Back from the Beach

We spend the first week in June at Topsail (which if you're not from around here, is pronounced TOPsul) Island with the Marbaise clan (my mom's two sisters and their associates). It was a much needed week of doing nothing in particular. Charlie slept in Omi and Opu's room, which meant this actually felt like a vacation for us! Nothing like sleeping past 7 to make you feel young again. Every morning we cam down to stories of Charlie's early morning goofing off, much of which involved the karaoke machine microphone.

Here he is helping Opu get plugged in...


...and wearing Aunt Ulli's hat.


Once on the beach, though, we did a lot of running after Charlie, who was alternately fearless and perturbed that the water didn't listen when he asked it to stop moving. But he was outnumbered 8 to 1, and I highly recommend this ratio when at the beach with a 2-year-old.







He loves the sandbox at home, so we did lots of sandcastles and crab hunting. We saw a few pretty good-sized specimens, and "pincers" has now entered his vocabulary after a long discussion about why we don't pick up crabs.







The garage of the house we stayed in was full of sand toys, and we found a few kites as well. I haven't flown a kite in probably 20+ years, and we all had a good time keeping it going and watching Charlie try to figure out the physics of flight.





We took off to Wilmington for 1 day as a little break from the beach, and had a great time. The highlight, for Charlie anyhow, was a trip to the Railroad Museum. They have a great children's room with train tables and toys, as well as a huge model train with push-button automation. He's been talking about the museum ever since we got back!







We also took a nice boat ride on the Cape Fear River (yep, it's that Cape Fear), which passes by the USS North Carolina. We decided not to stop because of the heat, but it was fun to ride around the river with no particular purpose.





The next day, we visited a turtle rescue hospital in Topsail Beach. The NC State vet students do surgeries on the turtles and help determine treatment plans, and then the turtles recuperate until they're ready to head back into the ocean. We got to see 6 turtles, some of which were 100+ pounds, and they were just amazing. Sadly, we couldn't take any photos, but you can check out the turtle-cam at their website.

On our last day, the water was calm enough that we took Charlie out in the ocean for some wave-jumping. Earlier in the week, my mom got bowled over getting out of the ocean, and it was little touch-and-go getting her back to a standing position. We were laughing because I'd convinced her to tie up her halter top before we got in, and thank goodness she did! So when I made my exit with Charlie, I figured no problem, and then had my bikini bottom yanked down by a wave. The sting rays and half of my family got a nice free show that day! Evan was watching from the shore, and neither of us could stop laughing...





A little post-swim rest and snack break


The Marbaise girls...


...and their toes!


One last family shot before we took off....


A few interesting discoveries of note:
-One 2-year old can easily occupy/amuse a group of adults for several hours, given that these adults are not the child's parents.
-Poop that stays in a swim diaper for too long turns grey.
-If you put carbonated beverages in a sippy cup, the pressure will cause a six foot stream of liquid to shoot out. This is my punishment for assuming that Sprite was really water.

Catching Up

Hard to believe May has come and gone! We finished up the month with a few more birthday parties and a nice new milestone - we've kicked the bottle habit! (OK, Evan and I, not so much.) We finally got tired of dealing with nipples (OK, Evan not so much) and decided to force the issue. There were a few tears on day one, but relative calm since then. In memoriam, here's the last shot of Charlie with a bottle:



But, to be fair, he's picked up a new bad habit:


Since his birthday, we've been spending lots of time with the new loot. He's a big fan of the Shrek doll from Aunt Niki, and has warmed up to Donkey after an initial freak-out. He (Donkey) just recently came out of the closet.


Tandem lawn mowing with the bubble mower. Charlie calls this his lawn-lawn-lawn-lawn-lawn (which really sounds more like "yawn"), and the more he repeats it, the more emphatic he is about playing with it.




Sitting at his new table, and making a most disturbing face (maybe he could sense the bottle weaning was coming?)


His buddies Isabel and Zayveon have the same birthday, so we had a busy weekend of parties. Isabel loves Pooh, and her parents asked a neighbor to dress up for the party. We were fairly certain Charlie was going to be freaked out, but he ended up liking Pooh pretty well (though not enough to sit in his lap).



The "more cupcakes please" pout


Playing in the sandbox at Isable's


Zayveon's party was the next day, and I love their table for three dinner date!

Happy Birthday!

Charlie's birthday was May 7th, and we celebrated the following Saturday. Here's the birthday boy on his actual birthday, when he got to open presents from mommy & daddy.



We bought him a dressing doll, which actually looks a little like him, and he immediately called him Little Charlie.


We had his 24-month check-up on the 9th, and the boy weighed 33 lbs, and was 37 1/4". The accepted pediatric lore is that doubling the 2-year old height is a fair estimation of adult height. If this is true, Charlie will be 6' 2 1/2", just like his Opu!

Saturday, we had Charlie's buddies over for a sand and water spectacular. Evan picked up a truckload of play sand, we filled the sandbox with water, and set loose a crazy beach ball sprinkler. Hopped up on juice boxes and cupcakes, the kids ran around like maniacs and generally had a pretty good time.

The pre-game show, which involved unloading A LOT of sand, and transforming our backyard into a kid-friendly oasis:






The birthday boy enjoyed having an hour or two lounge poolside before his guest arrived:








Gabriel and Charlie having lunch at the new picnic table.


The giant beach ball sprinkler, which Charlie wasn't a big fan of. Meanwhile, all of the girls at the party loved it, and were totally fearless!!


We'd been singing "Happy Birthday" to Charlie a lot after his actual birthday, at his request. When his party guests sang to him, he all of a sudden got shy and took off around the corner! Thankfully we were able to coax him back with the promise of more sugar.







Opening presents, with a little help from his friends:


Loving his new lawn mower! I can't help but laugh because he is going to HATE mowing the lawn 10 years from now . . .


Grandpa & Opu, exhausted by the many projects assigned to them by their overzealous daughter.


We took a similar photo last year at his birthday, and the big question is: How much longer will we be able to pick him up?

At the Strawberry Farm

In order for Charlie to fully appreciate the yumminess of strawberries, I felt a little child labor was in order. We met our buddies at a local strawberry farm and spent some time picking/smooshing berries. Charlie did a pretty good job helping pick berries ("no pick white ones"), but his favorite thing to do was take a bite out of each berry and then throw it aside.



Heading back to the loot


Charlie & Isabel take a break


Cutest little berry in town


A little distraught about sharing the strawberry with Zayveon