Robots Painted Our Car

Ben and I take turns telling Eli stories as we tuck him into bed (after the whole bedtime routine - brushing teeth, putting on pjs, reading two books and saying a prayer). Tonight, Ben was telling Eli about what robots do - that they build cars, tractors, all kinds of stuff.

Ben: "In fact, a robot probably painted our car."

Eli's eyes got wide and lit up in his lightbulb moment: "I want to paint our car!!"

I don't think it ever occurred to Eli until today that someone/something painted our car black. While it could use a nice fresh coat of paint after years of parking it on the street when we lived in our condo, we're not letting our 3-year-old do the honors...

Charlie at 7 Weeks

Charlie is 7 weeks! Every week gets easier. I wouldn't say it's easy yet, but not as hard as a few weeks ago. Last night Charlie slept from 8 p.m. to 12:30 a.m., ate and went back to sleep, then was awake at 4:30, ate and went back to sleep, and was up for the day at 7:30 a.m. It seemed to help that he was cocooned in his car seat (most nights he sleeps in the bouncy seat). I had tried the car seat at night a few weeks ago and he hated it, but I decided to give it another try - this time he didn't protest.

This was HEAVEN compared to a few nights ago when Charlie was up at 1 a.m., 3 a.m., 5 a.m., 6:30 a.m., and 8 a.m. The night after that was also difficult as he woke up around 1 a.m. and then was up for the day at 4:30 a.m. (and didn't take a nap until 8 a.m., which was when Eli woke up) Two bad nights in a row completely wiped me out... I swallowed my pride, called a friend and she came over that morning with her little boy and watched the kids while I napped for a few hours. Thank you Ronni!! And yesterday Carrie came over and played with the kids while I rested some more.

Enough about sleep though! In the last few days, Charlie has seemed less fussy. I love that Charlie regularly coos/makes noises in response to someone interacting with him. On Sunday he gave me lots of smiles while I held him in church, which was fun. He has the cutest dimples in his round cheeks when he smiles.
I feel like we haven't taken as many pictures with Charlie, so I made a point to take some tonight when we were all playing downstairs in the basement.

And if you look closely, you'll see that Ben and I were matching today but didn't realize it until tonight since I wasn't awake when he left for work this morning :) Funny.
Eli was in a happy mood tonight! He had fun playing with his trains and building the track. He calls the trains "stuck" when they attach to each other w/ their magnet ends. I tried putting Charlie in the bumbo seat for the first time and Eli thought it was the coolest thing. Charlie wasn't so sure about it... (and later Eli tried to sit in it and got stuck) It's so sweet seeing them interact with each other, even if it's for a minute. One Eli story from tonight that may not make much sense, but we think it's funny - when Ben was in the bathroom with Eli about to help him brush his teeth, they were going back and forth saying one of Eli's favorite phrases - "No Way!" and teasing with his toothbrush. After a little while, Eli said emphatically, "E-NOUGH!" This made Ben laugh because he'd never heard Eli use the word "enough." I'm glad he's developing his vocabulary :)