Goodbye Nippies!

Last week we got rid of the last remaining pieces of Charlotte's babyhood....her pacifier, also known as a nippy at our house. We had set the goal of getting rid of them many times, but each of those milestones came and went without ever kicking the habit. Let's reminisce for a moment (this is mostly for my sake...so skip over this if you are bored)...

Two and a half years ago we brought 8 pound 7 ounce Charlotte home from the hospital. She was cute, she was chubby, she was fussy. We were determined not to use a pacifier because it might interfere with breastfeeding, and we didn't want her to get into the habit of using a pacifier. We didn't want to be one of those families with a 2 and a half year old with a pacifier. Ahem... Anyway, our first night at home was a little rocky. Lots of crying (from all three of us), some pleading, too much breastfeeding, not enough sleep. I don't remember who suggested the pacifier first, but maybe it's better we can't play the blame game in retrospect. And who would want to place blame for the beautiful silence that followed when that little pacifier was popped in that little rosebud mouth. It was amazing. And there began the long series of compromises as parents that we always said "I'll never do that when I'm a parent..."

Fast forward a year or so...she's really not a baby anymore. We really should get rid of those. But hey, it's so darn convenient to get her to go to sleep. And besides, we only use it at naptime and bedtime. So it's not like she's walking around with it in her mouth. It helps her to self-soothe. Right.

Move ahead a bit more; a little bit older, a little bit wiser. We delay the old heave-ho for the nippies for various reasons at various times...we're going on vacation and need it for the plane ride...we're moving and that's a lot of stress for a little baby (who of course, is not actually a baby anymore)...we're stopping breastfeeding and she can't have everything taken away at once...etc etc. It just never seemed like a good time.

Meanwhile, Charlotte learned how to spell a few things; we couldn't sneak anything by her because as soon as you said N-I-P-P-Y she went running to her room to look for it. We had one unfortunate incident where she pulled her dresser over while trying to climb up and get her nippy from the top. Luckily she didn't get hurt, but the nippies found a new resting place.

Towards the end of the love affair with nippies, this was the routine---at bedtime Mama would hold her and Daddy would have two nippies. Charlotte would reach out in the dark for them, and sometimes Daddy would trick her by moving them out of her reach. Kids love to be teased, especially when they're tired. When she finally snagged them out of his hands, she would put one in her mouth with the handle flipped up and tucked under her nose. She would hold the other one in her hand, and at some point she would switch it for the other one. Her favorite was a white and red one, but the others got some use too. In the morning she would sometimes toddle out of her room with the nippies, but she was pretty good about putting them back on her pillow if you asked her. Sometimes if we forgot to put them up you might find her back in her bed in the middle of the day, eyes glazed over and half-closed having a little "nippy fix."

Now fast forward to a couple weeks ago. We had been talking about how to finally get rid of the nippies, and had settled on "sending" them to another baby who might need them. Charlotte is of course infatuated with her new cousin coming from Ethiopia, and thus one morning when we talked about the nippies she suggested baby E might need them because she is still a baby. "And what are you, Charlotte?" Mama asked. "I'm a big girl!" she said. So we put the nippies in a box, wrapped it up in brown paper, and addressed it. Charlotte insisted that she had to put it in the mailbox herself and then we said "Goodbye nippies!" With a slam of the mailbox door, that was that. End of an era. Done.

Ten minutes later I snuck back outside to rescue them. What if this was a terrible idea and she (or we?) couldn't handle this yet? I stashed the box where she couldn't find it, just in case.

Naptime that day brought some tears, but she settled down after 5 minutes or so. At bedtime she asked "Where's my nippies?" We reminded her that they were on their way to baby E. Into bed she went, without a fuss. The next day, same question, same response. Could it really be this easy? For days we waited for the tantrums and the screaming and the pleading, but it never came. She's stopped asking about them, and she's doing great. Our little girl is all grown up. Goodbye nippies!

Funny "fings"

Charlotte can't yet say the "th" sound, so it is always replaced with a "f" sound.

Here are some funny "fings" she has said recently at Grandpa and Grandma's house while Mama and Daddy are away at work:

At grandpa and grandma's house Charlotte was playing on the sidewalk and patio while grandpa brought in some things from the car. When he went to bring her in the house, the front of her coat was soaking wet and her hair was fairly wet.
Grandpa: "What happened to you?"
Charlotte: "I took a shower from the drips."(the melting snow was drip drip dripping onto the patio from the gutter and she couldn't resist standing under them to get a "shower")

Charlotte and grandpa built a fort in the living room with a blanket and everything was in good shape except it needed a door.
Grandpa: "How about we use the Giraffe chair as a door?"
Charlotte: (with much difficulty drags the Giraffe over to the fort and tries it out) "I don't like that good idea." (takes it away, again with much difficulty - given her size as compared to the chair) They settled for a piece of newspaper and two clothes pins.

