This Girl

We've got our last toddler.  She is so naughty and so delightful.  I thought we were finally at the stage where we could have planters full of flowers on the front step - that I could keep them alive for three months, in addition to the other plants and people and animals I keep alive.  Charly eats them.  Every chance she gets, she runs from the back deck to the front step and chomps on begonias.  A few days ago she just ripped the remaining flowers right out of the pot.  Maybe next year.

Charly's other favorite pastimes are swinging on the grape arbor, taking care of baby dolls (today she was washing her favorite doll's head in the water flowing out of the storm drain), reading books about babies, blowing kisses, and harassing the cat.

Here she is helping the cat by putting the cat's dry food into her water for her.  You can see that we put the cat food on top of a storage container that sits on top of a storage bench to try to keep it away from toddlers.

Here is Charly checking out a display at the natural history museum.  

Sometimes she climbs up next to her daddy and hands him a book to read 8 times and that is the cutest.

She's at about the age I usually wean my babies, but because she's the last baby, the thought of not nursing her anymore makes me feel like crying, so we'll keep it up a while longer, even though she enjoys pinching me with her razor-like finger nails while she drinks.

Charlybird

Baby Charlotte was born 22 December 2018.  She's very mellow and when I take her out to the bus stop to send the kids off to school or to meet them after school, the Grade 5 girls on the bus lose their minds waving to her.  She's a local celebrity at the elementary school.

Now that she's 4-months-old, she can (sometimes) roll over and is great grabbing toys, blankets, and her sister's hair.  She thinks the kids are very funny and she reminds me of some sort of wonderful puppy when she wakes up in the morning--wriggly and soft and beaming.

We love her.