Charlie update!

Oh my poor neglected blog...

I could give you a huge list of excuses (some of which are very merited) as to why I haven't blogged about Charlie since his 15 month birthday...but I'll spare you. I am forcing myself to sit down and do this now before something else comes up and I have another excuse. I was planning on doing quite a few blogs catching up on pictures and trips and such, but I went through all the pictures and wrote down a list of all I wanted to post and well...it is extremely daunting. Instead, I am going to upload all pictures to Facebook since it's uploader is much more user friendly. On blogger I can only do 3-5 pictures at a time and well I have about 100...so you do the math. I don't have the time, will, or patiences to do that tonight. I will get the pictures up on Facebook and I will do a quick 18...err almost 20 month Charlie update. But, the wet your appetite here is one of my favorite recent Charlie pics...

Oh, so much has changed since my last update. For one thing...he's walking...make that running now!! We were a little worried he might never do it, but promptly on his 17 month birthday he decided he would. At his 18 month check up he was 23 lbs 5 oz and 31 inches. He is in about the 10-25% for both. The kid just won't put on any weight! Might be the fact that all he eats are fruits and vegetables and is running around non-stop all day. He is just a little guy height and weight wise.

Like I said he is walking and running and climbing and anything else he can do! He is becoming a lot more verbal as well. I'm teaching him to use his words instead of grunting, pointing, raising his hand (his own made up sign language for yes or I want that), etc. He has recently learned to say "more" and "please". He can say a lot of other words too...the ones I can think of off the top of my head are, dog, Bella, Pongo, Mama, Dada, Pops, Nonnie, Minnie, duck, thank you, did you see??, ball, Yay!, Where does it go?, block, set go!, and teeth. I know there are more, but that's all I can think of right now. He's also learned to kiss and hug. He will pat on the back when someone hugs him. He is SO good at puzzles...like it's almost a little scary. We got him a new puzzle and I showed him 1 time how to do it and then he did it all by himself...even rotated and fliped pieces to put them in the right spot.

He is on a pretty great sleep schedule now. He gets up anywhere from 7-8 then takes a nap from 12:30-3ish, then goes to bed between 7:30-8. We have a great sleep time routine so he just lays right down and goes to sleep, no crying or fighting it at all.

He is still a pretty picky eater, but he is branching out some. He will eat chicken sometimes, but that is really the only meat he will eat. He does eat some of the toddler Gerber meals which have little pieces of ground beef in them and he doesn't seem to mind those, but if I give him plain ground beef...no way! He loves pizza, any and all vegetables, any and all fruit, cheese, salad(yeah weird healthy kid I know), and of course any sweets(except cake). He loves ice cream and chocolate.

He has been pretty healthy for the most part except this last week. He caught a virus which ended up being diagnosed as Hand, Foot, and Mouth (weird name, but it's b/c that's where the rash shows up). Here's the story: So we got home from Georgetown two Sunday's ago. He was totally fine until mid-morning Monday he started running a fever. It got pretty high at some points...anywhere from 101-103. We were pretty nervous so I called the dr. and they said just to keep doing tylenol/motrin and come in if it doesn't go down. Well Tuesday morning he woke up fever free, but I did notice a small rash on his left cheek. I called the dr. again and again they said, just watch him, but come in if he gets a fever again or acts "sick" or the rash gets worse. Well he was acting totally fine all day. That was also the day I watched Drew Lovelace (Charlie's friend, son of our best friends Aaron & Melissa)...more on that later. So Wednesday he woke up and the rash had spread...A LOT. It was all over his butt, legs, feet, hands arms, face, and ears. I went ahead and took him in to the dr. He hadn't been running anymore fever and had been acting totally normal...he just looked TERRIBLE. Initially, they couldn't diagnose it b/c the rash pattern did not fit any one particular thing. They tested for chicken pox and herpes, but both were negative. They sent me home saying it was some virus and it will just take time to clear up. Well, in the meantime...Drew started running a fever of 103 and woke up the next day with no other than a rash! His was much milder than Charlie's and Melissa's dr. diagnosed it right away as Hand, Foot, and Mouth. That was one of the options my dr. mentioned, but Charlie's was just way more severe a rash than usually happens with that. So in the end, it seems that was what it was. He still has some rash patches all over, but they are lightening up everyday. Crazy.

So that's the facts. I can't believe he will be 20 months old next month...something about it being 20 instead of a teen number makes him feel so big! He does new things everyday and I'm continually shocked by how much he understands and learns so quickly. When I was looking through pictures for this update I could not believe how young he looks just 3 months ago! He has changed so much. It really makes me miss having a little baby! He is such a sweet heart. There is nothing better in this world than hearing him yell "Mama!!" and give me a kiss and pat on the back. He is more precious than gold and I am unbelievably grateful to be his mother and get to spend every day with my sweet boy.

PS- Head over to Facebook later to check for new pictures!!