Charlotte likes to help wash dishes. The other day she was in charge of rinsing. She spent the bulk of the time rinsing the same pot lid over and over and over again. Towards the end she got fixated on rinsing the soap bubbles off of grandpa's hand. He would put some more on and she'd rinse them off again.
Grandpa: "Are you enjoying rinsing those bubbles?"
Charlotte: "What happened big boy?"
(We think she used this phrase since she is now a "big girl" and not a baby, and we frequently refer to this fact.)

While finishing up the dishes Charlotte asked for more soap from the bottle...
Grandpa: "No. We are all done now."
Charlotte: (while grandpa was putting something away she grabbed the soap bottle and put a bunch in her hand)
Grandpa: (scolding (mildly) her for not listening to me. Explaining that when Mommy or Daddy or grandpa/ma tell her not to do something that she needs to listen or else it is being naughty)
Charlotte: "Are you not too much happy?"
Grandpa: (looks at her but doesn't say anything because that was kinda cute and want to be sure I say the right thing)
Charlotte: (not getting an answer from grandpa fast enough) "Are you not a lot of happy?"

"I told the ammals (animals) I was tooting. I had two little toots."


"Your poodle has sprinkles on him. I put sprinkles on your poodle." - while playing outside after Charlotte took some snow and sprinkled it on Scruffy (grandpa and grandma's dog)

On the way to Grandpa's/ma's house they were singing "The Wheels on the Bus." Grandpa started the verse "The grandpas on the bus go hug hug hug..." which she chimed in for. Then I sang "The Grandmas on the bus go....(paused for Charlotte to fill in the blank). Charlotte thought about 3 seconds and said "talk talk talk, talk talk talk."

I dream of kitties

As you can see below, our lives pretty much revolve around the kitties here at our house. There is always one in her hands, and if there isn't, it probably means she (the kitty) is taking a nap or having a bath or some other important thing. Right now the favorite kitty is Carmel, pictured here. Charlotte and Mama made a tutu for Charlotte the other day, and with the leftovers we made one for Carmel, too. When we went to the fabric store to get tulle for the tutu, Charlotte really wanted it to be red. Mama couldn't find any colors that would look good with red, so she chose some other colors instead. To be fair, Charlotte's approval was obtained before making the purchase. When we got home and made the tutu, Charlotte asked "Where's my red tutu?" Mama feels a little bit bad about stifling Charlotte's desire for a red tutu and not letting her make her own decision. The next tutu will be red if she wants it to be.

When I grow up....

Charlotte has big ambitions for her life. See below for the subtitles if you don't catch what she is saying.




I'm gonna be in the circus.
Play with toys in the circus.
Toys in the circus.
Kitty toys.

She doesn't even know what a circus is...

Some new pictures, as requested

A little bird requested some new pictures, so here they are. In no particular order, the life of Charlotte Neema Florek:

She finally fits into the sweater that Kristi's grandma knit for her 2 years ago--she's a bit of a small kid. It fits perfectly now and is so cozy!

A couple of weeks ago Charlotte melted Mama's heart when she helped fold the laundry. Usually when Charlotte "helps" it means "making things take twice as long." But she actually folded each one of these baby washcloths in quarters and stacked them in a pile. She kept saying "I'm helping you Mama!" Sweet, sweet Charlotte.

Random picture--Kristi made a cake for a friend's birthday. It was a crab cake. Get it? Crabcake? The friend is from Maryland where they actually live near an ocean and eat seafood. This was in his honor. :) And the split in the middle? Yeah, the cake broke because I stacked the layers incorrectly, so I made it look like it was a big crack in the rock. Clever, I am.

Playing tea party with her "ahmals" (animals). She does this a lot. All of the animals are leaning over drinking from their tea cups, if you can't tell. The tea set is from Auntie Olivia and Uncle Charlie.

I taught her to ask "one lump or two" as she is passing out the pretend sugar.

Making pizza crust with Daddy.

Instead of rolling it out and making a little mini pizza, she actually just ate the dough one pinch at a time.

She knows her letters by sight! Her favorite letter is O, but she also likes the letter B, too. We're working on learning all of the letter sounds now.

That's all for now. I had promised a few people I was going to put a video up, but I can't seem to get it to load. Does anyone else have problems loading a video on here that is more than a few seconds long? It takes forever! Maybe I'm doing something wrong? Let me know if you have an answer!

Escape

As some of you know, we escaped the winter doldrums of Minnesota in January and took a little vacation. We had both managed to get scheduled for time off at the SAME TIME!!! Of course, this followed a month where we were on the same rotation (Family Medicine OB--delivering babies and taking care of the babies in the nursery), and the call schedule was every third night. That meant that Matt would be on call overnight at the hospital one night, then me the next night, then we'd have one evening together, then Matt would be on call, then me, then a night off, and so on and so forth. It was interesting. Sometimes in the mornings when I would be coming on call and Matt would be finishing his shift we would get to hang out for a short while at the hospital, but we didn't see much of each other that month. Anyway, all that to say that a vacation was much-needed to spend some time together. And, we went without Charlotte. She stayed with my parents, whom she adores.

