Toddlerisms

Charlotte is really developing quite a personality. Some of her quirks are part of being two, and some are hers alone.

Charlotte is fascinated by the trash truck. I think it started on one of her sick days over the summer when I took her for a walk around the neighborhood (I'm guessing it wasn't one of her puking sicknesses, or we wouldn't have been out and about). The trash truck was making its weekly rounds, and we kept seeing it as we walked around. To be fair, it's kind of a neat process. The truck is big and bright blue, and guys hop in and out and dump your trash into a bin at the back. Every couple of houses the bin lifts over the top of the truck and dumps its contents inside. All in all, an interesting spectacle, especially when you're two. Today, Charlotte even helped her daddy walk around the house collecting trash to take outside. Then, she apparently got mad when he made her stop watching and get in the car to leave for daycare. I'm thinking that we may peruse the Tonka aisle at the toy store this Christmas...

She no longer walks anywhere--these days she runs from room to room, or insists on being carried. Every so often, she stops running to do a sommersault. She has quite perfected these, even before her last toddler gymnastics session started. It's funny when she aims for a corner and gets stuck on the wall, and scary when she's on the edge of the bed, but usually, it's just amusing.

Her other favorite mode of transportation is her "bike", a brightly colored plastic tricycle (more like a bigwheel, but the front wheel is not actually big...). With the seat as far forward as it will go, she can just reach the pedals. It's a lot of fun to ride the bike downhill (our house is halfway down a hill, so you either go up or down out of the driveway), but I end up carrying it back uphill most days. On flat surfaces she can almost move it herself by pedalling, but generally has a little push from the parent-safety handle on the back (a wonderful invention for a kid who tends to aim full speed for the end of the driveway!). She also insists on pushing the thing from the back instead of riding sometimes.

This year, she actually got to go Trick-or-Treating. After the first house, she understood right away what to do and why. She sort of even said "trick-or-treat" but kept calling it "knock-snack", which is probably more accurate anyway :) We haven't let her become too much of a candy junkie (a piece or two a night is her limit), but she knows exactly where her Elmo Halloween basket is (on top of the fridge) and occaisionally pulls her step-stool out of the bathroom in an attempt to help herself (sorry kid, you're still several feet too short...)

Her other favorite new word is "naked". She knows what it means, and rather prefers that state of being to any other. After bath, she tends to ditch her towel and take off running around the house (gigglign at the top of her lungs), much like a wet puppy dog. Luckily she is good at using the toilet before bath, so it's relatively safe to let her run for a few minutes sans-diaper. This morning she got a shower with me, and then insisted on eating her breakfast in nothing more than a pull-up. Considering that breakfast was oatmeal, and it was all over her chest and face before she was done, this isn't a bad thing. Her other favorite clothing (or lack thereof) thing is shoes (her own, especially her cowboy boots, and mine). She'd be happy as a clam to walk around naked with boots on her feet. But I should stop this conversation there, since the keywords "shower", "naked", and "cowboy boots" are already likely to net me some interesting web searches...