charli understood me!

Tonight as I was putting Charli to bed, she listened to me and completely understood. She was carrying her bunny and went to sit down and play with the doorstop. I said, "Are you ready for your milk?" and she got up and started walking over to me. I said, "Do you want your bunny?" and she stopped, turned around and looked for her bunny, and then walked back, picked it up, and turned to look at me again. I said, "Bring it with you," and she came over and followed me to the chair and we had milk. It was awesome!

Other Charli developments:
Charli really loves her bunny from Kelly and her Northwestern bear (I think that was from... Diltch?). She carries them around (usually one at a time, but occasionally together), wants to take them places, and sleeps with them.

Charli likes putting things on her head and around her neck. She has a favorite hat that she always tries to put on her head, but it's a little small so it just sits on top of her head, and then she tilts it off, laughs, and tries to put it on again. Unfortunately, this hat is not it, but it's bigger and stays on when she puts it on - which she does, so I don't mind. Here we're getting ready to go to the farmer's market, and she's put the carrier around her neck...

She's also very into putting her shoes on her hands and clapping them together.

Charli says "daddee" very clearly, but I'm not sure if she's really talking about Brian when she does it. However, she does run to him and bury her head in his chest and say "dadadadada" very sadly whenever I take something away from her, and she runs to me and says "mamamamama" very pathetically whenever Brian doesn't do what she wants.

I've been trying very halfheartedly to sign with Charli, and in response she's kind of halfheartedly gotten "more" and "milk". However, I just read another mom's blog, and her son is a couple of months older than Charli and can sign like 30 words, so I'm really going to try to step this up. I would love to feel like Charli is trying to communicate with us in some way other than visible frustration.

Charli only likes books with pictures. This is apparent based on these pictures, in which you can see Charli snuggling down to read with Sam, and then realizing she's been completely gypped.

Lastly, and maybe most importantly to me, Charli has gotten totally affectionate. When I come to pick her up at the sharecare, or I come downstairs after she hasn't seen me for a while, I kneel down on the floor and say "Charli! Come give mommy a hug!" and Charli runs up to me and gives me a big snuggle! It's awesome! And when I put her to bed, I used to give her her bottle and rock her a little bit, and she always used to struggle and try to get down until I'd take her over to her crib, and then she'd reach for her crib until I put her down (at which point she'd go to bed very well, so I can't really complain). Now, she loves to snuggle with me. We have the bottle, rock in the chair for a little bit, brush her teeth, rock in the chair a little more, maybe sing a lullaby or read a book or not, and she snuggles me the whole time. A few times we've even fallen asleep together, which she NEVER does anymore. Then I stand up to put her in the crib, she gives me a last squeeze, I put her down and she doesn't make a peep when I leave. This has been going on for a few weeks now. I could stay down there all night. It's only duty that makes me leave - the doctor and all the sleep books and articles say that your child needs to be able to put herself to sleep without you ("and believe me, you'll be happy later!"), and I can see the reasoning behind that and agree with it. If I didn't think Charli actually sleeps better in her own room, though, I would throw all caution to the wind, and go to sleep with Charli every night in our bed.