Without further ado, some pictures from our tropical retreat.

All aboard the Navigator of the Seas

Our oceanview stateroom--free upgrade from the interior room we booked!

Lunch in the Windjammer Cafe, looking out over Miami before we set "sail."

Kristi's inspiration for her new hobby, fruit carving.

Other cruise ships waiting to leave the Miami port.

The belly flop contest! Watch the progression of pictures as the guy jumps off the platform on the right!

He's going for it...no fear whatsoever!

SPLASH!!!

Coming in to port at Labadee, Haiti. Yes, just days after the earthquake. Nowhere near Port au Prince. It is a peninsula privately owned by Royal Caribbean. The cruise line decided that they were going to continue to stop there because the income from all the tourists is too important to the economy. A lot of locals are employed by the cruise line on the peninsula, and the rich tourists spend a lot of money there. All of the money spent during our day there was donated to relief work, and the ship brought a lot of supplies like bottled water and non-perishable foods. It still didn't make me feel awesome about vacationing there in light of what was happening on the other side of the island. But on we go.

On the far right, at the top you can see a bit of a tower, sort of like a big power or telephone line. This is their "zip line," a long cable that you could pay a lot of money to be hooked on to and zoom down it over the ocean. We didn't, but we watched a lot of people. Looked like fun.

This is all Royal Caribbean kingdom. Look at that nice blue water!

Matt with his "morning juice," aka coffee. Not a bad view for eating breakfast, huh?

Kristi loving the warm sunny day that is dawning upon us.

And this is what we did for most of the week--sat on the beach or on the boat deck on beach on lounge chairs, reading books. This is the life.

One of the beaches on Labadee. This was probably the best beach of our trip. Not too crowded, calm warm water, soft sand, just the right amount of shade to retreat into occasionally.

Another view of the same beach.

Here's looking back on the boat, docked at the pier. Calling us back to the buffet line...

Some of the relief supplies the ship brought, being unloaded.

There was lots to do on the ship. Like hold big plastic butts (Matt's idea) and rock climb (which we never did).

And bring home the bronze medal in a ping pong tournament! Kristi was proud of his skills.

In order to enter the competition, Matt had to start with a partner. Since Kristi was too afraid to enter the stiff competition, Matt asked a guy standing next to him if he would be willing. "Sure," he said, "I was the ping pong champion in Florida." Then he grinned, showing off a whole mouthful of gold teeth. Excellent choice, Matt.

There was also a mini-golf course!

These were our dinner table mates. We had requested a large table for our dinners, and ended up at a table for 10. Only the six of us above came consistently, but we had a lot of fun. The couple on the right are traveling for the last time before their baby is born (we told them having a kid isn't the end of all fun...just most of it...). The two guys in the middle are friends since the 1st grade and who vacation together to pick up chicks. They had more than a few entertaining stories. As a table, we probably ate more than anyone else on the ship. For those who haven't cruised before, you can pretty much get whatever you want off the menu in multiple quantities. We had some big appetites at our table (us included!). Most nights we stayed long past the end of dinner talking and laughing; sometimes dinner was a 4 hour affair.

This is the main dining room. Fancy, no?

Here's Kristi on formal night in the dining room. Unfortunately we didn't get any pictures of the two of us dressed up.

Here is our second port of call, Ocho Rios Jamaica. We spent a few hours relaxing on the beach, but otherwise didn't do much.

We had the opportunity to do lots of stuff in the evenings since we didn't have a little barnacle named Charlotte with us. Here is a "Broadway Tribute" show in the theater (this particular song and dance was Abba). We also went to an ice skating show (yes, the ship has an ice rink!), a comedy show, The Newly Wed Game, Karaoke night, and a magician. There was also time for some late-night relaxing in the hot tub and listening to live music. We didn't try our hand at the casino, but our table-mate Bobby lost a lot of money there. He told us all kinds of stories about it (like the time his friend told him to bet $100 on red in roulette, so he did and he lost it), as well as the girls he met, and the times he jumped into the pool with all his clothes on after having one (or two) too many drinks.

The second to last night there was a late night deck party with food, dancing, and live music.

And more fruit carvings!

On our last night we listened to live jazz music late into the night. A nice way to end our relaxing cruise in the Caribbean. Good bye warm weather, hello cold Minnesota with the jobs that await us!

Blessing

Just talked to my sister....baby girl didn't end up getting admitted to the hospital yesterday. She seemed to turn the corner and they sent her home on antibiotics. Praise God for watching over her...He loves her more than we ever can.