Spring is in the Air

This week brings us a return to Daylight Savings and unusually high temps to Cincinnati. Over the weekend, Charlie and I spent some fun time out in the backyard, with Charlie getting used to the feel of grass under his feet and a crazy Lucy dog running by and stealing sticks from his hands. I also took him for a wagon ride around the neighborhood. Today we're expecting temps in the upper 70s, before returning to the 40s tomorrow.

This past weekend Charlie and I also made a brief trip to IKEA to begin the purchase of his new bedroom items. We picked up the table and chairs, the toybox, and two side tables for next to the bed. We'll return for the bed itself and the tall chest when John has help from another strong man to get the boxes in and out of the car and up the stairs.

Charlie is making progress on names. Daddy is now "Daddy" and Mommy is "Mommy" (instead of a generic "Mommy" referring to any and all parental type units.) He also regularly calls Beth by her name.

Charlie's latest fascination is with hats. Over the weekend, he spent many hours wearing an adult-sized baseball cap that I had gotten at a trade show. He even insisted on wearing it to daycare on Monday. Today he wore his own Indians baseball cap to daycare. He always recognized hats before, and would wear them from time to time, but never this obsessively.

Charlie is doing much better with the cough he's had for the past couple of weeks. We were using the breathing machine before bed for a few nights to help him rest better, and he did really well with it. He even held his own mask to his face. Either it made him feel better and he recognized it, or he remembered seeing his Daddy using it when he was sick back in January and wanted to mimic the behavior. Either way, it was nice not to have to fight him to administer the medicine.

We're off to Florida on Friday, and looking forward to Charlie's first trip to the beach.