My Little Tootsie Pop

Time for some updates. We'll start at the bottom with our little Charlotte. She is sweet and smart and too cute and spoiled rotten. 

It's amazing how different all of your kids can be. Since Charlotte started walking early at the ripe old age of 9 months, she had figured out how to move chairs and climb up to the counters when my other two were just figuring out walking. She's been so adept at moving around for so long that it's hard to keep up with her. And it's so funny to see such a tiny thing walking around. It's hard to believe she really is 17 months old.

Charlotte loves to find things to sit on. Anything that can be turned into a seat will be sat on. And it's funny to watch because she usually turns around and slowly backs up to it. On Sunday it was Neil's church bag. Today I was kneeling down and someone commented that she was trying to back up behind me and sit on my feet. Whenever I'm in the bathroom she has to come in too and sit on the step stool. And there she stays with a big grin on her face, swinging her little feet.

I joke with Neil that there is no way anyone could accuse our children of being the mailman's because they are all like him and nothing like me. But there is finally something! Charlotte has a sweet tooth just like her mother. No one is allowed to eat a cookie and not share. If you ask her if she wants some candies (jelly beans, M&Ms, chocolate chips) she will run for the pantry and try to open the door. Often she's trying to open the pantry and whining for someone to let her in. If I get the ice cream out she dances around my feet crying while I'm scooping and then when she sees me head for the couch with a bowl she runs after me, giggling in delight. It's just so funny.

This is Charlotte's idea of helping with the groceries. She steals the sour cream and runs into the living room with it. She did put away a whole bag of potatoes into the bin for me the other afternoon. She really likes putting things in buckets. She also likes pushing around her corn popper, knocking down block towers, pushing babies in shopping carts and strollers, and playing kitchen. And anything her brother and sister happen to be doing.

Charlotte really loves her blanket, just like Madoc does. She also loves her bottle. She will drink water from a cup and milk from a bottle. I refused to give her a bottle for almost two weeks and still she wouldn't drink milk from a cup. I finally gave in and let her keep the bottle because she's just too tiny not to drink milk.

Charlotte adores her brother. I think he was her first favorite person. They are three and a half years apart but they get along great. He's good at helping her and protecting her but he doesn't treat her like a baby or a plaything. They love to chase/hide from each other and there is always plenty of laughter. If Madoc is upset, she's always right beside him trying to make it better. I don't know what she'll do when he starts kindergarten this fall.

I have no pictures of them together for this post, but her new favorite person is her daddy. This is the first one of our bunch that has preferred Neil to me. Neil says it's because he's the one that gets up with her at 4 or 5 am for her bottle. That's fine with me! When I get her up in the morning the first thing we do is go find Daddy. She know to check the bed and the bathroom. If he's already left for work she gets really confused and keeps looking for him. She is very insistent that he pick her up as soon as he gets home from work and will keep smacking his legs until he does.

 More evidence of her sweet tooth. She's really good at getting what she wants.

One of the many funny things about Charlotte is that she doesn't talk. She can. She just doesn't. She'll learn a new word and try it out for awhile and then just stop. "Boo" lasted for a week or so; "hi" only for a day. Mama and Dada she uses on a daily basis but still not as often as it would be useful. I got her to say 'up' for awhile when she wanted to be held but now she refuses. She used to wave and say 'bye-bye' right after Neil would close the door but she won't do that anymore either. I don't think Neil ever did hear her say that one. I'm pretty sure she says 'Mah' for Madoc. And this week she says 'go.' The kids will yell, "On your mark, get set!" And three seconds later Charlotte chimes in with "Ga-oh!" Her refusal to use words that we all know she can say is infuriating and yet funny at the same time.

                                               
Here she is helping me clean out the closet and inventorying our food storage. We have to be very careful of leaving writing utensils around. She loves to color and draw. One afternoon she sat at the art table and colored with me for 45 minutes. The only problem is she doesn't discriminate about what she colors on - paper, the table, the wall, my new curtains... I have been very impressed with her abilities though. She even holds the pencil correctly.
So that's Charlotte. She is so much younger than everyone else that she is indulged way too much. The big kids let her get away with a lot and she knows how to act sweet to get what she wants. We just love her to pieces.