Kisses?

I think Clara might have kissed me today. I picked her up from a nap and she grabbed my face and planted a wet yicky one on my face. She did it a couple of times and it seemed rather intentional. I really think she gave me a kiss today.

She has this new thing where she does not like to be left alone anymore. One of the first times she did it was when I put her in her highchair and I went upstairs to talk to Matt about something very briefly. When I got back downstairs, she started wimpering a little. She was making it pretty clear that she was very unhappy about being left alone. She did it again a few times this afternoon after her third nap. I put her in the Exersaucer to put some things away and I was out of her site. She started whimpering again. She did it again when I went to the bathroom. She is so funny, it looks like I am going to have to be available now that she is getting some anxiety about being alone! It is nice to be needed and I really like how she is expressing her love for me in some different ways. I like being Clara's mommy!

Fun with baby doll

I made Clara laugh really loud and hard today. She was in the jumperoo and I hid my head below her eye sit and jumped up and said "A-GOO!". I did it over and over again and she laughed pretty hard at it. So cute.

Being a mattress

Sometimes Clara suckers me in and I end up being her mattress. Today for her third nap, I tried to put her down twice and she would have NONE of it. I ended up feeding her on the couch and she fell asleep in my arms. I ended up holding her for her whole nap. She is so sweet when she sleeps. Her eyelashes are so long and she is so beautiful and peaceful. It is so hard not to kiss her or touch her when she is asleep. Today when she was napping, I cut her hair because it was getting too long (her second haircut). She almost woke up for that.

Sometimes she sleeps for a long time when she is with me or for a very short time. Today it was a long time. I like to nap with her, cuddle her in arm and lay down on the couch. Though sometimes she wakes crying very loudly when we do that, maybe she is uncomfortable. Who knows! Though she had a hard time going to bed tonight because she napped for so long. I tried to nurse her to make her sleepy and she started whimpering. She is funny.

Sitting myself up

Lately, Clara's new trick is to sit herself up when she is laying down. Not all the way though, say she is leaning on a pillow or something. She throws her body up and over shoots so someone has to play catch. But she is getting strong that little one. She goes to her 5 month old checkup today.

Goodnight Goodnight Sleepyhead

I read Clara a lot of books today. It took a lot of time to unpack her books and I was feeling bad that I have not read her a book in a long time. One of the books that I read Clara tonight was Goodnight Goodnight Sleepyhead that her grandparents gave her for Christmas. She was getting a little antsy through that one because I would not let her touch the pretty pages! The board books seem to be quite a hit. I think I will buy more of those for her.

Clara has been OK going to bed. We have been trying to make serious efforts to put her down awake so she knows how to fall asleep herself. Before we started doing this, we would rarely put her down in her crib unless she was completely out because she would pretty much cry in her crib once she realized that she was alone. I would say for the last month or so, we have been trying to get her to fall asleep on her own. She does really well in the mornings. That first nap always goes really well. But as the day goes on, she fights it a little more and more. This evening, I put her down at around 7:15. I pretty much know how it is going to go by her reaction when she hits the mattress. If she goes down and is OK, but then starts to complain after a second or two, she can pretty much calm herself down. But if I put her down and she is either already crying or starts crying hard as soon as I place her down, it pretty much is NOT going to work. That is what happened tonight. I wanted to see how she was going to do, so I listened to her for a while. She was unable to calm herself down. I went up there after a while and picked her up and sat with her in the glider. I fed her, but after she started BITING (my least favorite occurence), I held her and rocked her for a while. She seemed to enjoy looking around and at me. After I calmed her down, I placed her back in her crib and she finally fell asleep after 20 minutes or so.

Her latest crib toy is the aquarium. It took her about a day to figure out how to turn it on. It has lights, sounds and makes bubbles. It is sort of like a little TV in her crib. She seems to love it. It is pretty funny when she is sort of crying and when you put her down and turn on the crib, she turns her head towards it and you can see the crying pass from her face. It seems to be working! I should have tried it sooner but it did not occur to me where to put it in her crib until we went to NJ and I saw where Cherie had placed hers. I guess I never sat and thought about where it should go. At least now I know.

Patience

I need to work on my patience level. BE MORE PATIENT. I need to write that on my mirror and look at it every morning.

Trying really hard but not sure why

I think Clara is going to be rolling over soon. Her favorite thing to do right now while she is laying on the ground she likes to hold her feet in the air and grab on to them. She then sort of rolls on to her side but then rolls back again. Someday soon she is going to go all the way and surprise herself!

When Clara is tired, she sort of babbles. It is so funny. She gets a little loopy and starts talking like crazy. Rah rah rah rah rah rah. Better on tape!

