Charlie Boy

Charlie! He’s just the best little guy. I wish all of you could spend a day hanging out with him. He’s getting quite funny at the ripe old age of two and a half. He loves to laugh, talks all the time, is extremely expressive and opinionated, loves trucks, trains, tigers, dinosaurs, dirt, super heroes, pirates, sticks, and is the sweetest most cuddly, loving and empathetic tiny person I’ve ever met. He does ridiculous boyish things like run while shaking his head back and forth until he falls down or crashes into something. He animates his actions with sounds. He believes he is the biggest, the fastest, the best climber, the highest jumper there was, is, or ever will be. When I open a door to let him through, I can’t prevent the voice in my head from announcing “Release the Kraken!”

Here are some things I want to remember about my Charlie Boy at this age:

• He’s either running full-speed or stubbornly not walking at all depending on the opposite thing I’ve asked him to do. If we need to hurry – he requires being dragged, when we’ve got all the time in the world, he’s running as fast as he can.
• He loves telling everyone about his new shoes. They’re not new, there the same shoes he’s had for months.
• You should see the way he hugs his sisters when they cry or when they’re sad. He gets behind them and hugs their back and pats them with his little hand. It’s the sweetest.
• The other night I had a pirate at my dinner table. We are still working on manners – obviously.
• After being rough and rowdy he asks, “you ok mom?” which is very thoughtful.
• There’s nothing he hates more than riding in elevators. He’s got some spacial awareness thing going on that terrifies him when he feels himself going up or down.
• Many friends are greeted with a roar or a growl, based on their reactions bigger roars and growls will follow.
• His ears are tuned to hear planes, sirens, helicopters, trains, or big trucks …sounds he hears that I wasn’t aware of until he points them out.
• High fives and fist bumps are his favorite greeting/closing move.
• If I’m carrying him he’s yelling, “Me want to walk!” and if he’s walking he steps in front of my feet and says, “Me want to hold you, mom!”
• Similar to his sister Ruby, he is extremely organized. He lines up his trucks at night and makes sure all the dinosaurs are lined up in their places as well.
• I love the way he puts both feet on a seat before he sits down in it
• His favorite books are “Goodnight Construction Site” and “Little Blue Truck.” He would let me read books to him all day.
• One time after a run-in with a pair of Ruby’s scissors I took him in for a haircut and he came out looking’ like Lloyd Christmas

Here are some recent Charlie-isms.

• Whenever we’re driving, “Me lookin’ for horsies. Me see one! Me see a biiiig, biiiig one!”
• “I tell you a question, Mom! I tell you a question.”
• In the morning Clara loves to wake him up, but if he wakes up first I hear, “I awake! Mom? Where are you? I awake!”
• This is what his rowdy face looks like. He will likely spontaneously combust if I don’t let him run around outside or jump on the mini-tramplone in our basement everyday.
• Many nights around 4am I hear his quiet voice from down the hall, “My tears. Wipe my tears. Wipe my tears, mom.”
• The next morning telling me about his night, “I crying. I sad. I crying and crying.”
• Christmas lights never get old. He screams out, “Chrissas Lights!!”
• On trying a bite of a pickle, “I no like it. That’s too, too tasty.”
• “Lay up” is the opposite of “Lay down”
• Anytime he’s working on something, “I havin’ a little trouble here.”
• He’s a professional stick collector. Charlie’s never encountered a stick he doesn’t like.
• When I discipline him he says to me, “Stop talking! Don’t say that!” but then after he’s done in time out and has a “happy heart” again he says, “I ok mom. Sorry mom.”
• We took him to a Monster Truck Rally last week and he absolutely lost his mind with excitement.

Amazingly, my littlest buddy will be off to preschool for a couple mornings a week starting this Fall. He’s growing so fast and changing so much right now. I’m trying to soak in every moment… also, I’ve adapted as a boy mom and now I have eyes in the back of my head.

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