Charlotte at age two and a half

It's been a while since I've posted anything of length about what Charlotte is up to these days. I like to keep track of these things since I have not really gotten into writing in her baby book. This is my documentation of her "babyhood." Hopefully the internet is not a passing fad that will disappear, and take along all my memories. :)

At two and a half, Charlotte is speaking in full, complete sentences. She is almost completely understandable to us, but also is pretty clear to everyone else too. She has trouble with the sounds for L, th, and some S's. She is formulating her own thoughts, not just repeating things we have said before. She is on the cusp of the "Why?" stage--she is starting to understand the concept of reasoning and so asks a lot of questions. Luckily she is pretty satisfied with simple answers so far! One of our favorite things she asks is "Are you talkin' 'bout me?"

Charlotte loves to sing. She sings all of the time. She sings songs we recognize, and songs we don't recognize. She sings recognizable songs with new words. She makes up her own songs. Grandpa Mark and Grandma Cindy teach her lots of songs at their house, and so we are always being surprised with new songs. "Matt, did you know she knew that song?" "Kristi, did you teach her that?" Some of her favorites are predictable for her age--The Wheels on the Bus, Jesus Loves Me, Mary Had a 'Yitto Yam,' Puff the Magic Dragon, Sesame Street theme song. Others are not so popular with the toddler crowd--Smoke on the Water and Human Wheels (John Mellencamp). She plays a mean air guitar on a badmitton raquet when she sings Smoke on the Water... Just yesterday we were on a long car trip to visit Lisa and Travis in Iowa to celebrate the new baby (we didn't make it due to zero visibility from blowing snow, then they closed I-35), and from the backseat we heard "Dah dah dah, dah dah duh-duh, dah dah dah, duh-duh. Foke (smoke) on the waaaater....fire in the sky." I'm not sure, but she might be the only two and a half year old who sings that. She has also been known to shout "Say 'fire in the sky!'" when listening to the song on CD. She gets impatient waiting for her favorite part, I guess. :)

She is really into playing with stuffed animals right now, particularly with her beanie baby kitties. She has a black one named Chocolate Drop, and white one named Snow White or Peppermint (usually the former), two brown ones named Lollipop and Carmel (these names all came from a book about 4 little kittens who lived in a candy shop), and a gray one named Stripe. She divides her allegiance between Chocolate Drop and Snow White. If she asks you which one is your favorite out of a pile of stuffed animals, don't choose one of those two. You won't get to play with it, but instead will receive a different animal in your hands with the reassurance "No, this one is your favorite!" She particularly likes to put the kitties in glass jars and screw the tops on, then carry them around like that. She also has a new game where she puts the kitties in a bag or box, then gives it to someone as a birthday present. Daddy gets her to laugh hysterically when he pretends there is nothing in there, then turns the bag upside down to look in it and dumps the kitty on his head!

One of her other favorite stuffed animals is a soft lamb, which she has now named Fleece As White As Snow. I almost died laughing when I heard her yelling "Fleece As White As Snow! Fleece As White As Snow! Come here Fleece As White As Snow!" And this morning, she named her beanie baby lamb Fleece As White As Snow also. She calls them Fleece As White As Snow Muhver (mother) and Fleece As White As Snow Baby. So creative, this girl is.

She is starting to outgrow naptime...or at least she thinks she is. She skips her nap several times a week, but she plays nicely in her room with the lights off and the curtains closed for a couple hours even if she doesn't sleep. I think Mama and Daddy need the nap as much as she does sometimes! Today she told me she couldn't sleep because she was scared of the eyes, then pointed to two swirls in the wood on the bookshelf next to her bed that looked like eyes to her. Poor girl! She has actually told me before that she couldn't sleep for the same reason, so I believe that it really does bother her. We taped up a picture of our family over it now, and hopefully that's the last of that.

One other thing she really loves to play with these days is a tea set she got from Auntie Olivia in Austria at Christmas. It is just her size, and the kitties have enjoyed more tea than any other kitties in town. I even taught her to ask her guests about sugar "One lump, or two?" Except she says yump instead of lump...