Cold

I am tired of this cold. It is getting VERY old. I think Clara is getting tired of it too. She threw up, like a real throw up, for the first time tonight when Matt was holding her. I was glad when Matt came home because Clara was a handful today! I think she is still getting over what we did to her over the last week and on top of that she still is having trouble breathing. Booger-baby. She HATES it when I go in there to try and aspirate anything out. She gives me the hardest time.

I cleared out her ears today after her bath and she has her dad's problem with ear wax! Crazy dirty ears!

I put the humidifier in Clara's room today. While I was doing that, I placed Clara on the floor and she started screaming... thinking that I left her there. But I didn't! I was just filling up her hummy so she can breath at night! Hopefully she will sleep better tonight than she did last night. She was up a few times last night, I think because it was really dry. I had trouble sleeping too.

Hopefully she will get better soon. I hope I get enough sleep tonight because I was rather impatient today.

Dirty Baby Doll

Clara is taking a nap right now. She is SO dirty and needs a bath badly. Stinky baby! I just feel bad since she is sick and hates baths so much. I will see if I can put if off another day. Clara is supposed to be napping right now, but it is not going well!

Clara's Progress

Well, blogger.com is down now so I thought that I would write it on word and copy it over later. We just got back from our trip out East. Clara seems to have changed so much in that week. Not only did she get her first cold but I think she grew a lot! We put her in her jumperoo when we got back and she seems to be able to reach the ground much easier than she could before. Babies grow WAY too fast. I just put away her 3-6 clothes and am currently washing her 6-9 clothes for her to wear. She wore her cutie pie outfit today from Old Navy. She looked so cute in it!

She is so handsy now. The second she wakes up, her hands are in action. It is amazing how quickly she has gotten used to having them and using them. When Matt has her on his lap at dinner, she grabs the plate in front of her now. It is very dangerous. The beginning of the octopus phase! Let’s see how long this one lasts.

It is a lot of fun of watching her learn new things and it is sort of hard to remember that she did not know how to do it the day before. Right now, if you put a toy in front of her, she grabs it immediately and puts it in her mouth. She is very good at it, she rarely misses. The whole hands thing started a few weeks ago (right at the beginning of March) with a water bottle. I was sitting on the couch one day and I had an empty bottle of water in my hand. I put it in front of Clara to show it to her and she grabbed it. At first, she did not have the strength to hold on to it. And she would try over and over again to hold it but instead it would hit her in her face or she would squeeze it and it would pop up into the air.

Over the weekend, I put a bottle an empty bottle of water in her hands. She can hold on to it now!

I am sort of having a hard time writing this blog. I am finding that words cannot describe how incredible she is and what she is like. I just don’t have that sort of way with words. I sat next to her in the car today on the way back from Toledo. I love looking at her while she is sleeping. She has the most amazing spirit about her already. I love that when she sleeps, her eyelashes take over her face and are so long. Her cheeks are finally pink again, after going white when she first got her cold. She was asleep with her hands down, palms down. And each finger is separated just so and held up just a little. I had to slip my hand into her tiny fingers just to touch them. You can tell when she is waking up because her hand will start to grab my finger.

She is a very determined baby. When she gets her mind set on something, she tries and tried many times over to accomplish what her task is. Sometimes, I am not sure what she is trying to do! But it is funny to see her get so frustrated. I think she is going to have my problem of never giving up! Well sometimes it is a problem and sometimes it is a positive. We will see what she thinks of it.

She loves to sit now, though she is still not that very good at it. Though she is getting better every day. It won’t be long before she is sitting on her own. She does her tripod thing. And throws her body about to wherever she wants to go. It will be nice when she has more control over it.

We had fun visiting out East. Though it was a lot of work and it was hard for the two of us to be sick at that time. It was sort of frustrating being in Rochester though. I think Matt's mom needs to come to terms with the fact that it is NOT her baby! She made a strange comment about how she is going to raise Clara differently and not make the same mistakes as she did the first time. Very bizarre. It was also frustrating in the fact that now that Clara exists, it is as if I don't exist at all. I had a cold too and not a single person asked me how I was doing at all. Just because Clara is there it does not make me an less significant. It would be nice if there was some effort to acknowledge my existence at least.

Other than that, it was a good visit. It was nice that people were able to spend time with her and get to know what a great baby she is. Pictures, stories and videos can only show so much about what she is like.

We took her to Notre Dame today. I wanted to get her a cheerleading uniform but they did not have one in her size. Instead, she got some cute shirts and Matt got some fun shirts too. We also got some father's day present for Dale as well. We walked around campus. It was SUCH a beautiful day.

Whenever she is asleep, I want to go up there and hold her. But never wake a sleeping baby!

Get in my mouth!

