Charlie is seriously the cutest little thing these days. My friends gave me/him a little "Tickle the Pig" book when I was pregnant with him, and it is his FAVORITE. We snuggle in the glider in his room and read it together before his naps. He isn't saying a lot of words yet, but he says "Tickle Pig" every time I get it out to read it.
His favorite activity is currently stirring. He loves playing in the kitchen with bowls, pans, tupperware... whatever he can get his hands on. He likes to have an assortment of spoons and just sits there and stirs. He'll pretty much stir anything. Yesterday the garbage can in our bathroom was empty and I looked over to see Charlie "stirring" in there with my hairbrush.
He's starting to cruise a little bit. Not confidently yet, but definitely enough to get to where he wants to go. He can walk behind his push toy for a few steps, but pretty quickly gives up and goes back to the butt-scoot.
He's mimicking everything. He's not saying many words, but he mimics what we say in terms of intonation. The other day someone on TV was saying "SHHHHH" and he kept mimicking it back to me. He wants to push the buttons on the microwave like we do. Lots of things.
He uses his little pointer finger to point at everything he wants now. He's at that frustrating age where he knows what he wants, but can't communicate it well to us so he gets really frustrated There's a lot of grunting and fussing and whining.
We started with a new babysitter this week. It's always hard at first. Charlie won't nap for her, which causes a whole new set of crankiness issues. Hopefully everyone settles in OK. I think this one will be better than the last one, though. She (the last one) didn't really play with Will and let him get away with everything. So that was a problem. Will still tells me he misses Miss Debbie, which breaks my heart :-( I really hate the whole thing. I have so much work to do, but a lot of times I can't focus because I'm worried about the kids being happy or getting into things they aren't supposed to. I wish I could just find a sitter they love. There's this whole bundle of anxiety and guilt about the whole thing that I'm always carrying around. Ugh.
Will has been having a lot of issues at school hitting and pushing the other kids, so we've been working through that. He did a lot better on Tuesday. He's been hitting and pushing Charlie too. I think it's a combination of just not knowing how to handle the frustration he feels with other kids being in his space and being tired . He stopped napping a few weeks ago. I think it's the right move because bedtime is much better, but I think he still needs it some days so he's getting tired and cranky.
He's very excited about Christmas. We went to see the trains at the museum last weekend, which he loved. We're going to try to go see Santa this weekend. He mailed a letter to Santa a few weeks ago and got a reply in the mail yesterday. We have an elf on the shelf this year named Elton. Will loves coming down every morning and seeing where Elton "landed" from the night before. He's counting down to Christmas using a cute Santa stocking calendar my mom got him a few years ago and an advent calendar with chocolate treats inside.
