Growing and growing

As mom's belly grows, so does Charlotte. I guess a two and a half year old is no longer a baby, but we know as soon as number two arrives Charlotte is going to be kicked out of babyhood for good. While we are so proud of her for growing into such an amazing little girl, we are sad to see babyhood go even though it's hard to imagine her not being able to talk, not being able to express herself, not being able to sing princess songs over and over again.

Along with baby number two will come a change to this blog. Unfortunately with two children we wont have the time or energy to keep this blog going. Therefore it will cease to exist and we will remove it forever.

Yeah right, we could never do that! The name will be changing and NO we are not open for new name suggestions. You will get what you get and you will like it! You know who you are, the ones who keep telling us what to name our next child. The wetnoses link will stay, but we are 100% sure the name Charlotte's Web will change. It won't be just hers anymore, although we have toyed around with the idea of running two (one for each child). It seems like a lot of work, and well, we aren't sure if you are ok with clicking onto another site. So for now we will run a little quiz to see if you want two sites or one. Click the survey on the upper right hand corner to provide feedback.

Here is proof Charlotte is growing. The nightly warm milk in a bottle has been replaced by warm milk in a glass.

No More PINK!

Finally dad had an excuse to buy Charlotte something that wasn't pink and wasn't covered with princesses. Dad signed Charlotte up for Lil' Kicker soccer! A little young you say? HA! They start at 18 months old, we actually got a late start!

Of course with soccer comes the gear. Adidas shorts, Samba shoes, even an authentic Munich soccer jersey all the way from Germany! Dad scoured the internet to find everything in mini toddler sizes. Not an easy task in itself but dad welcomed the challenge of finding some non-girley gear (he did buy her a pink Nike soccer ball though). As soon as Charlotte got geared up, she transformed herself into a soccer star. Running around the house as fast as she could. She was ready to play.

There were probably another 8 kids on her "team", including Lilly from town. Mom had thought dad had really overdone it dressing Charlotte up in all her stuff, however, as soon as he arrived at the Sportsplex everyone asked where he found her shoes, shorts, and shirt. Seems he wasn't the only dad thankful to be able to dress his daughter in something non-pink!

Charlotte had a blast running around dribbling the ball. She is actually very fast and has good ball control. However, she was not a fan of doing the group stretches and exercises. She just wanted to run and kick and play. I don't know who is looking forward to next weekend's practice more, dad or Charlotte.

Who said jocks can't be cute?


I'm ready to go dad!

Some serious speed!



Listening to the coach

We can't wait until next week!

Renegade Pack

Saturday afternoon Paul, Jena, and Marin hosted a shower for us and baby number two. In lieu of gifts (lets face it we have just about everything), they had our friends make frozen meals. Great idea since we know it's going to be very tough to find any time to cook. So we say "Thank you " to everyone who provided meals. Our freezer is jam packed with delicious stuff that we can just reheat and serve. Thank you Paul, Jena, and Marin for such a wonderful shower. The mexican food was a great idea and a huge hit!

The day was PERFECT! 75 degrees and sunny. After a long miserable winter everyone was excited to be outside playing and having fun. Charlotte's little friends are a motley crew. We are going to have to come up with a gang name for them and make them some shirts. "Dirty Diaper Gang" aka DDG crew.


Sammy "the shooter" Ringleben. Able to take out guys with a single shot from 400 yards away.


Colin "the enforcer" Snyder. You owe some money? Colin will take care of you.


Charlotte "the diversion" Ronan. While guys are busy staring at her, the gang makes their move, heisting the loot.


Brodie "the getaway driver" Reeves. This kid can drive!


Marin "the hands" Slosberg. Safe cracker and lock pick extraordinaire.


Mason "the intimidator" Reeves. One grimace from him and you turn and run the other way.

advantage #26

Advantage #26 of being a short male: Being able to crawl into your two year old's crib with her.

Charlotte for some reason, who knows why, wanted nothing to do with bed or her crib tonight. Maybe she was having too much fun playing with dad. Maybe she just wasn't tired. And so the battle to get Charlotte to sleep started. After reading five books (usually it is two), dad lifted her up and placed her in her crib. The crying started. The crying quickly turned to wailing. Wailing quickly turned to a full out temper tantrum all the while she trying to crawl out of her crib (which she can do if she wanted to). Dad tried everything. Making up stories. Rubbing her back. Nothing worked. If he got close enough to her she would wrap her arms around his neck and say "out dada!". Luckily mom came upstairs after a while with some warm milk for her. Even this luscious concoction wasn't working. The crying and screaming only got worse. Finally dad said "If I lay down with you will you go to sleep?". Her tearing eyes lit up and soon dad was climbing over the crib rail and laying down next to his daughter. She immediately quieted and calmed and snuggled up tight to dad. Try doing that if you are 6'2" 240lbs. Advantage #26 of being short.