Clara's new thing is to put everything in her mouth. And her tongue has been making unusual appearances as well. She just sticks it out whenever and on WHATever she wants. So far, she has pretty much sucked or bit any finger that has come across her mouth. The other day, she had Grandpa's finger in her mouth and she bit down really hard and it hurt him! She then bit her own finger and cried out after that. It was pretty funny.

I think she might be getting a tooth. I am not sure about that, but I was feeling around in her mouth and felt a little bump. The amount she is drooling and sticking things in her mouth, that is probably about right.

Her cold is not really getting better yet. She is still really stuffed up though. She does not like it when I put the saline in her nose and then suck it out. I guess that makes sense because I would not like that myself!

We are now trying to see if we can get Grandpa out to Chicago. But it does not sound like it is going to work out. Too bad, we needed the help!

Clara's first visit out East

Clara's first visit to New Jersey and New York has been quite eventful so far. The #1 first thing that she has done is she got her first cold :(. She got it from her cousins Nate and Maddie. Very sad. She is dealing with it well, probably better than I am! I think I am sick as well but I am not sure if it is because I have the same cold that Clara has or if it because I might have tooth infection that I know I need to take care of but have not yet. I am weird like that.

So this trip was to get Clara baptized. Cherie had planned it so Maddie and Clara could get baptized together at St. Elizabeth's. While I was at my parents, I was looking at pictures of myself with Father John at my First Communion. It was sort of funny to know that he would be baptizing my daughter. I never thought THAT would ever happen.

We left for NJ on Thursday morning and stopped in Cleveland for the evening. We stayed with Matt's friend Dave Jenkins. They have a son named Anthony and it was fun to see them. Clara was fine in the car on Thursday. We had a stop in Indiana with a client so she at least had a break from the car. The second day on the way to NJ was not as easy. Baby doll just likes to be picked up after she wakes from a nap and you can't do that in the car. So then after I while she starts to cry and gets very unhappy.

On Friday, we arrived in NJ and stopped at Heather's to meet her daughter, Charlotte. I cannot believe how quickly you forget what a newborn is like. Charlotte is so little a new. Clara was like that not too long ago and I already have a hard time remembering. It made me sad.

After that, we arrived at Cherie's. Though a little late because the kids had already gone to bed. It was fun to show off Clara to her, that little baby makes me so proud and she has not done really that much yet except for exist. Cherie seemed to have fun hanging out with Clara.

The next morning, Clara got to meet her cousins Maddie and Nate. She LOVED THEM! They made her giggle and talk and she really interacted with them. It made me sad that they are not closer together because I really like the three of them would thrive together. I will just have to make sure we take a lot of trips to see them so they can be together. We got our selves all ready for the day and went to my parents so the family could see baby doll and hang out. It was a long day of people grabbing her and holding her. People love the Clara doll. It was nice of her to see the family for the first time. My parents seemed in awe of how much she has grown since they saw her last.

We hung out with the family after the Ryghs left so Matt could watch the basketball game with the guys. After that we went back to Cherie's and hung out there a little bit.

The next day was a big day of the baptism. The ceremony itself was nice, sort of thrown together, but nice. It was sort of cool to do it at Saint Elizabeths. After that, we had the reception at the clubhouse. It was sort of a hard day because there were so many people there and it was hard to get her to sleep or take a nap.

On Monday, we went to JC Penneys and had a photo shoot with Clara and Maddie. It was a lot of work because someone had to have their hands on the girls and keep track of Nate's whereabouts. He likes to run away! Clara sort of got tired of the whole thing, and thinking back now, it is probably when she started feeling sick so she was a bit cranky. Though we did get good pictures of the two of them. I am excited to receive them.

Today, our first day in Rochester, Dad took the day off and we hung out with him. I slept in, I really needed it because that night was hard. Clara was really having a hard time breathing and was up a lot. I think she would wake up a little, realize that she could not breath and that woke her up. I was up many times and after about 4 times, I made Matt get up and get her. I felt so bad for her. She was having such a hard time breathing. I ended up sleeping until 10 AM. I really needed it! I was exhausted. Then we took her to meet her great grandmother whom she thought was hilarious! She giggled up a storm for her. Matt certainly has the Cintineo worry because Sadie was so concerned about so many things. She would have given her a pork chop and orange juice if she had been left alone with Clara.

We went to Target to pick up some things, like a nightlight so I would not have to kill myself trying to get to her room at night. After that, we took her to meet Marty and Rosie. They seemed to have a lot of fun with her! I need to remember to add their present to the present list so I can write thank you notes....

OK, Matt is asleep next to me snoring and I know I better get to bed because baby doll gets up early. She has a humidifier tonight so hopefully that will help her sleep. I hope so because I don't think I can take a night like last night again! That was hard work especially since I was sick as well. Though I am beginning to feel much better.

Good night!