Charlotte's 100th Day

Today is Charlotte's 100th day of life. In Chinese culture, the 100th day of a new child's life is celebrated. We had Nana, Grandaddy and Grandma over for dinner. You guessed it - Chinese food! Charlotte was awake and in good spirits for the festivities.



She received a bit of lucky money and a book from Nana and Grandaddy and a set of cute Chinese dolls from Grandma.



Charlotte's 100th day didn't start out too pleasant though. I made my first (I think) Mommy mistake. When I was attempting to trim her finger nails, she jerked her hand and I clipped the tip of her thumb with the clippers. Commence screaming and crying by Charlotte followed quickly by Mommy crying because I felt AWFUL about hurting her. I stopped the tiny bit of bleeding and she quickly recovered. But of course I called Daddy, who called Nana, who came to the rescue. Although we didn't really need rescuing, it was nice for Nana to come over and reassure me that I hadn't scarred my daughter for life - physically or psychologically.

She seems no worse for wear and is sitting pretty in a new pair of pajamas.

Did you say free?

Charlotte and I ventured out to Babies R Us this afternoon just to get out of the house for a while. I actually needed a few things and figured I would find a few more things that we couldn't live without! It had been a little while since she had eaten, but I figured we could get there and back before she needed to eat again.

In order to hopefully keep Mommy from buying too much, we just went in our stroller - no cart! As we were wheeling around, a girl from the in house portrait studio came by and asked if we'd be interested in getting a free 5x7 photo. She said it wouldn't take long - just a few snaps and then I could pick which shot I wanted. Charlotte was awake, but calm so I figured why not, especially since we hadn't had any professional shots taken yet. I wasn't sure how she would do because she can't sit up on her own yet, but she has a pretty steady head and neck.

The photographer got her all set up. Here is one of the shots -



Take one look at that and ask me if I walked out of there with just my free 5x7? Not a chance! $75 later and we were on our way home.

I look good!

Charlotte is becoming much more animated during her play sessions. We set up her "Pretty in Pink" play set and she quickly took to looking at herself in the mirror.



She is also fond of her new pajamas, which she has been wearing for the past couple of nights. We are still swaddling (not sure when that will be phased out), but figured that transitioning to PJs before the last feeding of the night will help to get her into a bit of a routine. The past few nights it seems to have been a lucky charm - Charlotte has slept 8+ hours 5 nights in a row!

Prepping for the Beach

I just made a list of stuff to pack for our beach trip coming up in a week. So far Charlotte has a full page, and Mommy and Daddy are sharing half of a page, plus a half page of miscellaneous items (sno cone machine, waffle iron, XBox and/or Wii). Looking at the extensive list I decided that it would be an excellent idea to use the rest of my PB Kids gift card to buy Charlotte her very own monogrammed luggage. That's right, our 3 month old has her own luggage! Mind you I only had about $40 left on my gift card and we all know nothing at PB Kids costs $40, so I had to spend a bit more, but every little savings helps right?

Other items on the list to pack - Charlotte's Janie and Jack halter bathing suit with matching cover-up, hat and sunglasses. Rest assured there will be many a picture taken of this ensemble!

Wish us luck in fitting all of the necessary items in the car and hope that it doesn't take too long to venture down to NC now that we have a 3 month old companion.

Spray 'n' Wash

You'll understand the title of this post a little later on...

Today Charlotte's cousin Gabriel was Baptized.(We are still trying to schedule Charlotte's Baptism - apparently there are a lot of little ones that go to our new church and there is a back log for Baptisms :)) The whole family was at the church - both sets of grandparents, greatgrandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. Charlotte was asleep in her car seat for the first half of the service, then after a round of applause for an exceptional solo, she began to stir. She wasn't crying, just fidgeting and grunting a bit. So to avoid having to exit with a crying and screaming baby, I chose to exit with a squirmy but quiet baby. We walked the halls and peeked into the newborn and toddler nurseries where she'll probably be when we actually get our act together and go to church on a more regular basis.