Here are a few pictures of Charlotte on her new trike. She loves it. When I say loves it, I should say she obsesses about riding her trike. It's one of the first thing she asks for when she wakes up.






Charlotte was also playing a little backyard golf. What a swing!

ABC's

Charlotte loved looking at herself on the webcam today. So we let it roll to see what would happen. Click here to see the video! As you can see she cracks herself up. Not to mention she had a sock on her hand. Yes that is a sock puppet. She is definately our kid.

Thank You

We can't thank everyone enough for your generous donations to help support Team Strength. An extra special thanks goes out to the people who decided to join the team and walk today, even if it was going to rain. We didn't really ask anyone to join, people just decided to offer their support and fundraising efforts to help out. Tiffany Ritcey, Kelly Reeves, Lisa Snyder, Jena Paul & Marin Slosberg, Jasmine Pelloni, Nicole Stolzenberg, Kathy Townsend, Aunt Pam, Mellisa, Uncle Bill, Brittany, Stephanie Roberts, and Mary Ellen (who manned the fort watching Miss Charlotte). It means so much to have friends and family like you show your support for us and walk with us. The bar was set pretty high this year with the number of people who joined and who donated. So far it looks like we raised over $4,000! The event alone in Nashua raised approximately $71,000! Again it means so much to us to have everyone on our side doing what they can to raise money to find a cure for this terrible disease.

As soon as we arrived in the rondeszou point in Nashua the skies brightened and shortly after the walk started the skies cleared, the temperature warmed, and we had a beautiful day for a 3 mile walk. Luckily none of three eight month pregnant ladies gave birth on the route. Although we had a close call with Lisa and her twins. :) Just kidding Lisa. Also because our group was so big we lost a few other walkers (Jasmine, Nicole, and Kathy we are sorry). Dad tried to find them but wasn't sure if they were ahead or behind us. So we walked and everyone enjoyed the beautiful day and the nice route through Nashua.

Afterwards we had a little cookout at the Ronan household and enjoyed the day. We can't thank people enough for making this day a special day for us and only hope that next year you also join us to help raise money, get a little exercise, and enjoy supporting a great cause. Unfortunately we don't have any pictures of the event but here are a couple.

Here is a picture of Shelby. Well sort of:


Shoes after the walk. If it rained, but it didn't so they stayed clean:


Yes that is Ben Affleck with Violet. He didn't come out for the walk but if he did that would have been what he looked like.

MS Awareness Week

Those of you who read this blog and who have not donated to support the Team Strength MS Walk this weekend, please do so. It is simple to donate, click on the Shelbys Multiple Sclerois Campaign on the right hand side, type in your donation and credit card number and you are done. It takes all of 2 minutes to donate to a cause that we will be involved in for the rest of our lives. We didn't choose to live with MS it choose to live with us; and we will fight for every donation dollar, support every piece of legislation, and do everything we can to help make people aware of this disease in hopes that the more people become involved, the faster a cure will be found.

This means we need your help. Those of you with blogs we ask that you put a link on your site to donate to Shelbys cause, or at least put a link to the National MS Site nationalmssociety.org just for a week to help spread the word of MS Awareness Week, going on right now in cities all across the US.

The walk is this weekend. The weather is due to be cold and rainy. Its hard enough for Shelby to walk up a flight of stairs at 8 months pregnant, let alone a 3 mile hike in the rain. She will finish the walk, because she is strong. And very determined. If she doesn't finish it for some unforseen reason, I will finish it for her and for those who have donated to the cause that is now so important to us. With that we Thank You for your support, caring, and generosity.

News Bedroom

 

 

 

 

No News Haircut

Those of you waiting for darling pictures of Miss Charlotte and her new hairdo are just going to have to wait. We were all ready. The whole car ride we talked about getting our hair cut. She even said "snip snip" and pretended to cut her own hair. However when we pulled up to the front door of "Snip Its" she said "NO NO Haircut!". She wanted nothing to do with it. Why? We aren't sure either. The only thing we can think of is that we talked about how everyone gets their hair cut. Mom gets her hair cut, dad gets his hair cut, even the dogs, Abigail and Oliver get their hair cut. Well last week Abigail and Oliver got their hair cut at the groomer and I guess Charlotte was VERY upset that mom left them at the groomer. So we think Charlotte might have thought we were going to leave her at "Snip It's" alone. We did however manage to get her to walk inside, although she cried the whole time. She really didn't want her hair cut so we decided not to traumatize her and left without any major incident. Another day, another place. We have now started priming her by telling her she will go to the "beauty salon". Hopefully that will work.

