Clara's first Halloween

Clara had a very busy and exciting first Halloween celebration. It seemed to go on forever! It started on the Monday before where she wore her flower costume to her playgroup and to class the next day. We also brought it to NC but she did not get a chance to wear it there. Today is Halloween and we gave Clara some chocolate for the first time. She LOVED it. She liked to play with the big bowl of candy and I let her until I realiezd she was taking all the small candy and biting the outside of the package, squishing the candy inside. I had a few candies set aside for her and she continued to bite them and squish them until she finally got some chocolate out. I realized it later when she had chocolate all over her face and she was being a bit too quiet! When we took it away from her she was ANGRY! A lot of crying and a bit of a tantrum. We strapped her in her seat and gave her half of a kit kat. That is where she is right now eating away and being very happy about it. She likes her candy!

Hat and Shoe

Clara is quickly adding to her word repetoire and said Hat and Shoe today. I think she is just really into repeating what I am saying as you can see she said these things as we were getting dressed to go out :).

I was on the phone with Matt's mom and she was APPALLED at the fact that I am still nursing Clara. I really wish she would educate herself before she has such strong opinions on things because if she did even a minimal amount of research, she will find that it is recommended to nurse until they are at least a year old. I am just trying to do the best thing for Clara!

Toast strips

For breakfast, Clara has been eating a banana and toast strips. She LOVES them. I usually give her the banana first, make my coffee and thow in the toast. Needless to say by the time she is done with her bananas, she is ready for toast. She gets SO excited. Her arms shake in excitement as she reaches out for them.

The toast strips themselves are a funny story. When I started her on toast, I cut them up in cubes. I got tired of that and decided she was ready for strips. She sort of did not understand the whole put in mouth and pull thing. She finally gets it now!

Another funny thing she does is that I don't give her all her strips otherwise many of them would end up on the floor. But when she has something in either one of hands, even if it is toast, and I put more tooast on her tray, she drops whatever is in her hands and picks up the new toast.

One more funny story

I forgot to mention this. We were at Ryan and Amanda's on wednesday night (BTW, Evelyn is about to walk and still is super loud!) and Evelyn yelled at Clara the whole time we were there. At one point, Clara did ALL DONE. It was SO funny. I guess she was done wtih Evelyn yelling. I feel bad for her. She needs some playmates. Amanda and Ryan were saying how she has no one to play with! Clara has people to play with all week!

Stairs

Clara JUST realized that we had stairs. She could do stairs for a while because she has done the ones going to the second floor and in class before but we were in the basement (Matt and I were trying to watch the ND/BYU game and I went upstairs to get something and she followed me.) She LOVES IT. Matt watched Clara today while I worked on the kitchen table and she went up and down the stairs over and over again. Matt said that when she was about to head for the stairs, she would look back and him as if to ask him if he was coming! She likes to be chased up the stairs :). She had a hard time though when she was doing it with her lovey. Which by the way, I went to Chicago and bought her a duplicate one so there won't be issues in the future about it :)

Clara is getting more and more annoyed with getting her diaper changed. She is CRAZY! She really starts to kick and scream and fight it but what can you do, you need your diaper changed. It is actually rather frustrating.

Clara is really getting around and discovering new things. She loves buttons. She was in Matt's office turning the TV on and off. She is funny.

The weather has turned and it is officially cold. There was no nice fall. It was friggin hot for a while and then it got friggin cold. We put the insulator on the windows in her room. Hopefully that will help with keeping her room warm. Her room gets so much colder than ours at night.

Clara's first word -- KITTY

So I think we can officially say that Clara has said her first word. I think she has been saying Momma and Dada appropriately but who is to say because she has been saying those words forever and I am not sure if she is using them in context. She seems to be but it could also be a coincidence. So, since there is so much ambiquiety over that, we are saying her first word is KITTY! I was pointing to Monty (or Smithers, I can't remember) and she said Kitty. It comes out more like Titty or Sitty or Sissy or Ditty but she is def naming it. I went to Costco and bought her these cat hand puppets and she LOVES them. She calls that Kitty too! She is getting so big so fast!

She is so cute when she says it too. She sort of whispers it. It is really sweet.

Chipped tooth

Meghan and Mike were hear yesterday visiting as they were on their way to the ND/USC game. She really liked Mike and he made her giggle a lot which was funny because there are very few people that can do that. I had noticed a few days ago that Clara's tooth looked chipped (according to Meghan, it is letter E:)) and Meghan confirmed it. Who knows how she did it! Hopefully she willgrind it down on her own, it is not too bad.

All done

Clara definitely did all done the other day after dinner. She does it so thoughtfully. I think it is sort of funny. I need to start teaching her other things. I am working on "More".

