It's been a while...

It's been a while since I wrote-- we've been so busy! Where do I start?

Charlie makes more progress on his language every day. Amongst the new concepts he's using are pronouns. He has started to point to himself sometimes and say "me." He also is very into possessives-- "Daddy's milk" or "Daddy's book." Words are coming out in short phrases now, like "more yogurt please." He's learning names for the characters in Handy Manny and on Sesame Street-- like Bert and Ernie (although he has them backwards), Turner, and Pat. Elmo is still his favorite, and he uses the name "Elmo" to refer to Grover as well.

I took Charlie to the zoo yesterday, and it was the first time that he really was saying the names of the animals. He roared at the sleeping lions, and seemed to enjoy seeing the polar bears swim. We had a great time riding the train-- he kept saying "choo choo" and waving. Near the end, he kept asking to see the monkeys. It was chilly enough that they were all inside, so I had to work hard to find some for him to see. After his nap when we came home, he woke up and told Daddy all about the bears and the elephants.

John has been building lots of "houses" with Charlie out of the megablocks. Sometimes it's a house for the Little People lion, hippo, and monkey, and sometimes it's for Charlie's little stuffed dog, or Ernie and Bert. If it's not houses, they're building ramps to roll balls down. Then Charlie likes to knock it all down and kick the blocks around.

Last weekend Charlie went to his first Easter Egg hunt. He wasn't quite sure what to do at first, but then after seeing some other kids pick up the eggs, he got started himself. His area was for 0-3 year olds, and although he is almost 2, this was his first hunt (he was not walking last year at this time). So he seemed far less advanced than some of the other kids in that area. But he did a great job. When we were done, and getting ready to leave, he saw some older kids sitting on the sidewalk with their eggs, and he wanted to go pick those up, too.

Before the hunt started, Charlie walked right up to the Easter Bunny, weaving through the crowd and cutting right in front of another family's photo to stand in front of the bunny. But he stopped short about three feet away and would not get any closer. He waved to the bunny, though, as if he knew it was friendly. I finally got a photo of him with the bunny on my way out, but only by holding him in my arms and having someone else take the photo.