Charlotte got a kazoo and a drum for Christmas, so it’s been a very musical week. She has been singing “Happy Birthday” and “Jingle Bell Rock” a lot, and likes to put the drum around her neck and march around the house pretending she’s in a parade. Charlotte is still working on the finer points of kazooing. We’ve heard her call it both a trombone and a trumpet.
We had a big snowstorm earlier in the week and got about a foot and a half of snow. I managed to get Charlotte into her snowsuit, though not into her waterproof boots or mittens. She’s in an anti-new-things phase, especially with clothes. By the time we got outside, Brian was almost done shoveling. But Charlotte helped anyway with her new shovel. We stomped around in the deep snow too, but it was so deep Charlotte couldn’t really move. The best part for her (well, for everyone, really) was coming inside afterward for hot chocolate.
Charlotte’s birthday and Christmas were a fun, busy two days, with lots of presents and cake.
Charlotte really likes the lights on our Christmas tree and points out lights on the outsides of houses when we see them. We’ve been talking about her birthday too, and she told us she wants a cake with a monkey and light blue and dark blue balloons on it.
We went to the kids’ matinee at the Holiday Pops this past weekend. It was fun–during the first song Charlotte said it was too loud, but she got used to it after that, luckily. The show was very kid-friendly — pretty short, with a singalong and an appearance by Santa. Charlotte liked looking up into the balconies and was excited to see the trombones, though she could only see them for a minute.
We went to the aquarium last week with my parents, brother and nephew. Charlotte showed Baby Elmo the fish, climbed on a turtle statue, and touched a starfish (she declared it “bumpy”).
Charlotte has been talking up a storm lately. Sometimes it seems like she’s just continuously narrating everything that’s going on. She says “no no” or “uh uh” to mean “not,” and talks a lot about things and their opposite. In the morning, for example, if we’re walking to school, she’ll say, “Walking, uh-uh driving. No no too cold. Winter jacket. Uh-uh pink jacket.”
She’s very into Elmo, both her Big Elmo and Baby Elmo dolls. When she can’t find Baby Elmo, she walks around saying, “Are you, Baby Elmo? Are you?” — her version of “where are you?” She likes to make Baby Elmo hop around, or walk up the stairs next to her. And she talks to Baby Elmo, telling him “Look, Baby Elmo!” if she sees something interesting on Sesame Street or if I spill squash on the floor like I did last week.
Charlotte also says “Funny!” a lot lately when she’s laughing at something. Things that are funny include: walking backwards, wearing two jackets at once, and poop in the bathtub. She has recently started saying “show you.” One of her favorite pre-bedtime activities is jumping off her stepstool after saying “Show Mama Daddy high jump!” She also breaks into song here and there, mostly the alphabet song, but sometimes “Old MacDonald” and more recently “Jingle Bell Rock” (we think they sing that at school).