it.

I think we can pretty much say that Charli is walking now. Her record was 12 steps in a row while everyone was here, but it wasn't all controlled all the time. Then after everyone left, she kind of took a break for several days, and didn't walk that much at all. Then yesterday she apparently decided she was good enough, or she had the proper impetus, or she wanted to impress us, and she is, and she did, and we are.