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So here's an update:

Charlotte is starting to speak more and more. She can say little things like hi, yes, no, mama, dada, and the like. She also is increasingly impressing us with her balancing skills. She can stand on one leg and balance and is frightening fast at running and climbing. Clearly, not skills from her mother. She has, however, inherited her mother's distrust in strangers until they have thoroughly proved themselves in her eyes. I feel sort of guilty and sad for people when they first meet her and try to win her over only to be greeted by an unmistakable scowl of disapproval, but also sort of comforted that she trusts no one new. Take that, kidnappers. Things Charlotte loves:

Grandpa Mark
Uncle Logan
Vada
Vegetable Lo Mein
Playing outside
Climbing in and out of her play shopping cart
Her blanky (still)
Showers
Talking on her cell phone
When we use voice commands on the Xbox Kinect

Work at the hospital has been very good, but very busy. I'm slowly becoming a jack of all trades, working some days in a lab at a clinic, some at the hospital, and some at another clinic as an x-ray tech/medical assistant. I love my job, even if I don't always love the hours. I feel very fortunate to enjoy my work and to have a job that has let us financially breathe a little easier after two years of living off one income.

Aaron has just finished wheat harvest, so Charlotte and I are getting used to actually having a man in the house again. I am very grateful to not be a single mother, as the two to three weeks of wheat harvest  with Aaron leaving before Charlotte woke up and coming home after bedtime was exactly how I imagine single working motherhood to be. Crappy. So, hats off to my mother for raising three pre-teen to teenage girls, maintaining multiple jobs, and neither becoming abusive, nor an alcoholic. Hurray, mom!


I will leave you all with a picture of Charlotte enjoying spaghetti and watching one of the multiple rabbits eating by our dining room window.