2 Months Old

Hey there, it's me Charlotte, a.k.a. Pukey Pukerson or Tomato. I turned 2 months old today. Mom took me to the doctor on Monday, where they said I weighed 11# 6 oz, and my length was 21 3/4 inches. I've been trying hard to catch up to my big brother's weight at this same age (13 pounds). Mom didn't warn me that the doctor was going to give me 3 shots, so I'm still upset with her about that.

As you can see, I'm adorable. No one can resist squeezing and kissing my chubby cheeks. I'm finally starting to get a little hair on the top of my head after being completely bald in that spot for 2 months. You can't really see my new hair in the pictures, though, since it's so fine and blonde.

I still throw up all the time, and for fun sometimes I even make it shoot out my nose. Mom says the doctor seems to have ruled out that I have something called pyloric stenosis, and we think I just have reflux. But things could be worse; some babies with reflux have pain, but I don't. I'm also getting better about not throwing up in my sleep, which I know makes Mom happy.

Here is a picture of me with Shelmadine, the daughter of our former nanny. Shelmadine is visiting Chicago from Belize for the holidays, and she's been helping Mom out with me and Jack a couple days each week. Next week our new nanny, Ashley, will be coming to stay with us. I am super excited to have someone else to play with me!


Happy Thanksgiving everybody!

Smiles

Isn't that the sweetest picture? Charlotte's been smiling a lot more lately, though it's still hard to predict when she'll do it. One thing that often makes Charlotte smile is her big brother--check out the picture below. I wish the flash hadn't gone off and totally washed her out.

Here are some other smiles from this morning.

And if you've ever wondered if Jack gets sick of Mommy taking so many pictures, here's an answer for you.

Go Bears

We've made progress in brainwashing, I mean, encouraging Jack to like football. He can't recognize the difference between his teams yet, but he can definitely tell football apart from other sports he sees on TV. If he sees or hears it, he always calls out "Go Bears!" He's also good at giving the signal for touchdown, but I forgot to tell him to do it on this video.

And here's a random picture of Charlotte. I thought she looked cute the other night after her bath (that's why she's wearing the cap; our little baldie's head gets cold after being washed).

Updates

Happy belated birthday to my cousin Tyler last Sunday, happy birthday tomorrow to Grampy Jarvis, and happy birthday Sunday to Great-Grampy Jarvis!


Jack's been a little under the weather the last couple days with a cold (I took that picture this morning). Some great news about Jack is that his speech therapy has been going so well, we think he might only have 1 session left. The therapist says Jack has almost no delay anymore in expressive language. Basically all we're working on now is getting his sound pronunciation better.

Some other news that affects both kids is our childcare situation. Our nanny that's been with Jack since he was 6 weeks old unexpectedly had to return to Belize a couple weeks ago, and she doesn't know if she'll be returning to the U.S. So the last few weeks have been a bit stressful as Andy and I have been scrambling to figure out what we're going to do.

We wound up deciding to get an au pair, who will actually live with us (the lower level of our house has a bedroom that's pretty separate from the rest of the house). We think overall things will be easier with an au pair versus a nanny, not to mention there will be a substantial savings in cost for us. We've selected our au pair, a 24-year old girl from Iowa, and she'll be starting in December. It will definitely be a big change, but hopefully all will work out for the best!

Here are some pictures from Tuesday, when I took Charlotte to my clinic in the Albany Park neighborhood of Chicago so she could visit everyone. For fun, we checked her weight--she's about 10 pounds, 12 ounces. (She puked all over her shirt right before we put her on the scale.)

Charlotte with 4 of my clerical staff--Luz (holding her), Maribel, Lorena, and Yamilette.

Charlotte with Keng-I, one of my Nutritionists.

6 weeks old

Some nice sleep spit bubbles.

Charlotte and her Daddy. She's sticking her tongue way out in this picture. I think she was looking at Jack--already antagonizing her brother?

Despite the constant vomiting, Charlotte is still packing on the pounds. She passed the 10-pound mark this week. Jack still holds the official chublicious title, but Charlotte has developed her own dainty little set of jowls and double chin.

Halloween

We had 2 little cuties here at the Nold household on Halloween! Jack was a monkey, and this was the first year he's seemed to actually like his costume and being dressed up. I'm not sure if we're going to be able to put the monkey costume away--this morning he was sitting on the couch hugging it while we were watching TV. Thanks to Grandma Nold for getting it for him!

Charlotte also wore her Halloween attire. She looked very sweet in the outfit Aunt Carol got for her.



Here's the cutest little monkey you've ever seen, out in the neighborhood trick-or-treating!


Thanks to Aunt Lisa for bringing Jack's pumpkin, and for taking him out with us in the cold weather. Here are some photos of Jack getting candy.

This would have been a cool picture of Jack getting candy from the Queen of Hearts, if the older kid hadn't barged in front of me.


Aunt Lisa and Charlotte

Even Lou was in the Halloween spirit!

Home safe and sound

We've had a wild and crazy past couple of days. Late Wednesday afternoon, I let Louie outside in the backyard, not knowing that the bad windstorms had blown the back gate off kilter (later that evening, an entire section of the fence actually got blown down). Needless to say, Lou got out of the backyard, though it took me a while to figure out what had happened since the problem with the gate wasn't noticeable from the house.

After much freaking out on my part, searching of the neighborhood by Andy and our neighbors, and phone calls to the police and animal shelters, one of our phone calls paid off. We were notified by a shelter that a dog had been dropped off matching Lou's description (he hadn't been wearing his collar). Unfortunately we couldn't pick him up, or even confirm it was Lou, until Thursday morning.

Jack, Charlotte, and I went to pick him up on Thursday. I had a moment when we first got there where my heart sank. I saw one of the workers walking a dog outside that looked a lot like Lou, and I was very afraid that was the dog we had been called about. But fortunately, Lou was there! He was happy, healthy, and seemed none worse for the wear from his big adventure. We're definitely counting our blessings that we were so lucky, and God bless whoever the good Samaritan was that picked Lou and and turned him in.

On a different note, we showed Charlotte off on Thursday afternoon. My work was having an all staff meeting (about 100 people), and Jack, Charlotte, and I visited during the lunch break. Charlotte and Jack both behaved very well and were passed around like hot potatoes! Here are some pictures of Charlotte with my employees.

Emily and Ashlie, 2 of my Site Supervisors; and Jamie, one of my Nutritionists

Emily again (funny side note--Emily actually grew up across the street from Andy and somehow wound up working with me!)

Luz, one of my clerical staff; and Sylvia, one of my Nutritionists

Luz, Sylvia, and Lena, another of my Nutritionists

Lily, a clerical staff member, and one of the people I have known the longest since I've worked at CEDA WIC. She's pregnant with her 3rd child and due in January!

Jack getting some attention from Margaret, our Director. Jack and Margaret have been pals for a long time; I had taken Jack to a staff meeting when he was about a month old, and Jack also attended a conference in Louisville with Margaret, my coworker Michele, and I when he was 6 months old.


One more exciting thing is the results of that big exam I took 3 months ago were finally posted today. I'm happy to announce that I can officially call myself an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant!