Charlie: I gave Charlie his first hair cut a few weeks ago, because the mullet/wings he was growing in the back finally became intolerable to me. Russell didn't want me to cut it, but I finally did it anyway one afternoon while he was out with Henry somewhere. I saved the hair for his baby book (which is hilarious, because while I am good at saving items for the boys' baby books, I am terrible at actually placing anything in the baby books; it's all just deposited in boxes for that mystical, magical day when I have nothing else to do and can carefully complete the baby books. Of course I'll be so old then I probably won't even remember I had babies). He looks adorable! Charlie is walking everywhere these days; I can't believe a few short weeks ago he wasn't walking at all. He is also a professional stair climber. He can now spin around and around while standing, so he has a veritable spinning repertoire, having mastered the seated spin months ago. He still isn't talking much, except for "Dada" (of course!) but he understands lots of words. Charlie has a quick smile, and he uses it often. It seems like he is going to have a little bit of an overbite, or at least I hope so, because there is no physical trait that is more attractive to me than a slight overbite. That sounds weird, so I don't usually tell people, but it's true! Charlie's favorite thing is to be picked up and carried around while he points at various objects. The carrier is then obliged to hand him whatever item he points to, after being prompted by a commanding "Eesh!" He especially loves to be outdoors, and often he stands at the front door, pointing. I am trying to get them both outside at every possible opportunity. Currently we are experiencing a wave of thirteen-year cicadas, so that adds an extra element of interest to going outside. Finally, Charlie has become quite the eater. He'll eat pretty much anything you place in front of him, provided that: (1) it isn't baby food and (2) he is allowed to feed it to himself; he insists on this (fine by me!). This has not yet improved his nighttime milk demands, as I had hoped, but HE CANNOT WAKE EVERY THREE HOURS FOR HIS ENTIRE LIFE, so in your face, life! I'm waiting him out.
Henry: I don't know enough kids who are Henry's age to have much of a point of reference, but I'm beginning to think Henry is very advanced for his age. Of course I think that, I'm his mother! But really. The things he says to me could come from the mouth of a teenager. Are all three-year-olds this mature and world-wise? Maybe they are. But I don't think so. He is currently very interested in crafts, especially painting with water colors, cutting anything with scissors (only while seated at the table!), and Play-doh. We don't ordinarily let Henry watch much television, just "Sesame Street," but over the past few weeks, what with all the illness and horribleness in our family (not talking about it), he has watched a lot of "Caillou," which is by far his favorite show now. It's about a four-year-old Canadian boy, and the parallels between his life and Henry's are uncanny - the show's creators have definitely done their homework and may even have been spying on us in our home. I had a brief talk with him yesterday about how we can't just sit around watching television all the time--as Russell told him, "You don't see Caillou sitting around watching television, do you?"--even though we watched a lot while we were sick. For the past few weeks, up until this week, the only thing Henry played with was some of Russell's old Star Wars and G.I. Joe men he retrieved from Russell's parents' house during a trip to Morristown. This week he discovered these little Lego men at Target, and that is his current infatuation. Each one costs $3 and comes in a little aluminum packet, unassembled. There are sixteen of them in the collection, and you don't know which one you're getting until you've purchased it and opened it and put it together, although really just seeing which head is in there gives it away. So far we've gotten the sailor, the Viking (!), the surfer girl, and the skater. I'm hoping the next one we get (I mean Henry gets) is the rocker guitar guy with the mohawk, but you don't get a say, you just take what you get, an important life lesson, I think. So it may be the geisha girl, or worse, one we already have, and we'll just have to deal with that.
