Aaaand . . . we're back

I have been getting pretty behind on my record keeping lately. I have quite the back-log of blog fodder. (Say that three times fast.) Before I dive into my first session of catching up, let us all take a moment of silence to note the passing of our family's (Brady's) laptop.

Being without a computer for a while was not so bad now that I have a new smart (read: smarter-than-me) phone. But I wouldn't go so far as to blog from it I think, and now I have yet another source to compile pictures and videos from. So now I have to get organized too, creating folders, importing, downloading, remembering passwords. Maybe I should have skipped doing all this electronically and opted for the paper version. But blogs are forever, right? Right?

Lots of other things have kept me from keeping up with the blog. Most notably, this mess:


Yeah, Ellie has quite the independent streak in her. She thought it a good idea, while I was changing Charlie's diaper, to just get herself some fruit juice. And to carry it to the living room first before trying to pour it. What a little helper. Awesome.

I think this is the first time Ellie has really been in serious trouble, like destruction-to-the-house kind of trouble. I didn't lose my temper with her, but I was pretty direct and put her in her room while I tried to figure out what in the world to do. She realized this was serious business, and kind of freaked out. She came out of her room, all panicked, saying she needed her jammies on (her comfort when life feels out of control). I told her no, we weren't doing that now, and she lost it. She started crying and talking all at once, took all her clothes off, ran to her room, grabbed a couple pair of underwear and pulled them on her head and came back out and ran around frantically, and then finally collapsed. Meanwhile I set Charlie up in the exersaucer (which he doesn't love anymore) and a show to keep him out of the mess and just had to ignore Ellie's antics. It was hard not to laugh even in the moment, as mad as I was at the mess.

Needless to say, we now have a fridge lock.


Here is the "after" picture. Not bad when you consider how old and used the carpet already is. I'd say given a week, the generous use a my cousins' steam cleaner (thanks again Brad and Carrie!), plenty of ammonia, vinegar, white cleaning cloths, a steam iron (yep, a steam iron), and 90% of my housekeeping energy devoted to three square feet of floor, I think I could even get away with murder.

* * *

So the main catch-up for this blog post is Charlie's month day. 11 months already!



This kid is hard to keep up with. He is a super fast crawler and I think he wants to be walking soon.


He stands with very little support and sometimes, unwittingly, lets go altogether. Once he realizes, though, he falls. It's like watching Wiley Coyote run off a cliff. Totally fine until he looks down, then gravity kicks in.


Charlie is so laid back and happy-go-lucky most of the time. He absolutely loves life when he gets to be outside.


He actually doesn't love having anything on his head, but puts up with it. He sure puts up with a lot. I think his role in our family is to be the good sport. As the weather has gotten cooler I have been making him wear his hood. I will come around to get him out of the stroller and find him calm, content, but pulling at the hood with one hand, straight up. He'll ride that way for blocks. He'll wear the hood, cooperating enough, but he won't like it.


He has developed some new hobbies this month. One is to crawl around and pry all the safety covers off the outlets. I'm so glad we took that extra measure to draw his attention to the outlets. He doesn't seem too interested in the outlets themselves, just the covers, which he likes to put in his mouth and crawl away with while laughing. The plastic prongs stick out like two little fangs. I have admassed a pile of covers in the living room and dining room. I think we got about all of them now.

Charlie also loves playing patty-cake and will do it on command now. He loves to coax us into playing with him and is becoming quite the little charmer.

He and Ellie love playing together more and more each day it seems. This is one of their favorite games. Ellie likes to "laugh" Charlie by racing around the table. (I included the video where her mouth is full so you could hear more of Charlie). I think the best thing about having more than one kid is watching them make each other happy.