Jackson holding Charlotte with Sasha waiting patiently for her turn.
Sasha felt more comfortable letting Charlotte use her like a chair
But…big brother couldn’t help himself and had to show his little sis how to gently touch Charlotte.
Jackson and Sasha were uber excited to meet “baby Charlotte”. I don’t think their faces will stretch any further after the smiles they had for her.
Both of them were so soooooo gentle and sweet with her.
Charlotte turned 5 months old on monday. This month, the comparison shot will have to wait a week but this is pretty epic.
We joined my brother and his family to Ruby Tuesday’s for dinner. The waitress said that if we wanted a high chair we’d have to put the baby in it…. that we cannot rest her car seat in it. Bummer.
But what an opportunity it presented!! I laid her blanket in the simplistic wooden chair, fastened the belt and we all played offense for a few minutes until we realized that she was absolutely fine on her own. She lasted about 15 minutes before she started stretching so I put her back in the carseat and she fell asleep.
My anxiety got the best of me and it was all for naught. The trip north was very smooth in both the physical ride of the plane and emotional ride of the unexplained.
While waiting to board, Charlotte was her cute little self as I received the eye rolls and blank stares of my fellow travelers when they saw how little she was. Mentally, I repeated the mantra that Southwest insisted upon in the baby section of their website – “baby is a passenger too” – as part of me secretly wished that if Charlotte did bellow out a blood curdling scream that those were the exact people to hear her wrath.
Alas, after a few minutes of settling in, she fell asleep for the first half of the flight. The second half went very smoothly with a few protestations from the little bit we call Charlotte. The white noise of the plane was too loud for her cry to be heard except by those in our immediate vicinity.
I sat on the aisle so that people knew I had a baby if they choose to sit next to me as it was a full flight. As I thought, people did their best to pass us by. A pleasant looking couple smiled at us and asked me what her name was. I replied and they looked at me, then at each other and said that these must be their seats. His mother’s name was Charlotte.
Turns out they have 4 grand babies of of their own and took to Charlotte as if she was their long lost fifth. I’m not quite sure who charmed who.
That ends this post. We had a great start to our 5 day adventure and it’s time I go back to sleep
Charlotte will be embarking on an adventure today; she is going to meet Grandpa Frank and Grandma Linda. Charlotte & I are flying Southwest, a direct non-stop fight from here to Long Island and they allow 2 carry on’s …one of a moderate suitcase size and the other about the size of a lunch cooler. I have packed, unpacked, repacked and come to the conclusion that no matter what I pack, we will land and I will have the “aha!” moment realizing that I forgot something. I’m glad she hasn’t bonded to any of her toys in such a way that if I left a particular one home she would treat our fellow passengers to the mother of all meltdowns.
She has, however, 2 favorite blankets that must make the trip. The first one is her soft fleece monkey blanket that Charles got for her before she was born. This was the first blanket she was wrapped in when she came home and loves to touch the monkeys on the corner and bring them up close so see can really study them. We’ve had to alternate between this one and her other favorite, a pink fleece one with owls on the corner as they seem to be the only ones that pass whatever invisible test she put all her blankets through because these are the only two that she will fall asleep with – she likes to pull them up to her face and rub her cheeks against them as she falls asleep.
She must have felt my pre-flight jitters because she was wide awake at 6 am when I got out of the shower. She is sleeping an hour later as I type this. I’m the kind of person that would rather drive 20 hours and spend 3 visiting than spend 3 hours flying and 20 visiting. Charlotte will be a good distraction. Take off is at noon and we arrive about 2:40 in the afternoon and will return on Friday afternoon/early evening.
I’m not going to bring my laptop but I can post updates here from my phone so I will do my best to update as much as possible.
Being the little drool monster that she is, I am constantly looking for teethers that are easy for her to hold (own her own) and that ease any teething pain she may have.
She doesn’t like them cold from the fridge and forget about giving her anything out of the freezer. I’ve settled with allowing her to use whatever it is she deems worthy; it’s a good thing I didn’t need those coupons.
I’m going to try to figure out how to split this site into sections so that if you click on a link it takes you to all subject matter pertaining to it. For example, I want to create a “What’s Charlotte up to now” section that will have all her weekly updates (which I am going to start writing today) in their own area.
It would look like a link at the top of her page titled “What’s Charlotte up to Now” and when you click that, there will be a list of blog posts with weekly or daily updates, depending on what she did and how much time I have at the moment when I finally have a second to post.
Wish me luck that I don’t destroy the website in the process.
Meanwhile, here’s a little update on what she’s been up to this week: she’s officially entered the “I wonder what THIS tastes like stage” and is putting mostly everything she can get her chubby little hands on in her mouth. She is favoring anything that has tags or is soft and/or fuzzy like her doll or fleece blanket and her washcloth while bathing.
I found these awesome starter sippy cups the other day while grocery shopping and they are approved for those over 4 months; being that she’s about to turn 5 months on Monday, I figured today would be just as good a day as ever to try these out. In went a 1:1 dilution of Continue reading →
Sometimes, Charlotte gets uber fussy when she’s tired. Yes. This happy baby does not like nap time, ESPECIALLY if she is tired.
She knows the playpen and crib equal sleep most of the time and is starting to fight us, so I decided to put her on the floor to see what would happen.
Yeah, I’m waiting for her to fall asleep but this change of scene seems to be keeping her occupied for the time being.