Is it too late to wish you a happy 2012?

We're already over a month into the new year and I'm long overdue for a post. My excuse is that January was not the best month for us health-wise - nothing crazy, just a (second round of) run-of-the-mill stomach bug for Charlotte (which I somewhat successfully warded off, and James a little less so) and then colds all around. Last weekend we emerged from under our shells and hosted dinner with some friends. This weekend we basked in balmy above zero weather and did some fun activities with Charlotte that we haven't had a chance to do in awhile, like swimming (and photographed and posted ads for a bunch of our furniture on kijiji since we're doing some redecorating. We've learned that people are crazy about Ikea Expedit furniture. Tangentially, some of the stuff people do here is amazing: http://www.ikeahackers.net/ ).

Charlotte is generally delightful these days, in my opinion! She had her 18 month vaccination last week and is holding steady in the 90th percentile for height and weight. The past couple of days she's been eating and sleeping even more than usual, so we're thinking it's a bit of a growth spurt. She talks all the time, including three or four word phrases. She has memories/stories that she repeats frequently. These include a time last month when we were getting home past Charlotte's nap time and she had fallen asleep in the car, and I accidentally set off the car alarm and woke her up (poor kid!). The story usually gets told something like this: "tar, beep, youd (loud). All benner" (because we assured her it was all better, ie. not beeping any more. Is this going to come up in a shrink's office later in life?).

Charlotte's started singing sometimes, usually her take on an old family lullaby, "Bye low" - it's pretty funny though, since she often belts it out to herself in her crib after waking up in the morning or from a nap. Although her singing does not necessarily bode well for her musicality at this stage, she has correctly identified piano music on the radio several times which I think is kind of neat. One of my favourite things that she does right now is pretend to read a book. Her pretend reading always sounds like this: "yo yo yo yo yo". And then she will usually look over at us and smile, knowing she's being funny. She hasn't figured out colours yet (or she's colour-blind, we're the teensiest bit concerned since she's got so much else figured out...) and when we ask her what colour something is she'll almost always say "blue" or "geen". When we tell her what the actual colour is she'll often then continue to call it "geen" and laugh. She's becoming much more decisive and expressive about what she wants. In particular, when she wants us to join her and play she'll often point to a spot on the floor beside her and say, "sit here!"

We haven't been very good about taking photos lately, but I'll post the best of what we have.