The Excellent Adventure

Ah, the morning nap. I love this time, when Charlotte is napping, because for a couple hours, I kinda feel like the mother of one again. I actually have time to do such luxurious things as...sitting down. Jack is running around in the backyard right now, wearing one shoe and trying to use his stocking foot to step on my young squash plants. I suspect that he received some clandestine encouragement on this front from Matt, who openly despises squash and would be thrilled to see the entire plant uprooted. Of course, as soon as I sat down to write more (after pulling Jack out of the garden and making a half-hearted attempt to find his shoe) Charlotte started crying upstairs.

The thing that regularly amazes me about Charlotte is how fast she is growing up. Jack spent a large portion of his first year posed for scrapbooks while I tracked his progress by comparing him to parenting books and my friend's children. Needless to say, it felt like about eighteen years had passed before he did anything at all. Charlotte, on the other hand, is quiet enough that I forget that she's there, and am only reminded when I have to pull her out from under a chair because...what?! Don't tell me she's crawling already! I feel like her life is one of those short films in which still pictures are placed in rapid succession. Frame by frame she started blinking, then smiling, then rolling over, then scooting around on her elbows. If something isn't done soon, she's going to be going to the prom in a few minutes.

Do these things come with slow motion buttons??