No more whining PLEASE

Clara has been whining a LOT lately. I am trying to teach her that her first instinct should not be to whine but to ask nicely. She listens... sometimes. I think her cuspids are bothering her as they come in because she has been a little cranky lately. Yesterday, she threw her first BIG fit for Heather. It was pretty funny because normally I am the only one who gets them. I was downstairs listening to the whole thing. I am not sure what started it, I think it was something like she did not want to share with Preston. She started to cry and Heather could not do much to calm her down. She finally did after a few minutes only because Monty came into the room and meowed, most likely to tell her, KEEP IT DOWN! Too funny.

Da Cat Hat

Clara's new favorite book is The Cat and The Hat. She asks for it specifically at book time, "Da Cat Hat?". Sometimes she will walk over and get the book and bring it to you. She is pretty particular about what books you read to her! I am just glad that she still loves book time with her Daddy at night.

Grandpa was just in town for a week helping with getting things ready for the nursery and miscellaneous things around the house. Clara LOVES her Grandpa. She would follow him around the house as he is trying to work saying, "Grandpa! Grandpa! Grandpa! Grandpa!" over and over and over again. One morning, she got so upset as he worked around the house and she could not follow him that we had to leave because she started to cry each time she saw him and he was too busy tasking to stop and play!

We got a lot done including reorganizing the garage, which was quite a feat! For the nursery, we painted a bookshelf we had in the garage and Matt's old changing table for the new room. Recycling at it's best.

Singing along

Clara really likes it when I sing to her. Current favorite are Twinkle, Twinkle, ABCs, and the wheels on the bus. When I sing Twinkle, Twinkle, she says the twinkle part, How I wonder, Up above and diamond. She definitely likes to sing along. She LOVES the beep beep beep part of wheels on the bus. It is so funny. Then she will say TOWN at the end of each part.

Another quirk I wanted to note of hers is something she has been doing for a long time but I just do not want to forget about it. When she is tired, she starts playing with her ears. She basically takes her pointer finger and plays with the top part of her ear. She sort of lines it with her finger. It is a telltale sign of when she is tired. She was doing it today at lunch. I took her and Katlyn to the Rainforst Cafe and she was pretty tired before she was eating. She started to yawn and lined her ear. She was a little afraid of the place. There was a tiger there that would randomly roar and it made her nervous. Plus, every now and then, there would be a thunder and lightening. She liked to look at the fishies but she was a little young for it. She slammed her Mac and cheese (or as she says, Mac cheese). She LOVED it. Thank goodness her appetite is back. She ate dinner last night and breakfast and lunch today. And her fever is practically gone. This morning she said Caca forehead better, Caca teeth better. She also has these two sores on her chin that sort of look like zits. She said Caca whiskers better. She is so funny sometimes.

My sick baby

Clara has gingivostomatitis which is a big word for swollen gums and general unhappiness. She has had a high fever for the past 5 days and I took her to the doctor on Monday for some help! She is so miserable. It hurts to eat and she often just wakes up crying from what I am certain is from being in pain. I feel so bad. Though I am so tired and a bit miserable myself since I get so tired by the end of the day carrying this big belly around and caring for her. Heather is in Jamaica this week so no reprieve!

LONG car trip

We just got back Rochester, a trip we decided to DRIVE in our new minivan. Clara was a perfect angel on the drive out there. She did so well. Mostly because she got to watch TV for the first time. She LOVES "Finding Nemo" and asked for it each time we sat in the car. Neno Neno Neno! She LOVED it. We did not even have to have the sound on for her, she just watched the fish swim around.

The only problems we had on the trip besides being in non-baby proofed houses was the sleeping situation. Right now, Clara does not do too well when she is sleeping in the same room as us. She wakes up in the middle of the night, sees us and thinks it is time to play! It started when we were staying at the Jenkins' place. Clara woke up in the middle of the night crying and I picked her up because she was crying and I did not want her to wake anyone else up. I brought her into bed with us and she did not lay down. She pretty much labeled all the parts of our bodies she knows and thought it was play time! I brought her downstairs and we sat in a chair for 2 hours where she eventually fell asleep in my arms and only slept for about two hours. It was pretty brutal. She did it again when we were in Canandaigua for our "vacation". We were in the same room and we woke up to Clara saying "Daddy hug" around 2 AM.

