Big Haircut Time

The week that Charlie broke his leg (which is 2 weeks from today... half way there!), I decided that I hadn't put him through enough misery for one week, so I took him to get his 2nd haircut. It pretty much went down like this:

Let's just say, he's not a fan.

Diagnosis Confirmed... Sort Of

We were in and out at the specialists' office yesterday. He confirmed that Charlie does, in fact, have a fractured tibia. He called it a "buckle" in the bone. However, it is in a different location than originally thought. It is actually right where the splint ended (right under his knee cap). So, we came to the doctors office wearing this:
And left wearing this:
Charlie has to wear his little cast for 4 weeks. At that point they will do another x-ray to make sure everything is healing nicely. More than likely, Charlie's leg will grow normally. The doctor did say that, it's rare, but he "could" be a little bow-legged for a few years. Time will tell. At least Charlie has been pretty happy through all of this. We have been practicing crawling and walking on our own. Charlie has got the crawl down, but still needs help slinging the cast around to walk. We'll get there.

First Injury

After our Kindermusik class yesterday, I took Charlie to the playground behing our house. (Music is also at that church... convenient!) This is a playground that we regularly play at, but haven't quite mastered all of the elements, apparently. Last week I was shocked to see that Charlie could climb up these round steps they have to the tall platform to go down the slide. (This platform is taller than I am, so pretty tall for such a little guy.) Yesterday I was standing there, but wasn't "spotting" as much as I should have been because he had done it fine last week and twice yesterday before said injury. He went up fine, put one foot on the landing and missed with the other foot. He fell face down onto the soft wood chips with his legs in a "hurky" position. I was more concerned with a head/neck injury more than anything due to his bloody lip. I immediately carried him home where it was obvious that he was not disoriented, but wouldn't put pressure on his left leg. The fall occurred at 11 am and I let him nap (on top of me to make sure no vommitting began) from 11:30-1:30 in hopes that he would wake up walking just fine. Not so much. He kept grabbing his leg and saying, "Uh-oh, hurts." I called our pediatrician's office who said they would have the nurse call back. By the time she did, we were already at Primacare and she said to just stay there. We were at Primacare for 1.5 hrs. just to be told that they couldn't help us and to go to the E.R. Another call to our pediatrician directed us to Medical City since they have a Pediatric E.R. We entered the hospital at 4:00pm and left at 10:30pm. During that time it was determined that Charlie "probably" has a fractured tibia and that we need to follow-up with a Pediactric Bone Specialist today to confirm. So, here is what we have now:

Our appointment is at 2pm today. Charlie still will not even attempt to put pressure on his leg. More to come soon.

Staycation Weekend

This weekend was a fun and busy one. (Side Note... last weekend we had no plans, which sounds fun, but in actuality was horrible because we didn't keep Charlie entertained enough. Lesson learned, from now on we plan on keeping our weekends full and our toddler happy!) Friday night we had dinner at our new neighbors house. Fun times in the hood!

Saturday morning we visited the CSA farm that we are planning on joining. Charlie loved seeing the ducks, roosters, chickens and horses and even got to take a tractor ride around the farm!

Saturday afternoon was Miss Amelie's birthday party.
It was all decked out in a Dora theme and they even had a real-life Dora come to the party. (Which I'm pretty sure was actually a man and, unfortunately, scared all of the kids.)
Charlie enjoyed seeing his friend Trace,
kissing Olivia,
and playing at the Boudreaux's house.
Patrick has a client who owns a hotel in N. Richland Hills. He got us a sweet deal on a suite, so we decided to stay Saturday night. Charlie loved the room:
We went swimming the next morning and then went to a Ranger's game Sunday afternoon.
It was a full weekend... Charlie was so pooped that he slept until 7:45am Monday morning!! (He typically rises around 6:00am.)

18 Months

Where has the time gone? This little guy... is now this big guy. (Just practicing drinking from a water bottle... we still have a ways to go.)

Charlie now weighs in at 27.7 lbs (70%) and is at 34" in height (90%). It is looking more like he will be long and lean.

This past month has brought some definite fun and definite frustration. On the fun front, Charlie's verbal skills are really coming along. It is like the flood gates opened and now he will attempt to say almost anything. He now will call for "mama" or "dada" from his crib, will tell us if he wants the lights on, and will tell us if he wants juice/milk/snack verbally. It's fun to hear his attempts as sometimes they don't come out perfectly. He talks about his teacher, Ms. Mary, often... except that it comes out "Manny". Pretty cute. His favorite book still tends to be "Charlie's World" where he can look at all of his family members and call them by name.

On the frustration front, he is definitely at the stage where he is pushing the limits and trying to see what he can get away with. One day he decided to stand on his slide and jump up before sliding down to see what Patrick would do, so Patrick kept putting him in time out because he wouldn't "sit on his bottom". The next day he tried the same thing out with me. (At this point I didn't know he had tried it with Patrick just the day before.) I just let him do it knowing that either a) he would fall and get hurt or b) he would be doing this time and time again as boys do, so he really needed to learn how to do it without getting hurt. After 10 million times of standing on the slide without getting hurt (and scaring me every time), I just kicked the slide over and said "Uh oh, slide broken" and he moved on to something else. Lately though, my biggest saving grace has been to offer choices. We are now in the phase where eating is not a priority to him, so to get him to eat and not throw a fit, I offer many choices. Do you want to sit in the little chair or the big chair?, Do you want this plate or that one?, Do you want want this bite or this bite? (I have 2 different utensils with 2 different things on them). It's a challenge to always stay ahead of the game and "plan" out the choices, but it is totally worth the sanity that it brings to my day!