The Last Few Weeks...

...we have:

~ Settled in nicely to our new house, and are still loving just as much as the day we moved in. Aside from the stack of framed pictures waiting to be hung, we are unpacked and this is starting to feel like home to all of us. We have met our neighbors (more on that later), and they seem nice. They have a daughter who babysat the kids who lived here before we did, which: SCORE.

~ Visited the nearest park a handful of times. My first impression of this park was....just okay. The playground equipment is on top of a field of gravel instead of the more traditional wood chips or rubber flooring, which is kind of weird to me. The rocks get stuck in your sandals and make it incredibly hard to walk...watching Charlie try to trek across the playground is hysterical, something akin to him trying to walk through a field of marshmallow fluff. Oh and also too? This park is ruled by a nasty little dictator, who does not discriminate when choosing his victims. He will attack swiftly and viciously, and his attack method goes something like this: KEEP STINGING, A thousand times if necessary. I have no clue what this little creature actually is (another mom at the park said maybe a carpenter bee, I'm leaning more towards demon-possessed henchman of the devil), but Charlie has been hit twice by it and we have witnessed two other children being attacked. Seriously, this thing will swarm at you with the intensity of a thousand suns and NOT STOP. For no reason, it flies right at your head. So yeah. We're not going to that park anymore.

~ We have been felled, FELLED I say!, by a nasty cold. Fevers, snot-noses, aches and chills are rampant here right now. Add to that the fact that I feel like I have stomach cancer*, and you can just imagine the fun being had in our house this week.

~ Charlie has apparently discovered that he has the capability to speak the English language, and is taking full advantage of his new found love of words. He has also discovered that if he cocks his head to one side, holds his hand out, and says, "Peeeeeeese?", he will probably get what he wants. Research results still pending, but this may have something to do in the dramatic rise in temper tantrums here.



* Not really stomach cancer. Probably an ulcer or something. But. Still painful, ouch.