Happy New Year, Merry Santa Day, its been a long lazy time between posts. We have finally recovered from the holidays. We had a great time, put thousands of miles on our car, Charlie had the stomach flu (we did learn that she needs to learn to chew her food), and only 346 days until we will do it all again.Charlie had a great Christmas even though she had no idea what was going on. In fact the unwrapping of presents freaked her out a bit. Emilie and I have been so diligent in teaching her not to rip books that the concept of ripping off wrapping paper was a bit scary for her. Ultimately Charlie conquered this fear and a good thing she did; she got thousands of gifts.Of course the best part of the holiday was getting to hang out as a family. It is crazy how many tricks Charlie has learned (see Dec 12, 2006 for a comparison). Charlie can identify most of her body parts, use sign language so say 6-8 words (she learned this at day care), she can identify people in pictures, make a ton of animal noises on command, dance on command, etc... There are too many new skills to list. Most importantly these tricks can be done on command for her parents' amusement.Over the holidays Charlie really got into music. Incidentally I should thank my parents for giving Charlie a 5 piece must set that includes symbols - very stimulating and loud. Her love of music has also encouraged the development of problem solving skills. Check out the video below - Charlie wants to shake her rattle, but she also wants to use both hands to play the music table.... she comes up with a unique solution.P.S. New Years resolution - more frequent posts - lets see how that works out

Charlie turned 1 on November 4th. Weird. Who would of thought we could have kept a baby alive for a whole year. To be fair, Chrissy and Henrik have kept Emma alive for the same length of time, so I guess we are not that special.In celebration of their longevity Emma and Charlie had a joint 'first birthday' party. This means they each got twice as many presents. Charlie and Emma invited 12 kids (all under 3) to their party. Each of the 12 kids brought along at least one adult. It was a pretty rocking party for our pretty small house.Emma and Charlie played very well together; not surprising given that they are old school chums. Charlie also got to play with her next door neighbours Ellie and Gillian. As you can see Charlie loves Ellie.Charlie received more gifts than we know what to do with. All the presents were very thoughtful. Special thanks to Maggie and Bruno for buying the toy with the most small parts that are scattered all over the house and inevitably end up under foot; a sweet revenge for the similar toy we got their daughter Sydney.Charlie's birthday will always be crazy as it is directly preceded by Halloween and followed by Christmas. Charlie's first Halloween was fantastic as well. Our neighbourhood is infested with children; it would be no exaggeration to say we had 150 kids come to our door. As usual Emilie and I put off preparing for Halloween until the last minute. Charlie was a make-shift bunny (we used a recycled infant bunny hat and a taped on pom pom). I carved the pumpkin at 6:45 on Halloween night. The pumpkin was a sad sight, it looked like something a blind, left handed child, who was having a seizure would carve. Charlie had a great time answering the door and staying up past her bed time. Emilie and I had a great time eating the bags of candy charlie collected.Only 1106 hours until Christmas....

Charlie seems to be developing a bit of a stubborn streak. A few days ago we were in the grocery store when Charlie spotted a bin of shiny red apples. She pointed at them, laughed and gave us the hugest, cutest grin. As we moved away from the apples the grin turned into a frown and then Charlie started with her fake baby cry. We gave in a bought two apples for the princess to hold. She held on to them the whole way home, and then for TWO more hours. Charlie loved those apples. Eventually her bed time rolled around and we had to take the apples away. As you can see, in this video expose, Charlie was not amused.P.S.: Charlie forgot about the apples when she woke up the next morning - in fact she now feels completely indifferent about apples.

September is over! It has been a crazy busy month. I started and finished my first jury trial, Emilie went back to work (for real), and Charlie started school (aka: daycare).I think our lives may be more manageable now that Charlie is in structured care. The daycare seems like a great place. The food is prepared by Steven Bekta (the owner and chef at one of the best Ottawa restaurants). It turns out that his son is in the same grade as Charlie. No more wienies and beans for the kids - curried chicken and butternut squash pure is way more classy. The daycare also has a web cam so I can watch Charlie from work. Presumably this will prevent Charlie from being abused on camera. It also is a great time killer - I could watch Charlie play for hours. Yes, a classy, high-tech daycare.... almost work every penny (150,000 of them every month).We finally made it up to the Cottage this month. It was very entertaining to let Charlie truly experience fall. She loves leaves - she likes to point at them, grab them, give them as gifts, eat them, lick them, crinkle them, and throw them; she has even vomitted a leaf. I can only imagine how much she is going to love the snow.Charlie has also taken to feeding herself with a spoon. It is amazing how much pride she takes in this simple act. It is her favorite and, coincidentally, messiest part of the day. She is growing up fast. Only one month until her birthday......

We have always said that we would like Charlie to be able to think outside of the box. Charlie seems to do this every day (exemplified by acts such as eating shoes rather than wearing them). Today she thought of a new way to use the Jolly Jumper. You may also note that in the video she is holding a pillow, don't ask me why, but she loves it.