Other than those issues, Clara had a lot of fun. We had Grandpa's retirement party, Clara got to go on a museum trip and Grandma and Grandpa and we went on our first lake vacation with Clara. Clara LOVED playing at the beach and was so exhausted from it, she slept for about 4 hours!

ABCs and 1 to 10

Clara is talking SO MUCH now. There is basically no word that she is willing to conquer and she learned most of her ABCs and can recite them mostly. She tends to do ABCDFGHIKPRSTUVWXYZ. She can also do 1-10 perfectly all on her own. I had no idea she would pick it up so quickly. She actually wanted to learn it and asks me to sing the alphabet son all the time. We were in Rochester and she said 1-10 in front of practically everyone. Everyone was so impressed!

Molars are IN!

After many many many months of thinking they are coming in, they are officially in and Clara has been SUPER cranky over how much it has been hurting her. So much so, that sometimes she gets so upset, she won't even open her mouth for Tylenol. She has had her hand in her mouth constantly for the last week. The first "real" one to come in is her left bottom one. I thought the top ones were going to break first but they half broke through and have stayed like that for a while now. That bottom one is completely through now and the one on the left hand side is sure to follow soon. These one year molars are a disaster! I can't even imagine how uncomfortable it is for her. The poor thing. She sure has been a hand ful lately. She says No way too often now. You ask her anything, even if she wants it and her first reaction is to say No. It is quite lovely really.

Talking in her sleep

Matt and I were sitting downstairs watching television and over the monitor we heard Clara talking. I paused the TV and I did hear the last word she said. It was bubbles. We think she was talking in her sleep! How funny is that?!?

CA-CA

Clara calls herself Ca-ca. It is actually pretty funny. The funniest things she says is when she poops. She will say Ca-ca Poo poo! :)

Today we were sitting playing with Legos and she was handing Legos to Matt and I saying Mommy, Dadddy, Ca-ca as she passed out the Legos.

The other funny thing she does is when you look in her diaper to see if she pooped and she had not, she will say, No no poo poo.

Talk-ity talk talk talk

Clara is talking A LOT! She has a lot of words, so many I can't even count and she surprises me all the time about what she knows how to say. What I find very sweet at this age are the words she sort of does not get 100% or changes to baby-talk. I think one of my favorites right now is when she wants to get in something. Waggy In-y. Is in the wagon. For the most part though she uses the words completely. Clara is sick right now :(. She has a bit of a fever and a runny nose. This morning when I got her up, she said Nose, mommy, nose telling me that her nose was stuffy. After her bath this evening, she wanted a hug and came up to me saying hug mommy hug. Right now she is saying no a lot but she says it so well. She says no no mommy no no. I think she says no whenever she means yes. She just likes to excercise her right to say no. I sort of liked it better when she was saying yes all the time!

Want

Clara is really talking. She is so good about saying please when she wants something, though she still has to be egged on to say Thank You. The funniest thing she does lately is if she asks for something and you don't know what she is saying, I usually ask her "What do you want?". Her answer is usually, "Want".

18 months!

Clara is now 18 months. At her doctor's appointment she was 20 lbs 9 ounces and 30 3/4 inches tall. Evelyn is HUGE compared to her, weighing in at 25 lbs 4 ounces and measuring 33 1/2 inches. They are most certainly no where near the same size!

Clara is talking up a storm. It has been fun teaching her thing like the difference between off and on (something we did repeatedly yesterday when she was putting her shorts on and off). This age is great except for the tantrums and the frustration. I feel bad for her because she wants to try things she can't quite do yet, like buckle and unbuckle her seat. She does not quite grasp that she has limits right now and causes a lot of anger.

Right now Clara is eating waffles and grapes for breakfast. I asked her this morning if she wanted grapes or strawberries for breakfast and she picked grapes. That is fun as well. The food thing is getting hard though. She is awfully picky. Getting her to eat different things is a bit of a challenge. We went to Cheesecake factory when Heather and Charlotte came to visit and she would not even TRY a piece of cake or whipped cream. She missed out! She does know she likes ice cream though because Daddy got a bar from the ice cream man and she helped him out after he convinced her several times to try it.

The one food concept that Clara just does not understand yet is the whole dip and eat. She will dip her food in something (like BBQ sauce) and lick it off, not eat whatever she dipped in the BBQ sauce. She is pretty funny!