Charlotte also adds an S onto the word new. When dad got his new car and Charlotte got in it she said, "Ohhh Dada's News Car!". We thought it was funny. We have been busy painting and getting her bedroom ready. Finally it is finished!! Woo hoo! And what did Charlotte say when she finally saw it? " OHHHH Charlottes News Room!" Yes dear, you have a News Room.

Its About To Happen

Charlotte's first hair cut. I know, most people would have cut their kids hair way before 2 years and 4 months old. But we really like the style of her hair and well, we just were not ready to do it. Now we are. So our Saturday is going to be an action packed ride to Snip Its! Charlotte and dad looked at the web site and we discussed what would happen at the salon. (what did people do before the web?) She is very excited and is ready to go now. Don't worry, there will be lots of pictures and
hopefully a nice story of how wonderfully behaved she was getting her hairs cut.

(Updated: Do not get too excited, it's just going to be a trim. We like her style)

The rest of the weekend will be spent getting baby number two's bedroom ready. Dad has painted the walls, trim, floor, and dresser and night stand. One more coat on the floor and we are ready to move furniture back in. It all seems to be coming so quickly and he is really not ready yet. Six more months would be great.

RW Phenom

Those of you with older kids have no idea the phenomena of Ralph's World. Self proclaimed Superhero of kids music, Ralph is a Grammy nominated children's music superstar. Mom, dad, and Charlotte alike are fans of his "not so kids music" kids music. So when we heard he was playing in our old stomping grounds of picturesque Williamstown MA, we jumped at the opportunity to get tickets and see the show live for ourselves.

The trip started out uneventful. We should have known something was not right when during the ride Charlotte asked to listen to Ralph's World. Where was the CD? At home on the counter where he left it. Not good. So to prevent Charlotte from crying any longer we listened to Annie. Over and over and over.

We arrived at Nanny's house which was boarded up for the long and cold winter. There was not much to eat and Charlotte was starving. Dad scoured the fridge to find a snack for Charlotte. The only thing he could find was a jar of pickled polish sausages. Clue number 2 something was not right. Charlotte loved the pickled sausage.





The morning of the concert we left super early to get good seats. On the way to the show Charlotte said, "No No Ralph's World". Huh? Was she kidding? We shrugged our shoulders and we played along. "No dear, no Ralph's World".

When we arrived at the venue everything seemed OK. Then she said it again. "No No Ralph's World". OK, now what? The choice was either leave and waste the money on the tickets, or try to trick our child into thinking we weren't really going to see Ralph. We chose the latter.

Waiting for the doors to open we could hear Ralph inside practicing with the band. Charlotte seemed OK. Not excited. Not miserable. When the doors opened for us to run down and get our front row seats Charlotte lost it. Screaming, crying, kicking, tears streaming. NO NO RALPH'S WORLD!!!

Luckily the doors opened 30 minutes before the show. It took her 30 minutes to stop crying. We walked around. Dad did everything possible to distract her. Charlotte saw all of these kids gathered around some guy outside the auditorium. It was Ralph. They were all getting pictures with him. Charlotte waived to him and even said "Hi Ralph". Using poor dad's judgement (which many dads do), he decided to get a picture with Charlotte and Ralph. Mom quickly snapped away. Charlotte's lip started quivering as Ralph asked her what her name was. Then she started wailing. Poor Ralph, just trying to be a nice rock star had his ego trampled by a two year old little girl.


We did what all bad parents would do. We went inside and sat in our seats. Charlotte calmed down. She even clapped. Then Ralph and the band appeared before us. Instead of singing along she cried. She would stop for a few minutes, look at Ralph, then cry. This was not a cry like teenagers viewing the Beatles for the first time, this was a cry of this Ralph guy is going to kill me. Needless to say we left the show early. Poor kid. As soon as we got in the car it was like a switch went off and she was fine. She even joked, replaying the whole scene. Charlotte cry. Charlotte afraid Ralph. Then we turned Annie back on and life returned to normal. Sorry Ralph.