I Turn My Back for One Second And...

(Evidently there was an oreo within Charlie's reach. I had no idea.)

(Charlie stands up on this all the time, it rocks forward, and he just rolls right off the front.)

Kids are too quick of learners for their own good sometimes I decided. Charlie is prone to really jump head first into things. For instance he stands now. Well he's been standing for a few weeks actually, pretty much since the time he started crawling on his hands an knees. Well he started this trick, and started using ANYTHING to pull himself up on, before he'd thought through getting down at all. So he'd end up crying with a big bruise on his head about every day when he fell.

About two days ago we saw him get to the bottom of the stairs in our tv room and start going up and we had to go pull him off. Oh great. This morning I was just letting him climb up the stairs in front of me. Just two stairs up he looks up at me, I swear with the look that says he has an idea. His whole body goes rigid and his hands go up and he slides back down the stairs on his belly like a sled down a hill. I don't know if he had any idea that was what would happen, but he wasn't concerned and he didn't seem surprised - he just crawled away.

(Charlie crawling ALL the stairs later this afternoon... from bottom to top... yep. I'm the one hovering in the back totally freaked out.)

Am I in for a lot of broken bones and stitches?! Please say no, I can't handle blood.

There's Only One

I love rollercoasters. I was trying to decide the last time I went to Lagoon and I decided... hmmm, like Icon Days maybe? Plus everytime I've been to an amusement park in the last few years it seems I'm always pregnant, and thus, disallowed on any fun rides. So I made John and my sister and Charlie come with me this year.

The new ride, Wicked, is awesome! I also made my little sister cry she was laughing so hard on the top of the Rocket ride. You know the one that drops you? I swear it's the only ride that makes me nervous, but when I'm sitting at the top, I tend to get... explicit.



Emily was jumping for joy at the prospect of Lagoon: HA!

PS. The guy who was developing strollers and finally said, 'you know what they should be able to do? Lay down for when your kid falls asleep', is a total genius! He should get a raise for that invention. This definitely was a weird/hard day for Charlie. He liked all the people but he must have been so confused as to what we were doing.


I leave you with John and I riding the infamous Collasus. It's... funnyish.

(It's so beautiful, I'm crying.)

The Evolution of the Crawl

It seems Charlie's crawl happened in the textbook sorta way. About 6 months old he started to roll to get places, then he would teeter back and forth on his hands and knees, and then he adopted an army crawl, like this:

He was so good at that, I was prepared to not be surprised if he never learned to crawl traditionally. The kid could make time, you had to be nervous if you left him ANYWHERE, because he could end up somewhere totally different getting into something without your knowledge. Like the time I walked out of our bedroom and left Charlie on the floor, 30 seconds later when I walked back in, I couldn't see him. I freaked out, looked under the bed and all around, suddenly from the closet I hear a little rustling, it's Charlie, eating shoes.

After awhile Charlie eventually wanted to pick up his belly so he could crawl over and IN thing. But he adopted the funniest half and half crawl for awhile, like this:



He actually did that for quite awhile, and I thought, well hmmm, maybe he'll stick with that. But not long after I was thinking that he was proving to me that I shouldn't count my chickens. Now, he does this:

Now he's a full fledged menace. I spend my time pulling him out from under things, getting him unsquished after he crawls in between the couch and a side table, pulling junk outta his mouth, you know the drill (if you've ever had, or been around kids!)

So now that he's a crawling pro, it seems that he LOVES to crawl under things. I'm thinking I need to get him some sorta tent or something for Christmas. He always crawls under the desk when I have him in here and I'm blogging. He likes to crawl and then sit and play under his bouncy station when he's in here also. He crawls under the coffee table in the living room (and subsequently gets stuck and screams) and the list goes on.
The other day as he was at my feet, under the desk as I did some work, he pushed over the trash can which I didn't immediately remedy (just paper in there, right?). I then heard him grunting, so I looked down, and found this:


Good times!

