Charlie's 2!

Looking at this picture gives me little pangs in my heart - two years ago, our sweet Charlie was born. He was 8 pounds, 2 ounces, 21 inches long. Now that big baby is a skinny little toddler - weighing 22 lbs, 10 oz at his checkup this week. This means he's down to 3% for weight (he has slowly gone lower on the weight curve in his two years of life - as a baby, he was 75% for weight at one point!).

He's growing though, continuing on the chart for height at 25-50%. His pediatrician isn't super worried - Ben and I aren't huge and he thinks a lot of it is genetics and that he's a busy, picky-eating toddler. We'll be back in a few months for a weight check just to make sure he's not the same. We had a weight check in October and he weighed exactly 22 lbs, 10 oz.

Here are a few more pictures from when Charlie was little:

Charlie has always loved being by his big brother.

Charlie, where did all of those rolls go?? You were such a chunk :)

Here are some pics from mid-morning on Charlie's birthday. He asked for a sandwich, so I made his staple peanut butter and honey sandwich that he usually eats for lunch.

He loves splitting the sandwich open and licking the honey off of the bread.

We had our friend Josh over that day - I reconnected with my friend Kelly from high school on facebook a while back, and when I learned that she had a high-risk pregnancy and had to drive a long distance from her home to see the specialist OB on a regular basis (at the hospital right by our house), I offered to watch her little boy in the last month when she had to come down for appointments each week. 

So for the last few weeks, I'd had Josh with us on Friday mornings - and as it turned out, Kelly went into labor on Charlie's birthday (when she dropped Josh off, she was saying she wasn't feeling very well - I had a feeling it was more than that!!). So we had Josh all day with us and he was a good sport with my craziness in getting things ready for Charlie's party the next day. He is three yrs old and such a sweet little boy! He even took a nap that afternoon in a pack and play in my bedroom, without his special blankie or anything to help him fall asleep. Amazing!!

I'm looking at these, wondering where Eli was?? He must not have been interested in an early lunch like these two were :)

Charlie had fun wearing his "2" birthday shirt, but any time we asked him how old he was, he said, "3 1/2" because that's Eli is always saying he is 3 1/2, so Charlie must hear that number a lot. Now a few days later, when you ask his age, Charlie just says "3."

The other aspect to Charlie's birthday that was not the norm was that we had a new treadmill delivered that day. Right before I needed to take the kids to their swimming lessons, which made things a little hectic. We had to take down the bookshelf that used to be behind the couch to make space for the treadmill - I did this quickly and threw everything that was on that bookshelf on the couches and floor as the delivery guys were getting the box out of the truck. This room was a MESS.

The beast of a treadmill is below. We like it so far! I wish it didn't have to be in our family room, but our ancient basement is too low for Ben to comfortably run down there. So on the main floor it goes... it's mildly ugly, but not horrible. Once the big box was in the house, I hurried and bundled the three boys up, spent 10 minutes trying to squeeze three car seats in our back seat (almost unsuccessfully). I broke every single nail in the process (my nails weren't nice to begin with though) and was totally sweating by the time each child was buckled and ready to go. 

We drove to the gym where my kids take swimming lessons, only to realize there was a funeral going on at the church next door and there was absolutely no parking. Zilch. Within blocks of the gym. I circled around forever and finally gave up as we were late by the point and the lesson is only 30 minutes, so there was no point in parking five blocks away and walking to the gym. I was quite flustered and frustrated that I had made that effort to get us all out, only to have it not work out. Thus is life when you go to a gym with metered street parking. A real parking lot would be nice... 

A friend called that afternoon and invited us over for dinner, which was a huge help since I hadn't been able to get to the grocery store since getting back from Tucson a few days before and didn't have much around to make for dinner. For dessert, Ben picked up some yummy cupcakes near his office and Charlie tried very hard to blow out these two candles. 

In the end, Ben and Eli helped him blow those out. 

This boy loves chocolate and cupcakes, so a chocolate cupcake is heaven! He also loves the book, "If You Give a Cat a Cupcake."

More on his birthday to come tomorrow. We love Charlie for so many reasons. He can be so patient and loving with Eli, especially when Eli is flipping out or having a hard time sharing. Charlie says lots of cute things, like "Openinin it" when he wants you to open something. Charlie loves the show, Dinosaur Train and the Toy Story movies. He knows a lot of his letters, but not the full alphabet like Eli did at this age. Probably typical for a poor neglected second child :)

Charlie is always saying, "Oh MAMA!" when he's looking for me around the house. Or he'll say constantly, "Mama, where are you?" even if I'm right by him. We go back and forth - I'll say, "Oh Charlie, where are you?" and he'll get a big smile on his face. Charlie loves to give me kisses and is the best snuggler, especially when it's bedtime and he has his blankie and thumb. I could gobble his soft little cheeks and kiss them constantly. He is my sweet sweet little guy. Happy Birthday Charlie!