Three

Charlie had a wonderful birthday yesterday. It was so full I'm having a hard time writing about it.

We baked a cake together first thing in the morning. The three of us danced to "Birthday" by the Beatles, then Daddy made bacon and eggs. His snowman-themed party was a perfect melee. We gave him a bouncing horse that everyone tried and immediately fell off of (but liked anyway).

If you ask Charlie how old he is now he immediately says, "I'm two!" then thinks about it and admits, "No, I not two anymore. I three now" with a slight tinge of regret for days gone past. "Oh, well. I three now. Can I have another present?"




PS. I was fine with him being three until it occurred to me that in just under a year from now, he'll be four. Now I have to go cry big globby "where did my baby go?" tears.

Feed Me

Charlie and I have been looking at pictures this week. Now that he's on the verge of three, the baby stage is far enough in the past to seem quite strange and interesting to him. We page through his baby book looking at little baby Charlie learning to roll over, or sit up, or smear sweet potatoes all over his plate (OK, some things haven't changed that much.)

He's particularly fascinated by the pictures from his stay in the NICU, which prominently feature his umbilical stump. "What's that?" he asked, pointing at it. I explained how I used to feed him through his belly button, before he was born. "Ah," he said, slowly chewing over the concept. Then he lifted up my shirt and stuck his finger in my belly button. "I'm a big boy," he informed me. "I feed you now" and wiggled his finger around in a frenetic, nutrient-tranmitting kind of way.

And feed me it did--wonderfully, if not exactly in the way intended.

Halloween Pics

Toddler Dreams

It's 1 AM. Charlie has been sleeping peacefully for hours. Suddenly and with no warning, he flails upright, shouting, "I do it mytelf! I do it mytelf!" Then, just as quickly, rejoins the etherea of slumber.

Autonomy rises, again and again.

Yours and Mine

This morning Charlie was getting ready to go on a playdate with Jonas. I was chivvying him along a bit, as my thoughts bounced around all the tasks I hoped to accomplish while he was gone. (Blogging being one of them.)

"Wait," he instructed me, stopping at a basket of wooden train track and blocks. He wanted to pick a toy to bring with him, a totem of his home for the road. He chose a red freight car and ran for the door.

Then he said, "no, wait," perhaps to me or perhaps to himself, and returned to the basket where he selected a green freight car as well. Jonas is passionate about green. It was the obvious choice. And then hands full of fun, we were on our way.

Turtle Fight

Charlie and I drove up to Halifax the other day to meet a group of homeschoolers for a fun outing. We stopped at On The Grow to work off some excess wiggles before heading into the city. Having just received some birthday $$ from Naomi (thanks, Naomi!) we dropped by Uncommon Kids and picked up that Bilibo I regretted leaving behind the last time.

At 1:00 we proceeded to the park on the Commons to meet our friends. They weren't there. After waiting around for some time we schlumpfed over to the rain date location, the Museum of Natural History, where we continued to not find our group but had too good a time to care. Charlie was fascinated with the plexiglass beehive (plexiglass walls and tubing, real hive with real honeybees). When Kevin the museum docent came by with sugar water to feed the bees, Charlie grabbed him by the hand and gave him an explanatory tour: "Let me show you, here are the bees, an' dat's the honeycomb, an' dat's the honey! I want to eat the honey!" Sadly for Charlie, he didn't get any.

Just before we left we stopped by the turtle habitat to say goodbye and caught the turtles in the middle of some drama. Perhaps it was a mating ritual. One turtle watched the fight from a high rock, ocassionally spinning around in a circle of excitement, while two in the water clawed at each other's heads. They looked like junior high girls in a slap fight. But I guess those claws are pretty sharp. Charlie and I chanted "fight! fight! fight! fight!" until we got a dirty look from the gift shop attendant. Oops.

We never did find our friends, and the sky poured rain on the way home. It was, nevertheless, a great day.

Spurned Monkey

Thanks mostly to Curious George, Charlie has been on a monkey kick for some time now. "Hoo! Ha! I a mokney!" he chants, loping around the house with a bruised and battered banana in hand. So, depite an utter dearth of sewing skills, I assembled a little monkey costume for him out of brown sweats, felt patches, some cut up tights, and the plundered guts of a tacky stuffed panda bear.

He loved it. He wore it for days--to the park, the post office, even to the pool. All of Lunenburg has heard "Hoo! Ha! I a mokney!"

The night before Halloween we took Charlie trick or treating at his Nanny's house. "Time to put on your monkey costume!" I said. "No," he stated firmly. "I a bunny." There was no changing his mind. So I fished a dollar store bunny mask out of the costume box, pulled a carrot from the garden, and Ta Da! instant bunny.

He has refused to even look at the monkey costume ever since, although he has played dress-up with Jonas and taken turns as a pirate, a cow, and a dog. Jonas won't wear the monkey costume because he is scared of the tail. Moral of the story? Toddler plus planning ahead = needless angst. So here's to the joy of living in the now! (Not to mention this gets me out of trying to sew again. My needle-pricked fingers are thankful.)