Hellobee

For the past couple of weeks, Charlie has been crankier than his usual happy self, which means he hasn’t been smiling as much, which means I haven’t had as many good pictures. Seriously he has not been giving me any Blue Steel. I think he’s crankier because he’s trying to communicate and gets frustrated when we don’t understand. He can understand so much more than the words he can speak. He’s still a pretty happy baby, but definitely grumpier at times than he used to be. I guess he’s a toddler with his own little opinions now.

He insisted on wearing these sandals that light up every time you take a step. The boy is very serious when it comes to his shoes.

Milestones

Now that Charlie can walk and talk, there aren’t really any huge milestones to look forward to for awhile, other than continuing to increase his vocabulary. It’s really interesting to see the order in which he says new words because those must be the ones that are most important to him (ball was his first word, mama was his second). In the past month he added maybe a dozen new words to his vocabulary — cracker (kaka), water (wawa), help (his current favorite word), mine (he learned this from his friends) hat, hot, ow, cup — are the ones I can think of off the top of my head.

He’s getting much better at communicating and understanding commands overall. If he’s hungry for lunch, he’ll go into his stroller and grab his lunchbox. If we’re out and he’s tired, he’ll lay in his stroller and pull the sunshade down. If I tell him to go close the door, he’ll get up from playing with his toys, close the door and come back to his toys. He will generally pick things up and put things back… if he feels like it.

Schedule

Charlie’s wake up time has been a little all over the place the past month. Usually it’s between 6am – 7am, but once in awhile he does wake up earlier. At least he is still a champion napper, usually sleeping 3-4 hours in the middle of the day, which means he typically gets a lot of sleep in a 24 hour period.

6:00 – 7:00 – Wake up, 5 1/2oz bottle
8:30am – Breakfast
11:30am – Lunch
12:00pm – 8 oz bottle
12:00pm – 3:30pm – Nap
4:00pm- Snack
5:30pm- Dinner
7:00pm- Bath, 7 1/2 oz bottle
7:30pm – Asleep

Charlie loves coffee so he’s drinking a Charlie-sized cup of water with a splash of decaf added to it.

Eating

Feeding Charlie is such a stressful endeavor. Practically every meal is a battle because he just isn’t that interested in eating. He’ll eat a little bit of most things you give him… but just a couple of bites. Not enough to get full. And because he can’t eat a lot in one sitting, he eats frequently — 7 “meals” a day. He’s going to end up like my super picky cousin and brother who drank milk forever. Luckily he’s not thin, so I’ve never had to worry about fattening him up.

He loves, loves, loves ice. Give him a cup full of ice and it’ll keep him occupied for 30 minutes.

Spoiled

I’m so worried about not spoiling Charlie. I don’t want him to have/want too many material possessions. I want him to attend public school and be exposed to people of all different socioeconomic backgrounds. And I want him to be a good, disciplined boy who listens to his parents. The only problem is…. I’m a spoiler!

I love researching the best developmental toys for each stage of Charlie’s life. My excuse is that I’m launching a parenting site soon, and I really need to know about all the best toys out there. I try to be really good though I swear — I buy used toys whenever I can (I’m part of an awesome local parenting list serve), and I’m ruthless when it comes to purging so he doesn’t actually have that many toys. I sell any toys that don’t have a long enough life to make them worth saving, or that take up too much precious space. Sometimes I can even sell toys for the same price I purchased them!

Recently I bought Charlie a push tricycle, and he absolutely loves it. Charlie saw the picture on the box and got excited because he immediately knew what it was. Sure he would have been perfectly happy without the tricycle, but he’s always trying to ride other kids’ tricycles and scooters at the playground so I wanted to get him his own. When I was a kid, someone gave my parents a super old and used tricycle. I was maybe 7 at the time so I was too big for the tricycle, but that didn’t stop me and my brother from riding that sucker until it died. My parents never bought us bikes, roller skates, skateboards, or scooters, and we still learned how to ride them by borrowing them from the neighborhood kids. Although I must admit it was kinda sad and we really, really, really wanted our own. But my generation was so different from Charlie’s generation, and I don’t have that first generation immigrant mentality that enabled my parents to deprive us of toys so well. These days even the poorest kids still have playstations and tons of toys.

I guess I think he’s still just a baby, and I’ll buy him less things as he gets older. But oh is he ever aware of possession already. The kids mob him at the playground when we take him on his pushtrike, and he doesn’t want to share. Charlie’s still a little too young to discipline, but I’m afraid that I’ll be too much of a pushover when it comes to that. I don’t want to be as strict as my parents were (I think that’s just a recipe for rebellion and lots of lying to your parents!). But I do want to be strict – a parent, not a friend. Mr. Bee grew up playing the piano and violin hardcore, had tons of jobs growing up, did tons of chores around the house, got straight A’s, never smoked, and was pretty much a model child. Me and my brother on the other hand…. rebellion city. What did his parents do differently? Or perhaps I just have a rebellious gene.

Anyway, I’m gonna have to stop buying so many toys soon. But someone is delivering a sandbox to me tomorrow (60% off retail woohoo!), so I gotta go get some play sand. What can I say? I’m a spoiler.