Monday, November 12th - Sleeping & Crying

Well, it's happened. We've officially lost our minds with sleep deprivation.

We've read all the sleep books, the No-Cry, the Cry-it-out, the Cry-a-little, the Cry-together, the Cry-Apart, the Cry-Louder and the just plain Cry. We'd read them all, but honestly, we didn't give them much thought because Charlie had been gradually starting to sleep better. Then, it got worse. And worse. And for the past five nights, Charlie sleeps an hour, wakes up and screams until held and cuddled back to sleep, an hour, screaming, rinse, lather, repeat.

It's not good. So now we're trying to formulate a plan. Jessica has a plan she's calling the "Nuk-tastic, No Cry, Twinkle-Twinkle, Sleep Through the Night on Your Side With Your Lovey, Milicon OK Sometimes Cry it Out, Everybody Get in the Crib Co-Sleep Plan" (also known as NNCTSTNSLMOKSCOEGCCSP, copyright pending).

We're not sure it's gonna work, but we've got to try.

Wish us luck. More photos when we've gotten some rest. I can't figure out how the camera works right now.

Monday, November 5th - Sitting up and studying the world

Quick post today. Everyone's doing great lately and even getting some good sleep (most nights). Charlie vacillates between being ridiculously fun and a little bit fussy depending on how his gums are feeling (teething fussiness so far seems different, and easier to distract him from, then previous forms of fussiness). But when he's happy fun Charlie, oh boy, the good times roll.

He's got a much longer attention span now. Last night at dinner he spent a half-hour playing with a metal spoon and then a wooden spoon (which tasted much better). It's wonderful watching him just look at the spoon, turn it around, and mostly try to figure out which part of it would be best to chew on (he liked the handle more than the spoon end, ultimately).

He's pretty good at sitting up on his own now, but within five-minutes or so he usually winds up laying on his face and needs a pick-me-up. Here he is checking out one of his books.

Mostly he chews on the books, but every once in a while he seems interested in actually looking at the pages as opposed to tasting them.

And not sure what to say about this photo except that Charlie thought this snake was incredibly funny right up until the moment I snapped this picture.

Wednesday, October 31st - Happy Halloween!

At the ripe old age of five and a half months, Charlie went out trick-or-treating for his first Halloween. His costume? What else could it be, but Super Charlie!

The JPP's, despite living in Forest Hills for over a decade, had never gone trick-or-treating here. In fact, we're not even sure how trick-or-treating works in the city, with giant apartment buildings. Well, it's a mob scene and a lot of fun. Here's some of the rabble rousers from our nabe. The pirate on the far right is our upstairs neighbor Isabelle. She stole all of Charlie's candy, but that's OK because we're going to make her babysit in a few years, so we'll get payback.

It was a big evening for Super Charlie, so he had to settle down at the end with his super bottle.

Big thanks to Jackie, Misha and Carmi for buying us the Snugli Cross Terrain backpack. Both Charlie and his father love it. We went out for a walk on a cold October morning in Connecticut last weekend and Charlie promptly fell asleep. We didn't want to wake him by taking him out, so we let him sleep for awhile like this. The backpack has a built-in kickstand, which really came in handy here.

And as a bonus today, here's the first Charlie video on the website. We discovered that Charlie thinks the word "oops" is very funny.

Wednesday, October 24th - Another new gadget

The Graco Baby Jumper. $10 on Craigslist and the guy even delivered it to our apartment for us.

We're not sure if Charlie likes it or not. What do you think?

Monday, October 22nd - A trip to Minnesota

We just got back from a trip to Minnesota to celebrate the 90th birthday of Charlie's Great Grandmother, Gertrude Putnam. We stayed at the Pouliot Ranch with Aaron, Peggy, Rachel and Erica Pouliot. They were wonderful hosts and we extend them our profound gratitude. Here we are (with Grandpa Dirk) at the ranch in front a corn field.

Here's Peggy with their Scottish Highlander steer, JD (named after a local restaurant's Jack Daniel's Burger). We greatly admire the Pouliot's for their tradition of naming all their cows after food (Big Mac, Whopper, Jack Daniel's burger, etc.). And in case you're wondering, yes, JD will be a burger in year's time.

They have a few chickens and quite a few more cats on the Pouliot Ranch and they all eat together. Wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it myself.

Here are Peggy and Aaron's two daughters, Rachel (on the left) and Erica (in the middle). On the right is their cousin Raelynn. They are three of the brightest, sweetest kids you could ever hope to meet.

Ok, last picture from the farm, the three Putnam Peskays on a big, red tractor. This picture was taken early Sunday morning. By the evening on Sunday, in addition to this tractor, Charlie had traveled in a van, an airplane, on a moving sidewalk, an escalator, an elevator, the JFK Airtrain and, of course, the NYC Subway.

And of course, let's not forget the birthday girls. Til (on the left) and Trudy.



And here is Trudy with Charlie who (hopefully) will be ninety years old in 2097.

While Charlie was at the birthday party, he sweet-talked his great aunt Linda into giving him a bottle. Charlie actually had kind of a rough weekend (the busy schedule kept all of us from sleeping quite enough, but Charlie suffered the most) and was crankier than usual, but Linda had the magic touch with him and cranky Charlie was putty in her hands.

Jessica and I have taken to carrying emory boards in our pockets and filing Charlie's nails every chance we get. It's still a losing battle as Charlie's face has so many scratches it looks like he's been sharing a food bowl with the chickens and the cats. Anyway, Uncle Larry saw Jessica giving Charlie and manicure and decided he wanted one too.

And last and definitely least, daddy just couldn't resist getting a picture with Charlie outside the one and only Larry Craig bathroom at the Mpls/St. Paul Airport.