Though yesterday we had a bit of a food breakthrough. We went to lunch at Panera and we got her a grilled cheese sandwich. We were not sure if she would eat it because in the past, sandwiches are really not her thing (even if it is with cheese her favorite thing ever), but we cut it up into small pieces, gave her a fork and she at the whole thing! I was so impressed. I think she was very busy checking out the world around her to sort of notice she was eating but she did a great job. Something tells me though that I won't have as much luck with grilled cheese if I made it at home. One way to find out!

Molars are in!

Clara officially cut her first molar a couple of days ago. Well, half of one. The one on her left side is half in. The half towards the back. I feel so bad for her. It must hurt a lot. Her hands are constantly in her mouth. She can almost fit her whole hand in her mouth. She is talking SO much now. She can do the alphabet to G with help from us and can count to four. I say one, she says two, I say three and she says four. Pretty neat!

Mommy toot

Clara is talking so unbelievably much. I would say in the last week alone she picked up 20 words. She will start saying something that I did not even know she knew. For example, she was vacuuming with her toy vacuum and was saying vacuum over and over again for a few minutes before I even realized she was doing it. At dinner tonight, I burped and she said Mommy burp. Too funny. She calls pillows pum pums. Most of the time she gets it right. She has no "l"'s though. So a turtle is a tuttle. I could not even list all the words that she has because there are so many! Recently added to the list is:

- pants, shirt, shoes, socks, turtle, fishy, blanket, apple, burp, toot, outside, upstairs, downstairs, milk, hot, all done (which she started saying TODAY along with the sign), pretty (which she signed and said to the mother's day cards I made), vacuum, tickle, toes, hair, nose, chin, cheek, eye, ear, teeth, bee bo, cat, doggie, plane and I am sure many more.

Your face

Clara can label parts of my face. She is pretty good. She does hair, eye, ear, mouth, nose and chin. She actually said chin and hair for the first time when we were on the webcam with Grandma and Grandpa. The rest of the words she has been saying for a while.

Clara also says Up (rather MUPPY) now when she wants to go up.

The going to bed book

For a while, we have been reading the "Going to bed book" as the last book before we put her down. Tonight, I was reading MANY books Clara before bed. When I had read about 8 books, I told her one more book and then she goes Ni-ni. I picked up the going to bed book and she would not me open it. She asked for "Peas bus" (which is please books) and would not let me read the LAST book. I picked up another book and she started to giggle because she knew she had gotten her way. After I was done reading the other book, I picked up the going to bed book again and she tried to stop me reading it again! Too funny.

Clara has picked up a lot of words lately. She says plane now (pane), know where the sky and grass it. She will really try and repeat words when you ask her to say a certain word. Sometimes she gets it right, it is pretty funny though when she repeats it and it sounds completely different.

Around 4 o'clock today, we were all sort of tired because we were outside all day working on the patio. Clara had not taken a great nap earlier that afternoon. She had found lovey and a different kitty and was walking around the family room with the two of them up to her ear (she LOVES to do that) and saying "Ni-ni" over and over again. It was pretty funny. I actually did not even notice it, Matt pointed it out of me. Lately Clara has been constantly talking. Every now and then you will hear a word that you recognize, but most of the time, they are just sentences without real words.

Outside

Clara LOVES it outside. Ever since the weather has gotten nicer, she clings to the screen door as soon as the door is open. She runs and runs and runs around outside and could play out there forever. She also likes to play in the dirt. We had some work done in the backyard and she was playing with the dirt, breaking it into chunks. At one point, she threw some up in the air and accidentally got some in her eyes. She was OK.

Clara has been saying more complicated things. Yesterday she brought over her favorite jungle puzzle and the hippo piece was missing. She said "Where's this?". I could not believe it.

She also asked to go downstairs when she woke up this morning. I was not sure what she said at first but I realized that I had heard her say the word before and I finally figured it out. She says it sort of like "Down-st". She says DOWN very well and ALL the time when you are holding her and she does not want to be anymore.

Hi

Clara: 17 months
I have not done a good job tracking Clara's progress lately, mostly because I have been so overwhelmed by how tired I have been. But now that I am feeling better, I really don't have an excuse.

One cute thing that Clara has been doing lately is when she is about to do something bad. She says "Hi" in this really sweet way. For example, when she is sitting in her chair (the hard one from Matt's mom) she says Hi right before she stands up in the chair which she KNOWS she is not allowed to do. I have noticed that she will do naughty things when she wants our attention to. But she is not too naughty which is a good thing.

