Good Morning Charlie!

It's almost a parents right of passage to be exhausted at the end of the day, and when the sun is shining in the morning and the kids are stirring, you just can't get your butt out of bed. You lay there thinking "Alright body, we can do this the easy way, where you will let me sit up, hang my feet over the edge of the bed, I can stretch, yawn, etc., OR we can do this the hard way were I will my self to roll out of bed praying the whole way I don't hit something and bash my head....your choice"

Luckily I have a partner who doesn't have this problem and helps me wake up with the first option.

But honestly it's mornings like these that make me really wonder how Charlie does it. Granted he does sleep 8 hours a night. He does wake up several times, but still. How does the kid do it? Every morning he wakes up with bounds of energy. Depending on the day he is either in a good mood and ready to take on the days challenges, or he is a horrible mood and mommy gets to take on the challenges and then some.

Lucky for me the bad days are becoming less. We still have our fair share, but they are finally spacing out. Some times I can see a bad day coming from a mile away- due to environmental changes, or some days it just slaps me in the face and says "HI HELEN!" (my name isn't Helen...)

Environment is everything to Charlie. The slightest changes can set him back, or throw him forward. It depends on how he takes it all in. This past weekend we started to slowly change the front room around. We had got our tax return monies and decided to finally get things we needed. I knew that by Wednesday the front room would be completely different. We went to Ikea and got a wall hanging cuby shelf ( we put the wii, DVD player and dvd's and video games in this), and then a standing cuby shelf to match. We also got a new recliner that is a soft suede (Charlie's new favorite chair, he spent a good majority of the day yesterday petting it) and a small flat screen TV to hang on the wall out of Charlie's reach.

We slowly started Sunday in the evening, Putting the TV up. and rearranging the furniture. Monday we went to Ikea, and Tuesday we went got some paint and waited for Charlie to go to sleep. Tuesday night we stayed up until 1:30 painting the front room and getting everything set up. Wednesday I spent all day cleaning and getting everything in place. I was amazed at how Charlie just took it all in. He didn't throw any trantums, but he was really cranky. I helped him work through his problems, and explained why things the way they where and why it needed to be this way, and then it happened.....

We had our first two way converstation....

We were all sitting on the floor playing. Charlie was sitting behind MeMe, when he started to push her forward.

It went like this....

Mommy: "Charlie, don't be mean to sissy, You need to be nice!"

Charlie: Stoped pushing MeMe and then got this severe consentration look on his face .. "I mean?"

Mommy: Yes you are being mean. You can't push sissy like that! You can hurt her! You need to be nice, not naughty."

Charlie: Looking a little confused stood up and said "I don't know!" and walked away.

In the moment I wasn't realizing what was happening. I talk so much to Charlie that it didn't register that we were acutaly having a converstation. When he walked away, it had clicked on what just took place. I of course called everyone and proclaimed Charlies new words and how he used them in sentences! But of course the rest of the day I couldn't get him to say a single word, but thats okay. It took A LOT of effort to just get what we did, and for that I am so incrediably thankful.

This is a sign of changing times.