You might not know it be reading my complain-y posts lately about Charlotte's wretched sleep habits, but I am having a really good time with her these days. Yes, it's hard to do this alone, and I miss Jeff (whom Charlotte thinks is still "dada...airplane," apparently on a perpetual round-the-world flight), but spending almost every hour of the day (and many of the night, too) with Charlotte is really a privilege and a joy.

She's learning so much. I've said it before, but it bears repeating: the girl talks up a storm. She's incredibly verbal. She's stringing together sentences, asking questions, making up songs. She picks up on things so quickly, it amazes me. I wish my mind were as receptive to new knowledge as her's.

Some recent gems:

Charlotte got a fisher-price nativity set from my parents last Christmas. I got it out for her yesterday, and she's really into it. Especially "baby Jesus," whom she'll talk about and ask for constantly. She also requests "Angel macon," which means she wants to hear the music the set plays when you press down on the rooftop angel. "Macon" is her word for music.

She can sing familiar songs well enough that I can recognize them. One favorite follows; see if you can guess the song based on Charlotte's rendition: "Raining, poh-ing. Old man. Bumbahead. Abed. Morning."

Her favorite song these days is "Baby Mine," from Dumbo. She requests "cuddle? Baby Mine?" which means she wants to sit cuddled on my lap while I sing her the song. These moments are by far the highlight of my day.

Tonight in the bath she took all her duckies out of her bath toy crate and lined them up on the edge. Pointing to them randomly, she said "one...two...three...six...nine...six...five! Yay!" Then she said "mama count," obviously wanting me to double-check her math. I counted to seven and she laughed at me. I guess she was confident in her solution. Perhaps she knows I scored below the 50th percentile on the math portion of the GRE. She's right to question my math skills.

I'll try to be better about posting more of these little anecdotes, because I know they paint a better picture of Charlotte than just the complaints. But I also want to thank each of you for your great advice and words of comfort about the sleeping issues. It really means a lot to me.