Clara has a lot of words now. Matt taught her how to say "gorilla" when we were at the Lincoln Park zoo. We went to the zoo and the aquarium when Cherie, Gary, Nate and Maddie came to visit last week. She LOVED the zoo and the aquarium. The whole time we were at the aquarium, she said "fishy fishy" the whole time. She really liked the underwater section where you could see the dolphins and beluga whales. The zoo was very exciting for her. When she saw something she liked, she flapped her arms and squelled. She LOVED it.

My big girl!

Clara is becoming a toddler at light speed. She is talking so much and no so many signs. Lately, we have been asking her all about the animals she knows. What does a cow, cat, dog, horse, sheep say? She knows all of those. And she learns things so quickly, especially signs. She signs , book, all done, more, food, water, milk, elephant, duck, cat, bear, and so many more I can't even think of it. She is saying all sorts of words now like pretzel, kitty, cookie, banana, duck, preston, heather, mommy, daddy, baby, teddy... she has at least 30 words. Though sometimes, she will say a word and never say it again. Like the word Chocolate. She said it perfectly one night and has not said it again since then! Too funny.

Another tooth

I noticed that Clara's bottom left tooth is coming in and the right one is also cutting. Very exciting. That is number 7 and 8. We have been waiting so long for them to come in. More teeth for her to use :)

Funny stories from vacation

We got back from a short little vacation at Lake Geneva yesterday. Clara is too much sometimes. I think she had a good time. THe first morning there, as soon as she was out of bed, she was grabbing her coat and wanting to get out and go. She was at the door, still in her PJs with one arm in her coat because that is all she can do by herself saying, BYE BYE. BYE BYE. She got pretty upset if we took her coat away and if we told her that it was not time to go bye bye. Apparently she was ready to go!

Another funny story is that Clara did not take a great nap the second day. So it was around 4 o'clock and we thought that we would put her down to see if she was ready for a nap. Needless to say, she was in NO mood and cried for about 20 minutes before we got her. Matt started to read her a book after that. Apparently she was not fully recovered from the not wanting to take a nap. Matt was reading her the baby book and on the last page, the baby goes to bed for the evening. All Matt said was "Baby goes Nigh-nigh" and Clara LOST it. She started to cry with the biggest poutiest face and big tears. She was so upset. I think she thought Matt was going to put her down again. Matt and I actually both started to laugh but I felt so bad because she was so upset. That baby is getting too smart!

Cold

Clara has another cold. We had done such a great job getting this far without her getting another cold and lo and behold, RIGHT before our vacation, Clara has a runny nose. She was pretty miserable today. She can thank Evelyn for this one! She was here this past weekend coughing and being rather snotty.

Clara really has started talking the last couple of days. She said Preston and Heather yesterday and appears to be repeating a lot of what we are saying. She tries pretty hard and sometimes she can say it pretty well. It is actually pretty neat. We better start watching what we are saying around her because she is repeating a ton right now.

Preston

Clara said "Preston" today. Too funny!

Monty and Mommy

Clara says pretty much the same word for Monty and Mommy. Monty is sort of a Momma and I am a Mommy. There is a subtle difference and Matt thinks that it is pretty funny that she does that.

No Mommy

Clara:
Over the last few days, every now and then, Clara will go through this phase where she does not want ANYTHING to do with me. I think it started on Sunday when I asked her for a kiss. She went as far as crying when I tried to kiss her. She was all over her dad. She even said no to a kiss from me and then asked for a kiss from Matt. What is that all about?!?! She did it today again when Heather was here. It is short lived because earlier that day she was giving me lots of hugs. I feel so bad but I sort of feel like I am ignoring her a little because I have been feeling so poorly lately. I can't wait until the next trimester because I don't think I could feel any worse!

Baby:
We had our first doctor's appointment today. Things went well and we saw the baby's heartbeat. Everything seemed to look good by my untrained eye :). I had a few tests and had to answer a lot of questions. The oddest one is something I am not too sure about. It is a 24 hour urine test. I have to pee in this giant pee bucket for 24 hours. Sort of gross and weird. Not sure how I feel about that. I think I am going to have a hard time doing it every time.

Menum menum menum

When Clara meows, she says Menum menum menum. It is so funny. She was doing it pretty much all evening long starting when she was watching Monty eat the cheese that she had dropped on the floor during dinner. She was being a bit of a monster at dinner tonight, a whole lot of screaming, and to appease the beast, we fed her shredded cheese. She loves it. Though it usually causes her to get upset because she spreads it all around her tray and she is very unaware of how much cheese is on her tray because it is spread ALL around.

