Cutie Patootie

Look Who's Walking!

 Okay, so he only took 4 steps.  But it's a great start!  Frederick is such steady milestone hitter, slowly and steadily progressing from one achievement to the next.  Do I remember the first day he crawled?  Nope, because it didn't really happen in a day.  It took a couple of weeks for him to go from moving like a fish to crawling like a bear.  Charlotte always hit her milestones with much fanfare and never looked back.  With her it is like a light bulb turns on and suddenly she's doing today what she couldn't do yesterday.

But not Frederick.  He's been working on walking for the last 4 months - since he first pulled to a stand.  Slowly he's gone from pulling up to cruising around furniture, to standing up in the middle of the room without anything to aid him, to barely touching the wall as he maneuvers around a partly closed door, yet not quite brave enough to take a step on his own.

Then today he did it.  He took one step followed by another and paused for a moment and took two more, before sinking to the floor and crawling furiously away.  Two legs are slow going, but four are fast!

Someone tell him to slow down.  He is growing up way too fast.

My Three Year Old

There are some days that I look at my baby boy as I enjoy his rambling bables and cringe a little as I realize this moment will not last forever, and someday, he too will be three. 

I'm not going to lie.  Parenting a three year old is a lot tougher than parenting a nine month old.  It requires a lot more patience than I ever imagined.  It requires a lot more patience than I have on some days.  The more hours I work (and I have been working quite a bit more in recent months), the less patience I have.  It is hard to come home from work to plunge right into childcare and dinner prep without any time to decompress.   I don't know how moms who work full time manage.  I don't know how I manage.

It's draining to be drained and then pulled by a three year old that just wants the attention of her Mommy.

But she is a bright and amazing little girl.  And I am going to stop complaining about being tired, and try to squeeze out a few more drops of patience when I think mine is about out.   She says some of the craziest, cutest things and I hardly remember to find them hilarious anymore.  So, in an effort to remember the crazy things my sweet little girl says, I'm going to write more of them down to share here. You know, like I did in the good old days. 

Charlotte to me while I was watching the opening scene to a new TV series just before taking her to bed:
"Mommy, what is this terrible movie?" - How do you really feel about it, Charlotte?

As we passed an empty carnival in an old mall parking lot: "Mommy, why is that carnival so sad?"

And sometimes, I  have to wonder, where in the heck does she come up with this stuff:  "Oh my goodness of the earth!"

Then, there was the other morning, when we were with our Mom's group and she broke away from the kids she was playing with, ran over to me, and proclaimed, "Mommy, I love you!" and scampered back to her games.

I love you, Charlotte!

Sharing

...feels a little like pulling teeth around here.  But both Frederick and MC seemed to dig this little bit of sharing, as I pushed them both around the yard and up and down the driveway in the Crazy Coupe.

Okay, so maybe Frederick was a little concerned when his big sister switched from riding to pushing. 

Who can help but love this weather?

Enjoying the Cooler Air

Herman park is my absolute favorite place to take the kids on nice days.  We did just that on the first cool morning of the fall.  It is hard to take pictures when it is just me, since I also have to do things like push the swing and make sure Frederick doesn't (1) fall off a climbing structure or (2) choke on bark or rocks, but I did manage to catch a few. 

We played for a while and then enjoyed a picnic by the lake before feeding the ducks and venturing over to the Zoo.  The great thing about having a zoo membership is that we can sneak over for even just half an hour if we want to.  On this mini-visit we saw the baby meerkats and Baylor the baby elephant.  We missed the giraffes who have already moved to their new African Forest home, which doesn't open until December.

This time of year is my absolute favorite!  The cool air pulls me out of the summer's heat induced lethargy as we look forward to fall festivities and the upcoming holidays.  Yay for long sleeve mornings (if not yet all day)!

Name that Baby

It's that Time of Year Again...

Time for Football!

Last weekend we had the pleasure of a road trip to watch some LSU football. Okay, I got to watch some LSU football while Fred and the kids got to hang out at the tailgate party (did you know that LSU tailgating is ranked #1 in the country?).  The rain at mid-day was not very enjoyable, but thankfully the return of the sun didn't create the steamy mess I feared, and the afternoon was quite pleasant.

We really enjoyed getting to see Aunt KK and Uncle Brian since they are back in Lubbock for another school year (KK teaching, Brian in grad school). And, just now, as I was editing these photos to post, Charlotte jumped up and down to see Ty's photo, so she must have enjoyed seeing him too!

Look at my kiddos sporting purple and gold!

Bottie bought Charlotte her own Dora chair for the occasion.

Ah yes, that picture I was telling you about:

Love me some baby toes:

I can't take any credit for these photos - thank you Aunt KK!

We had dinner at Chimes on Friday night with the Mischlers and the Drakes.

The Sanchez Family.  Someday, I will get a photo with all of us looking at the camera at the same time.

After the game with the Hotze girls (minus Helen):