Charlotte has taken to sitting in the plastic basket that Mommy uses to collect her unused hangers in her closet. Occasionally, Charlotte will drink her bottle while watching TV in this basket. Charlotte likes it when Daddy picks up the basket by the handles with her in it and swings it back and forth.
During meal time, Charlotte likes to place objects behind her neck while sitting in her highchair—-she’s been doing this for a while now, but now it has become quite a game, particularly with Charlotte and Daddy. Charlotte is also very good at copying other’s actions. Generally, after a meal, Daddy and Charlotte play a game similar to Simon Says, but everyone takes a turn being the leader and the others have to follow the leader’s actions, e.g., tapping head with both hands. Daddy likes to switch it up a little by making the actions a little more challenging, sometimes, doing two different actions at the same time; Charlotte doesn’t do too badly with this.
Charlotte has got quite good at stacking hands; for the longest time, Charlotte understood the initial stacking part, but couldn’t grasp pulling her hand out from underneath the pile to place it on top. Now she has got it down pat with two people and is working on three people. Charlotte and Daddy followed the morning routine pretty much as usual while Mommy did a few errands and prepared for our special visitors this afternoon.
Oh, my gosh! Charlotte got her fingers caught in the door closure of the front screen door. Mommy was busy in the kitchen while Daddy was going in and out of the door, recycling a lot of cardboard from Charlotte’s Christmas toys. Whenever anyone goes out the front door, Charlotte always runs to the door to watch out the glass window in the door. She is always grabbing the door closure, despite our constant reminders not to do so—-we’re always pulling her hands away. One moment, Charlotte was playing in the kitchen near Mommy and the next, Mommy heard a blood curdling cry. Charlotte cried so deeply that she couldn’t catch her breath. Since Charlotte was in the middle of the hallway, Mommy didn’t know what happened. It was only when Charlotte started to move her right hand toward her mouth that Mommy saw the indent in 2 of her fingers and figured that Charlotte had got her fingers caught in the door. Mommy immediately scooped up Charlotte and rushed her into the powder room to run really cold water over Charlotte’s fingers. Mommy kept Charlotte’s fingers under the water until Charlotte pulled them away. Charlotte began to move her fingers without grimacing, so we were fairly certain that her fingers weren’t broken. Mommy immediately wrapped Charlotte’s fingers in a towel and applied pressure, which allowed Charlotte to settle down. Mommy and Charlotte cuddled on the living room couch while Mommy continued to apply pressure, occasionally opening the towel to assess the condition of Charlotte’s fingers; Charlotte always would indicate that she wanted the pressure to be reapplied. After a short while, Charlotte sat up and pushed off Mommy’s knee to resume playing as if nothing had happened, but you could tell by her actions that those fingers were sensitive. Mommy continued to check on Charlotte’s fingers throughout the rest of the afternoon and evening—-the grooves were now gone and there just appeared to be a bruise line across one of her finger nails—-Mommy really hopes that Charlotte’s nail bed isn’t damaged.
This afternoon, Charlotte enjoyed a play date with the children of a few of Mommy’s close friends from Rainbow. Della and her daughter Elainna and her mom Glenice; Suzanne and her sons Nicholas and Nathan and her mom Judy; and Auntie Dale and her children Kaitlyn, Gregory, and Kristen and Mommy’s mommy came to our house for a visit and potluck dinner. The children played really well together, which allowed the mommies to chat and catch up on each other’s news. It was quite the whirlwind of activity when the children opened their Christmas gifts from one another—-it was hard to keep track of who opened what gifts. Kaitlyn helped Charlotte open her gifts so that Mommy could take photos and keep an eye on dinner.
Once all the paper was cleared away and all the gifts were organized according to family and placed to the side, we all enjoyed a lovely dinner with the usual amount of busyness that is created when 4 families with children get together for a meal. The children ate reasonably well and were really well behaved. While the adults enjoyed tea and dessert, the children played upstairs in Charlotte’s room under Kaitlyn’s watchful eye. Thanks to Kaitlyn for keeping an eye on the children during play time—-you are such a great little babysitter.
Once all the company had left, Charlotte was wired for sound and showed no signs or interest in wanting to go to bed—-Mommy had to chase her down the hall to catch her to get her ready for bed. Once Charlotte saw the bottle in Daddy’s hand, she become completely cooperative. Daddy was extremely exhausted and headed to bed. Mommy, having caught her second wind, settled down at her computer to download and organized several days’ worth of photos taken on two cameras. Mommy felt energized and made a ridiculously long to-do list for tomorrow—-Mommy really needs to work on more realistic to-do lists. Sometime after 1 am, Mommy finally crawled into bed.
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