Did not know the scarecrow and the tin man felt that way about each other!

Yesterday, Clara was playing with her Wizard of Oz toy and I saw her making the scarecrow and the tin man kiss each other. She was even making her kissy noise! I saw Matt do that a few weeks ago and he said that was the only time he did it. I can't believe she remembered.

Today Clara got her first haircut! We went to the salon and everything. It is called Klips for Kids in Schaumburg and she did SO well. They took off about 3 inches. There was another kid there that was crying pretty bad. She seemed more concerned for him than what was going on with her so that sort of kept her distracted. The only time she seemed bothered was when they were cutting her bangs. They even curled her hair and put it up in a pony tail for us. She lost a lot of hair today!

Yes and No

The fun new thing with Clara is getting her to make choices. She says yes pretty often and says no whenever she means it. This evening, Matt and I got a good laugh when Clara was fussing in his lap during book time. She was climbing up his arm trying to get to a different book. Matt asked her if she wanted more books and she said Yes. When he asked her if she wanted to go to sleep. She said No. It sounds pretty simple but it is just a new step and so funny right now. Sometimes, when I ask her if she wants something to eat and she wants it, she shakes her head yes. When I ask her if she wants something she does not want, she just stares at me. Currently, I am taking THAT as a no!

15 month appointment

Clara:
Clara had her 15 month doctor check up yesterday. She is now 19 lbs and 1 ounce and 29 1/2 inches! I officially turned her car seat around the other day because her legs seemed to be getting too long and it seemed right for a change! She was not really sure what to think about it at first but the second car trip we went on (to the doctor's actually), she was really excited and started yelling in excitement. Glad she likes it! I need to figure out a way to see her in the rear-view mirror now. It is not as easy as looking in the mirror anymore.

Clara got three big shots yesterday. I don't know if it is because she is older now or I am doing shots all the time but I was really scared for her this time. Clara was so upset. I felt to sad and almost cried for her! She even started to cry again after I was putting her clothes on again. She must have been scared. She napped again in the afternoon so she must have felt something from those shots.

Baby:
Last night was the first night of many I am sure of many where I had to get up and pee! Though it does make testing for my ketones in the morning easier because I don't have to wait for the second pee to test. So far, it is either trace or negative. Actually the last couple of days have all been negative. When I talked to Dr. Heymann on Wednesday, he told me he wants me to start changing my insulin numbers myself to see how I do until Monday. So far it is OK, I still can't get the morniing numbers down and I have a feeling that might have something to do with stress. I am already doing three shots a day.

Horsey

Clara did something rather funny this afternoon. I was laying on the Pegasus (which Clara HATES) and she got pretty upset about it because she was cranky. She started to cry as she was standing near me and signed horsey a few times. It was so funny and pathetic, I had to let her have the horse even though her need to keep everyone off, EVEN ELMO, is ridiculous!

Where's the lion?

Matt taught Clara a new trick. When you ask here where the lion is, she growls really low and really quietly. It is HILARIOUS! It is such a cute little trick. She does it pretty consistenly too.

Clara's new favorite thing is playing this Fisher-Price game online that is called Animal Sounds. It shows two animals and makes a sound of one of the animals. You have to pick the right one. Clara learned how to sign elephant and fishy from this game. She LOVES it. The pain though is whenever she sees someone on the computer, she thinks it is animal sounds time.

bye bye bye bye bye bye bye

Yesterday when Heather and Preston left, Clara started to wave bye bye and walked around saying "Bye Bye Bye Bye Bye Bye Bye Bye Bye" over and over again while they were getting ready to leave. It was really sweet.

First Time Out

I gave Clara her first time out today. She was being a bit naughty, mostly because she was tired and we were keeping her up a little later to watch the Superbowl. I was laying on her horsey and she does not like it a lot of the time when people do that. She walked over to me, pulled a bunch of my hair and pulled it! I gasped when she did it because I was more surprised than anything that she did it. Where did she even get that idea?!?!? Anyway, she did it two more times and then walked over to the tent and was rolling on the walls and she knows that she is not alowed to do that. So I took one of the small green chairs that goes with the table and told her she was sitting in a time out. She is actually too small for the chair and can't get out of it. So I sat next to her to make sure she did not fall out. She was asking for help trying to get out (help help and arms up) and I said no, you are there for one minute. I doubt I even waited that long, picked her up, told her she needed to say sorry (which that part I am SURE she did not understand) but I think for a 14 month old, it went rather well.