Clara is finally feeling better. Her fever went down on Thursday and her rash showed up shortly after that. It was not too bad, it just was EVERYWHERE except on her face. It cleared up as of today! Yesterday, I took her back to the doctor and her platlet counts are back to normal (182) and got a clean bill of health. Though we have to wait another week before she can get her flu shot.

Clara seems to be standing a little bit more. She was standing near a crate and pretty much stood up and she did not realize that she was! Then all of a sudden, she crashed down on her butt. Thank goodness the diaper serves as a cushion as well.

Roseola

Yesterday I took Clara to the doctor because she had a fever for about three days. She was SO cranky and was having a hard time sleeping. I was so desperate one night to get her to go to sleep, at 1:30 in the morning, I drove her around Bartlett in my car to get her to go to sleep. It worked! She has been so cranky and the slightest thing would start her crying. I think she is feeling better today.

Anyway, the doctor said she has Roseola, which a viral disease that is characterized by a high fever for a few days and then a whole body rash that shows up after the fever goes down. Her fever went down this morning and now the rash has appeared! It is not too bad. At least not yet. Hopefully it does not itch her too bad. I sort of want my super happy baby back! I miss her.

Clara weighed in at 17.10 today.

My poor baby

I feel so bad. I hurt Clara today. She was in the bathroom and I usually put her in front of the big mirror so she can entertain herself while I go to the bathroom. She was playing with some measuring tape and I went to pick her up and pulled the tape out of her hand. She must have been holding onto it tight because she cut herself in between her thumb and pointer finger. I feel so bad because she was bleeding and started to cry so hard. My poor baby...

Two more teeth?

I just noticed that Clara has two more teeth coming in around her two front teeth. Possible reason why some meals are ending in complete hysterics? Maybe.

Blankets

She LOVES her blankets and cuddles with them. She thinks it is hysterical. I have this shelf in her room that has all these blankets, all the handmade ones she has. And they are out and she can reach them. Since her #1 favorite thing to do in the world is do de-shelf things, she loves to do it to those too. She takes them each down and rolls around on the floor with them. Sometimes the kid is just bizarre but it is so sweet to watch.

Yesterday after Carrie left, I got Clara up from her second nap and she cuddled with me for a good five minutes. She hugged me so hard and would not let go. I LOVE it when she does that. She has a good heart that little baby of mine.

Monty LOVES yogurt

Clara started feeding the cats her food. She is a little nuts about it. The other day I was feeding her yogurt the other day and she had some on the end of the spoon. Monty started eating off on the end of her spoon and she thought it was HILARIOUS. She would get so excited and start kicking her legs and geting very happy over it. Now whenever she has a spoon in her hand and the cats are near, she tries to feed them with her spoon. It was so funny.

Clara also points at almost everything now. Sometimes I wish I knew WHAT she was pointing at. Today, we went to a pumpkin farm and she was pointing at the flowers. I finally got a picture of it.

EXTREME peek a boo

Clara plays peekaboo and it is the funniest thing. She does it SO fast. It is a little ridiculous. She pulls whatever she has in her hands, be it a piece of paper or a blanket, up and down from her face and you have to say peek a boo so fast you are almost out of breathe by the time she is done. And she always has the biggest smile on her face. It is so darn cute.

Another thing that she does lately is when she is nursing and I kiss her fingers, she constantly puts her fingers in my mouth so I can kiss them over and over again. She is so sweet.

100% positive about sign language

So up until now, I was not sure if Clara was signing. It seemed like there were things that she was repetitive and assertive about signing but we had no idea what she was saying or what they meant. Today, for the first time, I am certain she signed to me. I did the eat sign and she did it back to me! It was very exciting! It sort of made up for the last couple of days. She has been rather cranky lately. At first I thought it was about a new tooth coming in but I think it is a new phase of wanting to do what she wants to do.

I think she also did her first tantrum tonight. It was pretty ugly. Something in the bathtub started her off. I think it was the fact that her little squeaky crab started floating away from her every time she dropped it and it started a bit of a freak out. She started crying so hard in the tub, that I ended up taking her out since we no longer use the ducky and I did not want her to fall over or anything. Her little tantrum continued for the next twenty minutes. It was ugly. At one point, I even ended up walking away to see what she would do. She crawled out of the room crying really hard and me picking her up only caused her to calm down for a minute or so. She ended up calming down when Matt came home while I was standing in his office (for whatever reason she calms down when you walk in there, if only I had thought of it sooner) and by the time Matt got to his office she was FINE. She even smiled at him. It was so ridiculous. She was a little touch and go for the rest of the night but for the most part you could not tell at all that she had completely lost it. She is definitely a strong willed little girl! Uh OH!!!!

