Notes on Charlie

Yesterday morning Charlie asked me if he could go outside with his digger. I told him maybe later. He went stomping out to the living room and I heard him say to himself, "I am so, SO mad at my mom." Then he came stomping back in and stood right in front of where I was sitting on the ground. He held up his right forefinger and said, as he touched it to my nose, " There are nice moms." Then he repeated this with his left forefinger, touching it to my nose and saying, "And there are mean moms." Then he held his right finger up again, " and you, should be a nice mom." I made him lose his train of thought when I asked what "nice moms" do. He replied, "just do funny things and give me stuff."

He still picks up such random phrases and uses them in conversation. A few favorites lately are, "whatever you say, mom." or "if you say so, EE-EE."

Sam was playing the piano and Charlie informed him that he was playing adagio. Sam asked what it would be if he was playing faster and Charlie told him that would be allegro. And darn if he isn't right.

Yesterday I was showing my mom something on the computer, when Charlie plowed through, climbed up on my lap and very seriously started trying to show us a few things. He was plunking away on the keyboard and explaining that he was going to show us the arboretum, which he explained, was like a museum without walls. It had a lot of trees and no dinosaurs. He did change his mind on the dinosaur fact later though and he changed it in a big way. It had a hundred hundred miweeon (million) dinosaurs. I think these cultural references are from "Little Einsteins" which I like, but he rarely watches. The kid doesn't miss a thing, I tell ya.

Charlie's been very inquisitive lately. He asks loads of questions and when there are a few quiet moments, like at bedtime or when we are driving, he asks me to "teach" him about stuff. He'll say, "mom, can you cheach me about basketball?" Then, he just listens while I say every random thought or fact I know about the assigned topic. If I stop he says, "and what else about basketball? Can you tell me more about jiggling (dribbling)?" Other topics we've covered lately: firetrucks, basketball games, lungs, breath (the whole respiratory process). He listens so intently and never gets bored. He just asks for more. What a little smarty. I love watching him learn. It makes me so happy.

When cleaning out under my mom's garage a few weeks ago, we came across one of the original batman movies on dvd. Nobody knows why they had such quality entertainment, but she offered it to Charlie and he gladly accepted. We've been watching a lot of Batman ever since. When I turn on movies for him, I usually skip through the credits etc to the beginning of the movie. He gets very angry if I do that with Batman. The credits include very artsy shots of each villain in an alley with a spotlight on his/her face. Charlie says, "start at the lights." Then he sits on the couch and shouts out the name of each villain as they appear, "Penguin! Riddler! Cat Woman! Joker!"

His love for "fighter fighters" has not waned. I got kind of crazy and bought an firefighter app on the ipad the other day. Good decision. He takes putting out fires and filling the truck back up very seriously.

When Charlie hung up the phone with my mom today, he said, " See you soon! Over and out."

I am finally feeling like I can take Charlie places without wanting to cry the entire time. He is still 3 and acts like it, but he has settled down a lot. His attention span is longer and he doesn't just run away from me frantically. I am finding that we can have more logical discussions and it is more wonderful than words can say. I even felt comfortable enough to let him ride his bike to the candy store this afternoon. That is saying so much. He was a little bit croupy today and after the bike ride was pretty tuckered out. He came and sat next to me on the floor in the living room. I got up to get his dinner plate from the kitchen and before I turned back around, he was snoring and sprawled out on the floor- spiderman snow boots and all.