Growing up so fast

We are still camera-less right now, so new pictures are still a few days or a week away. Here are some older ones from early summer in order to tide you over a little bit.

The little gardener helping Grandpa and Grandma harvest cauliflower as big as her head.

She ate big bites of the broccoli right out of the garden.

Despite the lack of new pictures, we do have a special treat for you today; a guest post from Charlotte's Grandpa Mark (Kristi's dad). Grandpa Mark is Charlotte's main daycare provider, so he spends more time with her than just about anyone. He hears all of the funny things she says, sees her accomplish new tasks, helps her learn new skills. Below are a few stories he shared with me about the last few days with Charlotte.

Story #1: I hear the typical sound of a "major" problem coming from the bedroom where Charlotte is playing. When I get there I see a smiling face looking back up at me. I figure a false alarm or I mistook a call for me to come play or see something with a call of despair. "Hans suck in air" the smiling face says to me. "What?" I say. She repeats but points to the little school bus and opens the door of the bus: "Hans suck in air" and then I get it. "Hand was stuck in there."

Story #2: I was streaming music while cooking, cleaning kitchen etc. Charlotte is playing in the living room and I didn't think she was really listening to the music. But then all of a sudden she repeats some words from the current song. This happened with "They said Hallelujah!" and "Hear dat? Talking!" (when at the end of a song there was some whispering).

Story #3: Grandma, Grandpa, and Charlotte were walking down the road waiting for mama to come home from work. A white car was approaching in the distance. As it got closer Char said 'truck' so we knew it wasn't mama. When it drove past Charlotte said "man." Grandpa was impressed that she catches all this and he said to Charlotte: "You don't miss a thing, do you?" Charlotte responds in a sad little voice: "I miss Daddy."

Things Charlotte says at 2 years, 2 months old
1. Wanna sit in your "yap" (lap)
2. Gama YoYis (Lois)
3. Char: "Zit hard?" (when observing the someone trying to complete a task)
Grandpa: "oh it's not too hard"
Char: "Just a yittle-bitta hard?" (just a little bit hard?)
4. Fwing (swing)
5. Fruff (scruff, the elderly poodle)
6. Baby feeping (sleeping)
7. Ice freem (ice cream)
8. If someone sneezes she asks "ajees?" (allergies) She sneezed the other day while Grandpa was feeding her breakfast. She says; "Sha-Shoe ajees."
9. Sop it (stop it)

A few additions from Mama:
-She is working on the concept of waiting. When asking for chocolate milk, we told her she had to finish her white milk first. She waited a second or two, then asked "How 'bout now?"
-The other day Charlotte had a time out for being naughty, and when it was over she asked me "Happy now?" (she hates it when people are mad at her). When I said "No" she asked me "Mad, Mama?" I said "No." Then she asked "Kind of mad?"
-Grandma Cindy sings lots of songs to Charlotte, and yesterday my little listener impressed me with singing several lines of a song with all of the words when she woke up from her nap. "When the sun hits the sky you will wake feeling spry. Start the day with a smile, life is really worthwhile." Such a sunny little thing to sing right after a nap.
-Yesterday we went to an apple orchard to get a pumpkin. Charlotte LOVED running through the rows of pumpkins (wish I had some pictures!) and sitting on all of them. She insisted that we sing Happy Birthday to the pumpkins.
-Charlotte and I walked Daddy to work this morning. On our way home we walked through a patch of sunshine and she exclaimed "I yike sunshine!" Then as we sat on the front steps drinking hot chocolate and talking about fall I asked her what other things she likes. Included on the list were chocolate milk and oatmeal. Simple pleasures.