UPDATE for fans of Charlie's Sleep Aversion Tactical Maneuvers

Charlie has invented a new move: The Diving Board

Nestle into the parent's lap, so that they think you are trying to sleep on your stomach while being held. They will be distracted by the cuteness. Position your feet flat against the parent's thigh, then push off quickly and dive over the armrest into the floor. Do not make noise when you do this, or you will fail.

Charlie's List of Sleep Aversion Tactical Maneuvers

Plan A. The Fish

Stay in the bath forever. 

Plan B. The Obvious One

Cry and Squirm. Wiggle. Toss and Turn. Rest occasionally but do not stop crying. 

Plan C. The Propeller 

Remain still. Once the parent has dropped their guard, use your hips to propel your body out of their lap and on to the floor in one swift movement. 

Plan D. The Funny Guy

Remain still and silent. Stare at the parent's face and giggle. Slowly move your pointed finger into the parent's nostril. Giggle again. Repeat. You can also use this method with hair pulling and booby biting. 

Mornin'

The other day, I walked into Charlie's room to wake him up/in response to the crying. He was standing in his crib, holding on to the railing. He smiled at me, I walked over to push to drapes back and open lift the shades, and he said to me, "Mornin'," with a little country accent.

I thought, where did he get THAT? What happened to the G? Surely I say the G when I say Morning?

Nacogdoches is like...

My blog friend Stephanie has a habit of comparing her town to Stars Hollow, the small town in Gilmore Girls. If you've never seen Gilmore Girls, we probably aren't friends.

I'm so so so jealous that she thought of this before me. That Stephanie! Geez.

But tonight, we took Charlie to an event called "Small Town Bites!" – an outdoor movie on the downtown square with dinner served by a local restaurant.  Yes, I believe the exclamation mark is actually a part of the title; no, I'm not sure the pun was intended.

There was a handful of people sitting in pop chairs and on picnic blankets, kids running around, playing catch in the street, a few firemen standing outside the downtown fire station, leaning against the brick building like they just stepped out of a Norman Rockwell painting.

Charlie wandered over toward the fire station and one of guys walked over and gave him (and Preston - because the reality here is that I played with Charlie while Preston ate, and vice versa) a tour of the station, let him sit in a fire truck and gave him a toy fire fighter hat that says "Junior Firefighter."

All of this while the sun was setting and 'Back to the Future' was playing on the screen, just a tad to loud.

When we got home, Preston said, "I felt like I was in an episode of Ed."

Ed! Ed is the boy version of Gilmore Girls. If you haven't heard of Ed, we can still be friends because it wasn't nearly as popular and you can't get it on DVD or Apple TV because of licensing issues with the intro music. You can, however, watch snippets of it on YouTube OR borrow one of the DVDs we made back when the reruns played on TLC and we TIVOed them all with our TIVO.

The premise of the show is that Ed (Tom Cavanagh), a big time lawyer, is fired, his wife cheats on him with a mailman, he moves back to his home town, buys a bowling alley, becomes a small town lawyer and tries to win the love of his high school crush, Carol Vessy (Julie Bowen). He has wacky employees, hilarious friends, clients with nit picky problems and small town everything is everywhere.

So, if I can't compare Nacogdoches to Stars Hollow from Gilmore Girls originally because Stephanie thought of it first GEEZ – I'll just have to compare it to Stuckeyville from Ed.

In another post later though, because this one is already too long.

Go blog stalk Itsatravelblog.com

We're headed to Maui this week. I'm "live blogging" at Itsatravelblog.com and also "live tweeting" @charliesparents. I have now idea if I'm using those terms correctly, but you guys are really good with context clues.

I haven't had much luck with the "blog about the trip after you get home" method, so I'm trying the "waste valuable trip time updating a blog" method.

Why do I LOVE to travel blog? Well, since you asked, there are a few reasons.

1. I like to show off.

2. Knowing that I'm going to blog about our trip helps me look for adventurous things to do, which makes for a more interesting and fun trip.

3. It's kind of cool that I can offer unique reference material to other travelers.

So, there you have it. If you love me, you'll blog and twitter stalk me (even though I'm not sure I know how to use twitter).

www.Itsatravelblog.com
@charliesparents on twitter

Add it to your google read- oh. Well, maybe you should just memorize the URL.