Family Day 4.0

Charlie

Today is Family Day. Four years ago we carried you out of the black gates at Hannah's Hope. Happy Family Day! We love you.

weird food

Charlie

This school year you have come up with some weird food. . .

1) In the fall, you told us how Miss Jana gave you corn dogs and black ketchup for lunch. You went on and on about awesome the black ketchup was. Yea. . . you didn't eat the corn dog and there was no black ketchup. (Shocked about the no black ketchup thing.) You are not a fan of hot dogs and you have never used ketchup, let alone black ketchup.

2) Today. You invented a food. Chocolate kale. Again, you had it at Miss Jana's, at least according to you. Miss Jana thinks it is a good idea. You might be onto something. . .

e-i-e-i-o

Charlie, once upon a time a family of three sat at the dinner table. As one parent crammed a bite into their month and then got their son to take a bite (using hand-over-hand with a spoon and let us be honest, eventually just feeding you to get the process over, this could last up to 40 minutes to get their son to eat all of his food) the other parent sang two verses of "Old MacDonald." By the end of the second verse, parent 1 was wanting food and a chance to breathe, while parent 2 was desperately trying to remember which animals had and had not been used as the roles switched up. It was amazing to discover the animals who could live on the farm and also make noises. (Again, for the sake of honesty, it was about the animals who could make noise. A rabbit is great, but you were not into the idea of a nose moving up and down. BTW- you are the son and we are the parents in this story.)

Tonight we read the Pete the Cat version of the song. I loved how you provided the animal noises. I especially loved the rooster noise. You have come a long way. . .

yesterday

Charlie

So you started back to school yesterday. You had been asking to go back for about a week. . .  

Over break you got a haircut. I guess several teachers asked you about it. Jana shared when I picked you up, Mrs H had said your response was consistent throughout the day. "My hair is gone, but it's okay."

I guess your friend E (or as you refer to her, "My best friend, E") was not at school today. You told everyone she wasn't there. I am assuming you missed her since you talked about her all break.

So the best part of the day? Bath.

Before your bath you climbed up on my lap while I was sitting on the step stool just to cuddle. As you climbed up you asked, "Are you my girl?" Someday you are not going to want to cuddle (or fit in my lap). Someday you are not going to think of me as your girl, but today you do. I love today.

This year's goat

Charlie

Again this Christmas we donated a goat in your honor. To represent this donation, here is this year's goat ornament.

little of this and that

Charlie, your mommy is a bit of a slacker. . .

So you went to the local pumpkin farm three times. Once with Mommy and Papa, once with Mommy and Daddy, and once with school. You really enjoyed playing in the corn silo every time and driving the train 2 of the 3 times you were there.


November 14th. . . you lost your first tooth. It has been wiggling around for a bit and just kinda fell out while brushing your teeth that morning.



Well. . . In big news, you turned 5. You had been saying you wanted to be 5 for some time and it happened. (Not a fan, personally. . .) That day you then said you wanted to be 8 (really not a fan). So your birthday party. . . didn't happen as planned and that is okay. There happened to be a snow storm so many people from out of town couldn't come and the road to the place was over 50% covered. . . So we invited ourselves to Aunt Marcia's (we needed help eating the cake) and she invited some neighborhood kids over to help. It was fun. (Yes, you had a stormtrooper cake.)


Other big news. . .

You are spelling. You are spelling your first and last name, along with Mommy, Daddy, Joey, elephant, cow, whale, and some other words. You really like to spell.

There has been a lot of growth with talking. You love to talk to people.

Counting, you are continuing to count. You can rote count to 30 and are counting objects to around 17 consistently.

You love Star Wars, especially Darth Vader.

Your smile keeps getting better every day.

Hey, I'm from Ethiopia

Charlie, there is a lot to catch up on. . . Anyway it will be short tonight. Tonight we put up the tree and the Little People Nativity under it. I was talking about Balthazar from Ethiopia. As soon as I said that, "Hey! I'm from Ethiopia!" came from your mouth. I love the growth in what you are picking up on and expressing.