Gotcha Day

Charlie is here and he has made this place his own!! He looks thinner and longer than the way we remember him from the baby house, but that may be due to the lack of layering. (In Kazakhstan, he was often dressed in 3-4 layers!) His escort Nadia said that he was an excellent traveler. She obviously loves Charlie very much, and it was clear that he loves her too!

He has some new tricks. He takes his finger and makes blblblbl noises with his lower lip. He says mamamamamama and dadadadadadada all the time. Last night, as he was soothing himself to sleep, he said CharlieCharlieCharlieCharlieCharlie and he also sang himself a little song in Russian/Kazakh/Baby/Goo/Goo/Ga/Ga language.

He clasps his hands and shakes them (like the Lollipop Guild guys in the Wizard of Oz). He likes to scream loud crazy sounds when he's happy. He uses his tongue to make lubalubalubaluba noises.

He loves to stick his fingers in my eyes, nose, and mouth. I try to avoid this, but it is nearly impossible. He grabs my hair and pats my face. When he gets really happy, he head-butts me. I thought he might have broken my nose this afternoon. I recovered quickly, but he has a small bump on his noggin.

We have done lots of parent-type things like give him a bath (he LOVED it), change diapers (Stan has changed the one and only poopy one), change his clothes (about 4 outfits so far), feed him (Cheerios, banana, rice cereal, and formula), soothe him to sleep, and of course PLAY PLAY PLAY.

He slept from 11:00 to 3:00, 4:00 to 5:00, 6:00 to 7:30. Or something like that. To me, it felt like we were up all night. I think that he got some good sleep, but Stan and I just couldn't sleep soundly. We were too excited and too anxious that he might wake up and need us.

Overall, I would say that we did a prety good job as first-timers.

Everyone loves Charlie just like we knew they would. Pa-Paw and Apa Judy left for Florida today. They will miss him a lot. Poppy and Apa Cookie visited one more time this morning and then headed back to Columbus. We'll see them in a few weeks. Charlie's cousins thought he was great. Rider and Wyatt were so excited to see him. Charlie licked Wyatt's face for about 30 full seconds. He likes to watch his cousin Henry run around like crazy, and Henry loves to find toys for Charlie to play with.