On Friday we offered to babysit Emma while her parents went to a FIFA soccer game. Emilie and I always welcome a chance to hang out with Emma. It is amazing that babies that were born on the same day can be so different. Emma possesses some sort of super strength. She can move into a sitting position from her back, she can almost stand on her own and she can crawl - a real baby crawl that is very unlike Charlie's worm-like wriggle. While Charlie may not be as active, she excels in other areas; she is very verbal. She also has a refined sense of humor, when ever Emma cried Charlie laughed.The above was exemplified during bath time. Charlie needs a bath every night due to her smelly helmet head. Emma appeared clean to us but we could not resist a chance to see the babies play in the bath together. I bathed Charlie and Emilie looked after Emma. We documented this adventure and it is safe to say Emilie had the wetter experience.

I owe Charlie an apology. I may have recently accused her of playing sick. As it turns out she was sick; Charlie had a massive ear infection. After a trip to the doctor and 10 days of medication (oral injection 3 times a day) Charlie was as right as rain. This was a good thing as we were about to embark on road trip to Ohio to attend Katie and Jack's wedding.StatisticsProvinces: 1States: 3MacDonald's Meals: 4Hours in Car: 24Antibiotics: Priceless (actual price $14)We have discovered that a road trip with a small baby is less like an epic voyage and more like multiple short sprints. Pit stops are needed every 2-3 hours to feed the child and more importantly to deal with explosive car seat shits (please note that we hate baby talk - no sane adult calls feces CaCa, boo-boo, doo-doo, poo-poo, or shoo-shoo). We also stopped for the night in Hamilton on the way to Ohio and Toronto on the way back. It felt like we were driving for ever, although it was great to spend time in Hamilton with the family.We finally rolled into Ohio on Friday and headed straight to the rehearsal dinner. This was a special wedding for Emilie as she went to camp with Katie and Jack. She has known Katie since they were 10 years old and Jack since around 17. Camp weddings are always fun and prove to be a convenient mini reunion (aka a giant bender).On Saturday Charlie was herself reunited with her baby friend Kate (see Febuary 20th post). Kate is now 14 months old and is just learning to walk. Emilie and I love the preview of tricks that Charlie will someday learn.The wedding itself was fantastic. I say this not because the setting was idyllic, the bride was beautiful, or because the food was dreamy, but because Katie arranged a baby sitter for the babies. This meant that mommy and daddy could drink and stay out late. By late I mean 11 pm and we only drank enough to get tipsy, not wanting to be hung over for the 6am wake up. We had a great time.On the way home we stayed with Aunt Catherine in Toronto and paid a visit to a very pregnant Maggie, Bruno, and 2 year old Sidney.Charlie did very well on her first road trip and now I feel slightly less intimidated by the thought of the drive to Nova Scotia in 2 weeks. On second thought the thought of driving across 4 provinces make me shoo-shoo my pants.

I thought it may be appropriate to write a post to document my first Father's Day. To start with the important information, I got lots of presents and got to sleep in! I also came to the realization that I have had it easy the past month. It has been a tough week with Charlie; the perfect storm hit. Charlie is teething (her two bottom teeth have cut through), she has a cold, and it has been very hot (only made worse by the helmet and the furnace of a room she sleeps in). Charlie has woken up in the middle of the night a few times and has cried more than normal. She is still very cute, but now very loud.I think the worst is over, but it is hard to tell as Charlie has also learned a new skill; the 'Bob Barker' fake-out (very appropriate timing as Bob just finished his 35 year run on the Price is Right). For those that don't know, the Bob Barker Fake-Out is when one feigns sickness in order to stay at home from school (and watch the Price is Right from 11am-12pm), but then miraculously recovers at about 4pm.The very hilarious videos are documentation of Charlies new skill. She cried uncontrollable before and after, but when she wanted to play she showed no signs of ill health.P.S: The author of this post does not admit to anytime of fakery at any time and certainly never pretended to be sick in order to miss school and hang out in his Grandmothers basement, drink tea, and watch the Price is Right (A Mark Goodson Television Production)

Charlie can crawl. It may be more accurate to say that Charlie can crawl backward. Even when she wants to move forward she moves back; I would find this a tad frustrating. Charlie however is not fazed by her unidirectional mobility.For Emilie and me this new mobility is a big adjustment. Gone are the days of sitting baby on the floor and running to get the phone. No longer can we take our eyes off our bundle of joy to read the news paper. When left unsupervised Charlie seems to always end up stuck under a table (mostly due to her helmet enhanced large head) or perilously close to putting her fingers in an electrical socket (why are baby so fascinated with deadly household objects). Constant vigilance is my new motto, but I will still let Charlie get stuck under the table; it is too funny.