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!