Adventures in Columbus

As is our usual tradition, we spent MLK weekend having a second Thanksgiving dinner with our friends, Ben & Kirsten. When we lived in California, they hosted a potluck Thanksgiving dinner at their house for those of us too broke to fly home, and usually ended up with a good number of folks. One year, we had 8 people and 30 pounds of turkey. . . but I digress. Now that we both live closer to family, we've decided Thanksgiving's too good to only have once a year, and we've traded off heading to each other's houses for the long weekend to hang out and fill our bellies with turkey and all of the necessary accoutrements. So off to Columbus we flew. . .

At the playground, where it was freezing cold!






Bonding with Kirsten over Cheetoh Puffs


Snacking on samosas and ice cream at the North Market with Ben & Shelley


Kirsten's nephew was in town, too, and he and Charlie had a great time together


Discovering a provocative new subtext to "Cars and Trucks and Things that Go" with Ben


He locked himself in here. I swear.


Heading home, and so happy to have his own seat

Knitty McPurl

I have finally finished a knitting project that isn't a rectangle/doesn't only fit a baby's head! I wore it for the first time while in Columbus, and it stood up well to the cold. I am still amazed that it fits, though I live in constant fear that it will fall apart while I'm wearing it.

And I'm back

Wow, I really suck at this so far. I'll divide this post into 3 chronological chunks:

1) Pre-Christmas: Hectic! The big excitement included the following, which will be annotated with evocative photographs:
*Charlie pooped in the potty! He's been really into telling us he has to go (by saying "poop"), and although we've had a few successful pees, he finally went the distance to #2.


*It was finally got cold enough for the leaves to fall off our pecan tree, which meant Charlie got to enjoy his first leaf romp.




*Charlie got a jump-start on developing a male fascination with the Victoria's Secret catalog:


2) Christmas: Big fun with the fam! Here are a few pics, but for a rundown on the whole shebang you can check out: http://picasaweb.google.com/audlop77/Christmas2007




3) Post-Christmas: 2008 is treating us all pretty well so far. Charlie's having a great time playing with all of his new toys and getting settled back into his regular routine. His first day back at day care was great, he almost looked relieved to be back with his pals! We've especially been enjoying the new kids' museum in Raleigh, Marbles. Charlie's faves are the bus, train tables and pirate ship. I tried to get him to put on a tutu today, but he was having none of it.



His latest favorites are, in no particular order: condiments & dipping; the color orange; Here Come the ABCs (the They Might be Giants kids' album); chocolate (his advent calendar has managed to create a theobromine junkie); and the French version of Where's Waldo which is called Ou est Charlie?. Embarrassingly, he can often find Charlie before we can. Maybe it's a name thing.

A new start....

I've always been a bit of a fusspot about blogs, but I've been inspired by Sarah, and incessantly nagged by Meredith, to give this a whirl. Meredith was telling me about a vanity plate she saw that read ANUSTART. Needless to say, this caused a fair amount of giggling until she realized the driver was going for A NEW START. In that spirit, here goes...

Quick catch-up of recent events:

The C-man can no longer bathe without bubbles (could this be the beginning of many UTIs? stay tuned….), and just saying the word “bubbles” sends him running for the tub. Note the bubble beard, a placeholder for what we surmise will be a fabulous real beard once puberty hits. (Speaking of puberty, Charlie & I were at the drugstore recently and he was grabbing for the condoms. I told him, “You don’t need those yet, buddy.” The woman next to us in line was NOT amused.) He also loves to tickle (see photo of Isabel being subjected to his new favorite hobby), and his day care teacher Sara initially thought he was trying to pinch her. Not quite sure how she realized her mistake, but apparently they got it all sorted out. In further day care news, Sara reports that when other kids fall, Charlie tries to help them up, which makes Evan & I feel like we’re doing something right. Until he tries to bite us.

Charlie's 18 mo birthday cupcake

We finally got around to visiting Chris & Shana in Leesburg. Charlie loved Chris & Shana's kitty, Dubs. Not sure the feeling was mutual.