How's Charlotte adjusting?

We have been asked this many times since Paige was born. 

I think she's taken it all in stride.  There have been plenty of meltdowns, usually in perfect synchrony with Paige, especially when their mealtimes coincide, but for the most part Charlotte is doing really well.

She is still the same old happy girl - with a new twist: she's potty trained!  I know, I can't believe it either.  There's nothing like seeing my first baby in big-girl panties to make me realize she is NOT a baby any more. 

The potty training went fairly well, considering we did it with a newborn, which I do NOT recommend to anyone.  The first three days were stressful, and we're still working on perfecting use of the potty, but she only wears diapers to nap and sleep in at night.  She was so ready to potty train that we just couldn't put it off any longer.  I'm glad that Koby was at home to help me - I can't imagine doing that alone!!

Now that she's not a baby any more, Charlotte's sense of humor is starting to develop.  She really finds herself hilarious.  The latest thing is tucking her bottom lip up over her top lip.  This qualifies as high humor, as the next picture proves:

 

When she's not cracking herself up, she's starting to get really interested in "helping" mommy with chores, especially wiping up messes with towels and sponges, sweeping, and the laundry.

 

She has also discovered art and teaching.  She loves to "paint the brush" with watercolors inside and homemade paints outside on the patio and driveway. This is messy, but again, she also loves to wipe it up, so it kind of evens out.  As far as teaching goes, she shows her toys to Paige and her babies and gets about the same response from both.  Here, she's teaching her favorite baby about the goat from a beloved puzzle.

 

Miss Independent is starting to pick out things to wear.  She asked to put these on, then walked around saying, "Pretty...outfit.  Pretty...outfit." over and over again.

Don't get me wrong, she very much enjoys cuddling and being our "baby," especially with Daddy.  And the baby equipment laying around is used more by her than Paige sometimes.  But she's so light that she's still in the weight limit!  Maybe one of these days she'll outgrow them, but for now here's what I see around our house most days (the lack of clothes is due to potty training) :



Popsicles with Aiden

Cousin Aiden surprised Charlotte and came to play for a day.  We went to the park and ran around and sweated up a storm, then went home to play in the water and have popsicles.  It actually was Charlotte's first time to have a popsicle, but she figured out what to do with it very quickly!

Brain freeze!

 Aiden, of course, made funny faces when I tried to get pics of him, but I managed to squeeze one good smiling picture out of him.  So handsome!

Once the popsicles were gone, it was time to get to serious shark and whale play.  Last visit, Aiden taught Charlotte about humpback whales.  This time it was the pilot whale, gray whale, and hammerhead shark.

 I'm always so pleasantly surprised how much the kids enjoy each other despite an age difference of three years.  Sweet cousins!

Let the smiles begin

I can see an end to the mindless baby infant stage in sight: Paige has started to smile at Koby and I.  We have to work to get them, but they are definetely in response to us.  What a good feeling!  There have been many big smiles and coos at us, but these are the only ones I've been able to capture on camera so far.

She's cooing at me in this picture

Sweet Charlotte

Charlotte certainly got in on the birth announcement photo shoot action.  She is such a sweet big sister!


"Reading" to Paige:

Loving on Paige: 

 Fascinated with Paige's hands:

Being precious for the camera:

Pretty Paige

These are "leftover" photos from my millions of attempts to get a good pic for Paige's birth announcement. These are the ones I want to remember.  She was two weeks old.