Toddler Speak and Infant Sleep

Charlotte is starting to talk a lot more. And when I say "talk" I mean the language that only moms and dads understand and it pisses everyone else off.
Lately, when Charlotte sees a body of water, she'll say "row boat" and we find it really strange because there won't be any boats, let alone a row boat, and who taught her what a row boat is?
Turns out this is what she means:

So while in Florida, she kept shouting a mix of "row boat" "robot" and "robert".

We started the whole Elf on a Shelf business this year, and we needed to name the elf something that Charlotte can say. You'd think "Robert" would be a good option, but she has no idea that's what she's saying. So since most things she can't pronounce are said as "das", we named the elf "Gus".

There's the little creeper!

Speaking of nothing I was speaking of, Lena is still a great sleeper. When she's sleeping. She's a terrible fall-asleeper. The crying gets to be so excessive. She can fall asleep in my arms without too much complaining, but I can't hold her all the live long day. And yes, I have a moby wrap and an ergo, but I like to have my kids learn to sleep in a bed. I didn't really do much work on Charlotte's sleep as an infant until she was maybe 3.5-4 months, but with a toddler running around while there is a giant Christmas tree sparkling and getting her attention, I would prefer not to be rocking the baby all day. Earlier today, Charlotte dragged her chair towards the stairs and then tried climbing on it, only to fall down the stairs (it's only 2 stairs) and have the chair fall on top her. Holding Lena doesn't make it easy to hop up and help.

The good news is that when she's not tired, she's almost always super happy. She's always grinning and cooing and it cracks me up.

dimples!

Would you rather have a baby that falls asleep easily but is up frequently, or deal with the crying to get a nice long stretch of sleep?