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Yesterday Charlotte and I went to the playground near our house for some very successful swinging. The few other times I have taken her there she hasn’t seemed that interested and has mostly just chewed on the seat. But yesterday she was really excited when I pushed her in the swing, and liked looking around at the other kids. We went down the slide a few times but that wasn’t nearly as big a hit as the swing. It helps that the humidity is gone and we are having perfect weather this week–sunny and in the 70s, with a little bit of a cool breeze.

It’s fun to see Charlotte getting better at feeding herself. We’ve tried a few new things in the past week–tofu and blueberries, and some plain black beans and kidney beans tonight. She picked all of them up pretty well and mostly got them to her mouth. We took this video of her eating a sweet potato fry: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hdWfqQ19b9s

Brian took turns putting Charlotte’s toy (Little Baby Lambie) on his head and hers tonight, which totally cracked them both up.

Meals are taking up quite a bit of time lately, as Charlotte works on feeding herself more. She is also really into dropping things onto the floor and then leaning over to look at them. She stares down at the floor like she’s looking over the edge of a really tall cliff to see her cup, or spoon, or toy, or piece of food.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68WSEKABxc4

We went to Cape Cod over the weekend, to Wellfleet just for one night. We mostly escaped the effects of Hurricane Bill, since we went to the beach on the inner bay side of the Cape on Saturday. The water was pretty calm and warm and very Charlotte-friendly.

We went for a hike in the Wellfleet wildlife sanctuary in the afternoon. It was beautiful and there was a nice path to the beach through marshland and woods. We saw a lot of tiny little crabs and birds close to the shore. Parts of the trail were underwater, which is apparently normal, although tides were higher this weekend because of the tropical storm. We heard a story from a couple at dinner about RVs near the beach getting flooded by the very high tides 

We think Charlotte liked getting a taste of nature.  

Along the shore:

It’s been incredibly hot here this week, in the mid 90s and really humid. Charlotte and I have been sitting around being sweaty for a few days now. Luckily she has gotten the hang of the sippy cup and is drinking lots of water.

These pictures are pre-lunch, obviously, since she is still clean. Eating has been such a mess lately–Charlotte likes to play with handfuls of food and examine everything, and is into throwing/dropping things on the floor and then leaning over to look at them.

We have been taking pictures with our phones and old camera since our newish camera is getting fixed. After our trip to the beach it hasn’t been working and we think it has sand in the lens.

I got this new little seat for Charlotte that hooks to the counter. She really, really likes it, much better than the high chair for some reason. I also got the placemat that catches food–the name of it is “Tiny Diner” so now that’s what we call Charlotte when she’s eating.

She finally started eating breakfast along with lunch and dinner, and we’ve been trying all sorts of new things. Charlotte can’t really pick up little pieces of food by herself yet, so I try to give her things that she can grab easily, like pieces of rice cakes, or pieces of toast made from rice bread, since she hasn’t had wheat yet. I made a batch of quinoa with squash, and she likes that a lot, and yesterday we tried some white bean puree, which was part of our dinner the other night. That went over pretty well too. It seems like she eats well as long as she has something to hold onto herself, and as long as she gets sips of water every few bites.

Charlotte has been pulling herself up a little bit around the house. Whatever she grabs has to be just the right height for her to get up. The arm of the couch is perfect if she is sitting on the couch. She pulls up onto our legs if we are sitting on the floor, too.

Here’s a link to another video:

Charlotte and Squeaky Bun-Bun

Brian likes to name Charlotte’s toys, and he named this bunny Squeaky Bun-Bun. It squeaks, obviously, and Charlotte has figured out that it squeaks if she bangs it on the floor, so it’s one of her new favorite games.

We took a trip to the beach, which was fun and very dirty for everyone involved. Charlotte liked the water and playing in the sand. We discovered that diaper changing is really hard at the beach, and that Charlotte eats sand very well–much better than she feeds herself food! We went to a calm beach without too many waves, and the water wasn’t that cold.

I still can’t figure out how to put videos in the actual blog posts, but these links should go to the videos I posted on YouTube:

Charlotte plays in the sand

Charlotte plays in the water