After the service we hung around the sanctuary to snap a few pictures of the family. I was holding Charlotte so she was facing out, and after a few pictures were taken I felt a bit of rumbling down in the diaper area. Nothing unusual mind you. I began walking up the aisle to exit when Steve and my Mom were like "Woah!" and stopped me in my tracks. Turns out this rumbling in the diaper area had become a "poopsplosion" as we have termed it in our family. All down the front of my dress (which luckily was black NOT white), all over my hands and all over Charlotte of course! We did a bit of damage control in the sanctuary and then headed to the restroom. This was Charlotte's first experience with the "Koala Bear Care" public restroom diaper changing station. So I stripped her down and used all of the wipes I had in the diaper bag. During this process she was just smiling away, quite pleased with the situation. We got ourselves cleaned up and walked out of the bathroom rocking the shirt and diaper look since our cute green seersucker pants were out of commission.

We headed home to change clothes before going to lunch at the grandparent's house. Here is where the Spray 'n' Wash comes in. I immediately sprayed down basically my whole dress, threw it in the wash and hoped for the best. Considering this dress is one of the few nice things that fits my post-baby frame, I crossed my fingers. After we arrived back home from lunch, I nervously asked Steve to check the wash. Success - no evidence of the poopsplosion!

It was an interesting day, but i'm almost shocked that this is the first of such an incident. Probably not the last though!

Update on the Inchworm/Dinosaur

Charlotte woke up a bit earlier than Mommy would have liked this morning. After she ate and was showing no indication of settling back down to sleep for a while longer, Daddy offered to take her downstairs to play so I could get some more rest.

When I awoke, Daddy informed me that they had a great time playing with the new inchworm/dinosaur toy.




Charlotte was also caught double-fisting her play rings!

A Friendly Visit

Miss Charlotte had a visit from some special folks today...Glen Allen's finest, Uncle Ted and Aunt Anne! We were excited to have visitors and were glad to be able to go out to lunch at Red Robin. Charlotte was once again a little angel while we were out - awake for a few minutes and then fast asleep for the majority of the meal. Thanks for treating us Ted!

When we got back to the house, Charlotte opened the gift that Ted and Anne had brought for her. It is a Musical Inchworm! Daddy thought it was a dinosaur, so we are now calling it the musical dinosaur. Whatever it is, it is a fabulous toy with all of our favorites - crinkling, squeaking and singing. Plus, we can use it to measure how long Charlotte has grown to be.

Charlotte was due for another meal after we opened her present. So while she was eating, Daddy decided that playing a little Wii would be a fun way to pass the time. Ted and Anne got to try out the Wii Fit balance board, and I must say that Ted is an excellent hula hooper!

We can never quite remember to take pictures of these major events in Charlotte's life, so we have no footage of this exciting visit. Here is a stock photo to show the mood of the day -



We had a great day, now I think it's time for sleep! (or at least Mommy and Daddy hope it is time for sleep).

Our Little Angel

I've been wanting to venture out to dinner at a "real restaurant" with Charlotte for a while. I was craving a caesar salad, which I had been deprived of for 9 months, and love the one at Carabbas. Charlotte ate at about 4:00pm, so as soon as Steve got home we packed her up and headed to the restaurant. She was awake when we put her in the car which I was worried about at first because awake in the car seat had quickly led to crying to get out on a few previous occasions.

There was no crying in the car so we were optimistic. We went in and requested a booth so we could slide her car seat in and not have to worry with a sling or flipping the high chair over. The restaurant was practically empty because it was only about 5:00, but the teeny-bopper hostess looked perplexed at our request and said "it'll be a few minutes while we clean off the table." So we sat in the waiting area gazing at about 12 empty and clean booths.

After about 5 minutes we were taken a few steps to a booth, which I believe was in the same condition that it was in when we arrived - clean and ready! We put Charlotte down with eyes still wide open, covered her legs with a blanket and hoped for the best. I turned to look at her a few minutes later and she was gazing up at the trellis above our table with the biggest smile on her face. She seems to love patterns - blinds, shutters, fans, etc. We actually had an appetizer, salads and entrees without even a peep from the little one. She was just looking around and taking it all in. Amazingly, she even fell asleep as our entrees were delivered!

Since she had behaved so nicely at dinner, Mommy and Daddy decided to treat themselves to blizzards at Dairy Queen. We didn't push our luck by getting her out of the car again, so I just ran in and picked up the blizzards and we were back home in a flash. Still not a sound from Miss Charlotte. She was ready to eat when we got back home, but we were very proud of her well behaved night out! We have a renewed hope in our future ability to enjoy a meal out every now and then.