Beansprout: Charlie's Big Adventures

Tomorrow will be Charlie's first birthday, and of course, time permitting, there will be a Special Birthday Blog from Grammakate.

But tonight I'd like to tell you a little bit about my today with Charlie...

(Photo by Meagan/Joe Kopp)

It was a great day, just like all my days with Charlie -- full of laughter and amazement, and maybe just a little bit of fussing. But for some reason -- and I hope this is not a trend as she closes out her first year -- there seemed to be an extra large quantity of Mischief in the mix.

Now don't misread me. That is in no way a complaint. After all, it's the Mischief that makes life fun. I'm just trying to share a little of that fun!

(Photo by Kellie Kano)

You know how, when you have wallpaper in your house, you can buy those plastic strips to put on the corners. They're so the paper doesn't peel off as people accidentally brush up against it (and so little kids and pets can't deliberately pick at it)? Well, we have -- I mean had -- those. (Actually, we still do have some. Just not as many as we started with.)

Charlie noticed a while back that the little tiny screws had come out of the one in the front hallway, and she became fascinated with how she could get her little fingers between the plastic strip and the wall. Little by little, the space grew, until she could easily fit her entire hand in there.

Whenever I would see her playing with it, I would press the strip back against the wall, say "no-no," and open up a junk drawer to distract her. But today I didn't immediately notice that Charlie was no longer in the kitchen with me...

I heard something in the front hall, and went to investigate. (What I heard had sounded distinctly plastic .) I rounded the corner to be met by Charlie, walking towards me, holding the bottom half of that strip with both hands, a look on her face that said, "Oh -- Look what just happened, Gramma."

(Photo by Becky Custer)

And you know how some people collect things like snowmen, and they don't put them away immediately after Christmas, but leave them out for a couple months. Well, I have some of those. One of them is a cute little wooden guy that I bought on a trip to the mountains. He's wearing skis. I allow Charlie to play with him, because he seems pretty hardy. But today, she plopped her butt right down on him at such an angle that one of his little skis snapped off.

Well, maybe that does't actually count as Mishcief; it was clearly an accident. But wait -- It was Mischief that placed the skiing snowman on the floor, rather than on the end table!

(Photo by Greg Fischer)

Then there was the snowman with the little jingle bells fastened through his round, fleece tummy with yarn. Charlie tossed his hat behind the chair, then pulled, oh so not accidentally on one of his bells until the yarn snapped. She then gave chase, clutching the bell in her fist, laughing delightedly.

Ah...And the red wooden picture frame (also from the mountains) that got knocked -- on purpose -- from the table, landed on its corner and got chipped. I'm definitely calling that Mischief!

As I said, I'm not complaining. I know I could keep things like picture frames and snowmen out of places that Charlie can reach. (And Grandpa Greg could make sure all the little screws are in place.) But then Charlie wouldn't have as much fun at Grammakate's house, and I don't guess Grammakate would either. I'm just sayin'.

For the first several months of Charlie's life, she didn't do Shopping at all. She was, after all, just a tiny, defenseless baby; it was winter, with lots of snow and cold weather -- and she had Grammakate, who was just waiting to be asked to come over and take care of Charlie so her mommy and daddy could do things like Shopping.

But as Charlie grew, her horizons expanded...Mommy and Daddy wanted her to experience exciting things like Shopping. So, even though Charlie had never taken part in a Beginning Shopping excursion (that's when babies "shop" by being schlepped around in their carriers-slash-carseats and plopped into shopping carts that weren't necessarily designed to safely hold a carrier-slash-carseat), she was allowed to advance directly to Intermediate Shopping...

This is Charlie on an Intermediate Shopping adventure with Mommy and Daddy...Much more fun than Beginning Shopping! As you can see, even though she's snuggled safely up to Mommy, she can turn her head, smile and flirt, and can freely flap her arms and kick her little legs when she sees something exciting!

Intermediate Shopping worked very well for all parties concerned for a few months.

Then, just last week, it was time to introduce Advanced Shopping!