Hard to keep up

I have been rather negligent in posting Clara's progress mostly because it is so darn hard to keep up. She is doing new things everyday and seems to me growing at a rapid fire pace. She points, and seems to talk in sentences. The other day, she was telling Matt a complete story that made no sense at all. It was pretty funny. The sounds coming out of her mouth seem to be more complex. For example (and this is a poor example because it is so hard to explain), she used to just say DA DA and now she says something like DEWEY. She most definetly is getting closer and closer to saying her first word.

Clara is so lovey. She really likes to cuddle and is just a wonderful baby. Tonight, she was nursing and decided she was done with that. She sat up and crawled up my body and rested her head on my shoulders until she fell asleep. I don't know if I am doing her a disservice by cuddling her to sleep every night but I enjoy it so much and I think she does to.

Today was a play group friend. We met at the mall and Clara had fun watching the older girls. Some of them were being a little rough near her and it made me nervous. She is so little still! Sometimes she looks so big and other times she seems so darn little.

Going back to my Jersey roots

Clara, Matt and I went to NJ for a visit, our last one since the baptism. We flew for the first time with the baby doll and it went rather well. It is quite a challenge getting around the airport with all the things for her and honestly I am not quite sure how I am going to do it with her when we go to NC but I will have to figure it out!

The trip went well, it was rather tiring though. Three crazy kids is a lot to handle! Clara had a lot of fun playing with Maddie and Nate. Nate was searching for a lot of attention though and got a little rough with Clara sometimes like pushing her or kissing her too aggressively. But it is to be expected, he is only 2 after all!

Clara seemed to learn a lot of things from them. We got a little bit more adventerous with the food that she eats as well which has been a bit nerve wracking but it is good for her. She had pizza for the first time too and she LOVED it. She hummed the whole time while she was eating it as she always does when she eats something she likes. She also started throwing things on the floor when she is done eating. That is sort of irritating. The other thing we have to do when she is eating is give her two spoons if we are feeding her something with a spoon to keep her occupied. She is a funny one.

Kazoo and Teeth

Clara figured out how to use the kazoo! She had it in her mouth and started to hum and now she is having a grand old time with it. It is pretty funny. She tried to kazoo the recorder but did not have much luck with it. Every now and then she will get the recorder down but she seems to have more fun with the kazoo.

On a scarier note, when Clara nurses now, I can really feel her top teeth and it is beginning to hurt. I hope that this passes or my body gets used to it but it is sure an uncomfortable feeling. When she pulls away with it in her mouth, it definately hurts A LOT!

The last two days she has been a little bit cranky. I think her teeth have been bothering her and her sleep schedule is a little off. She was going to sleep at 9 two night in a row but tonight she went to sleep at her normal 7. Most likely because she missed a nap this afternoon. I was running around like a maniac looking for my business debit card that I think I lost. And then I had to go into Bank One to get a new one. What a pain...

We are going to travel with Clara for the first time next weekend on a plane. I am very nervous about it! Hopefully it goes OK.

Clap-a Clap-a Clap-a

Clara is doing some really neat things lately. She copies us a little bit more these days. The one that she has perfected is clapping. She probably has been doing it about a week now. She even does it if you just say Clap-a Clap-a Clap-a. It is pretty cute. She has been waving more. I caught her the other day waving at herself in the mirror in the car, looking at herself and then looking at her hand as she was waving.

I have been trying to teach her how to blow kisses. We will see if I make any progress!

Clara went to the doctor today for her 9 month appointment. She got her TB test done so hopefully that will come back negative. She weighed 17.8 when she only weighed 17.5 2 months ago! And she only grew 3/4 of an inch. The doctor said that was OK since she is still nursing and that it nothing to worry about.

Matt is away this weekend. This is the first night that I will be sleeping alone in this big house! I am nervous about it but looking forward to doing whatever I want tomorrow. I was sort of torn as to what to even do with myself after he left. But I can't wait for him to get back!

The DaDaDa dance and other fine inventions by Clara Owen

Clara has this funny dance that she does now. I call it the DaDaDa dance. She basically says Da Da Da over and over again while she swings her hips forward and back and her head as well. It makes me dizzy to imitate it. She does it when she is excited and is having a good time. It always makes me laugh.

She is really moving around now and can follow you lickity split. That girl can move and shake!

Yesterday we took her to the Arlington Race Track and then to the mall to wait for dinner at Todai, all in AA's tab! She did SO well. She just hung out and let us have a good time. She did not really complain at all and did so well that I officially declared her as the best baby ever :)!