6 Months

Well this is a little delayed in being posted. Charlie is actually over 7 months old at this point. But I never did a post for this 6 months, and since I don't journal, it's necessary. Bare with me.

18.5 lbs ~ 60%
17 3/4 Inches ~ 78%

Charlie went and sprung up and thinned out. I'm working on getting the baby fat back on him, cuz I love some baby chub.

Some highlights of the last couple months before he turned 6 months old:

Started eating solids, didn't like them.
Got to go swimming in his pool. Loved that. He likes to splash.
Started getting up on his knees and hands like he was going to crawl. Didn't.
Started sitting, but still was liable to topple over for no apparent reason.
Jabbers quite a bit, including saying what sounds exactly like, "HI DAD".
Is a total daddy's boy already. As soon as John walks in the door he's like 'Thank heavens, I'm saved!'
LOVES to be outside. Just sitting in and pulling the grass.
He's really getting responsive to his surroundings and is becoming so very fun.

Jackson Hole Vacation

So John and I have been to Jackson a couple times, but this is a brand new (out of the womb) experience for Charlie! :) He was really good on the way up, which you always worry about when taking long road trips with babies. He didn't even wake up till the last ten minutes, so we decided to let him drive us in. He's gotta pull his weight, and also we think Britney Spears is a good parenting role model.



We didn't get a hat packed for Charlie, cuz we have no idea where his went, so we purchased something there that says, 'stepp off foo!'


The first day we spent enjoying nature and liberally applying of bug spray. We dressed Charlie like a park ranger, so in case he got lost, yogi bear would take care of him.



Instead of actually hiking we thought driving and then sitting by Two Ocean Lake sounded like a more relaxing kick off for our vacation.


Later on in the week we worked up more ambition for a hike. We decided to take the traditional hike to Hidden Falls, however this year we were slightly less lazy and we didn't take the boat out there.




We spent a lot of time in Grand Teton Park. This is from Signal Mountain, if you look at that smoke behind me and Charlie... well we're not responsible.... all I'm saying.



We made it up to Yellowstone this time. Spent a lot of time waiting for old faithful to go off. Charlie loved it... no no, he didn't. He really didn't care, but he had a good time people watching.


Here it is, old faithful.... nope wait, this is some other spout of water, of which I don't know the name. But I did get this picture, so there you go.

Some Firsts for Charlie

So I'm trying to catch up with some of the stuff we've been up to. I'll make a picture list. This is from awhile back a few months ago, the pool finally got to where we thought it was warm enough for Charlie, so he got his first dip:

He got a floaty, and worked that out for the first time:


John decided to give mommy a break in the morning, AND try out his baby bjorn again before we went on vacation. So Charlie got to mow the lawn for the first time! :)


Charlie had cousins over to stay with him for the first time. Granted they're a little older than him, but they sure did love on him!

It's Finally Summer When...

...you no longer have time to keep up on your blog. Here's a list of what we've been doing instead:

Enjoying a delicious beverage in the pool.


Picnicking outside.


Planting a garden. We've even had swiss chard out of the garden
twice, mmmmm, it's delicious. This was our 'small garden' we were
going to make, because we had a lot going on this year.
When we got to the garden center we couldn't help ourselves
it was like, Oooo, cucumbers, we have to do those,
Ooooo, beans, we have to have beans, CORN, I need corn
and so on. :) Currently I know, our garden is equal
parts veggies and weeds. But weeding is not
as fun as harvesting.


Laundry.


Observing summer holidays.


Just recently we started feeding Charlie some baby food.
He'd been getting very interested in what we
were eating. If you had him on your lap during a meal
he'd try to grab the spoon out of your hand
or your plate (ask daddy, he got a bowl of
soup on his lap caused by this little guy).
So we decided he might have fun trying some new
food of his own. It doesn't go well!!!
He certainly spits a lot of it back out at me, but it's
entertaining seeing his funny/messy faces. He
still seems to prefer his original method of eating,
which is fine by me since nursing is free and easy,
but it's been fun to see what happens when we
branch out a little!