On a more exciting note, I think Clara might have a brother or sister in the works. I took a test this morning and it was faintly positive within the time limit. I will take another test in two days but I am sure it is it. I am already late three days!

Making Clara giggle

Yesterday, Matt asked Clara for a kiss and then pretended to fake cry when she shoke her head no. Clara thought it was HYSTERICAL! She started to laugh every time he did it. Too funny.

Baby, Kitty, Duck

Lately, Clara has categories the whole world into three categories:

1) Baby (but she says Daddy because she has no B's)
2) Kitty (still Titty)
3) and DUCK

She started to do the bird symbol when she says it. Ducks include, but not limited to, eagles, frogs, any bird, and of course ducks. Most animals that have four legs and are furry are kitty's and basically everything else is a baby.

Clara also started to say Banana today. She says "NA NAAAAAAAAAAAAA". It is pretty cute. Amanda and Ryan got her a shopping cart and it has a play banana. She LOVES it.

She also started to make a dog noise. It is sort of like panting but it is more breathing in and out of a puckered lips.

She seems like she is communicating more and more everyday!

This weekend we went to hang out with Carrie, Eric, Patrick and Colin. She had a lot of fun with them. There was also another little girl there named Evelyn who sort of looks like our Evelyn. Everyone was older than Clara and she tried hard to keep up! Matt was playing a chase game with the kids and Clara was slowly following them screaming loudly and holding a hotwheel close to her body. It was so funny. They would all be ripping around the corner and a few minutes later, Clara would be toddling around the corner putting around with her cute little dress and tights on yelling in happiness. I wish I had taken a picture!

Spoon wielding, ear throbbing maniac

Clara used her spoon for almost all of her breakfast this morning. Pretty impressive. She was eating Cheerios and she ate them pretty much all with her spoon. Except for the pile of soggy Cheerios on her chest and in her lap.

On Friday, Clara got diagnosed with her first ear infection. I felt so bad. I took her in because her cough was getting a little worse. At first, the doctor listened to her lungs and said she was going to get better soon, but then he checked her ears. He said it was pretty bad. She is on 10 days if amoxicillan. SHe seemed to be having a hard time laying down when she was sleeping and has often been waking up crying really hard. My poor little girl.

Please

After reading an article in Newsweek last week that stated something along the lines of toddlers that know sign language are around 11 months ahead of their non-signing counterparts, Matt is totally into teaching Clara signing. He successfully taught her "Please" in a matter of two days and now she does it. It is SO hard to say no when she says "Please". Just now, she was trying to open a drawer that she is not supposed to get into nor can she get into herself. She first asked for help, and when I said no. She said please. And when I still said no, she threw herself on the ground!

Sick again

Clara has a cold again :(. She is a bit clingy and cranky over the whole thing. She woke up a couple of times in the middle of the night crying pretty hard. The other day, she was hugging me so tight and cuddling on my right shoulder that she was squeezing my neck. I was trying to transfer her to the other shoulder because I was on the phone and she was laying on my earphone microphone, but she wanted NONE of it and got pretty upset. Matt calls that the koala bear. She can hold on pretty tight.

She was pretty clingy all day today. And you make the wrong move and WATCH OUT! She was pretty testy today.

Clara's new favorite breakfast

Clara's new favorite breakfast is Cheerios with milk in a bowl and spoon. She gets SO excited when she gets it. She does the hum and the kick, the highest of compliments. Good thing I buy Cheerios in bulk from Costco. Between Matt and Clara, they are disappearing fast around here.

Clara is really walking around now. She does it for the most part of the day. Her only task is really to toddle around. She does have her spills here and there but she takes them in stride and keeps on a-walking.

Her latest thing is how to tackle the step between the kitchen and the family room. She always used to scoot over it on her butt but now she is trying to figure out a way to walk down it. So far no luck. Her legs are just too little for such a big step. Yesterday she tried to go head first for some reason and fell off. Did not cry though... that's my girl!

Kisses please

When I ask Clara for a kiss, sometimes she will shake her head no, and then I will gasp, and then she will laugh a little. She will then pick her head up, pucker her lips, and humms like she wants a kiss. It is so darn cute. She makes that same humming noise when she kisses something in a book, or in general whenever she wants a kiss. She asks for kisses a lot!

Cheese

At lunch today, Clara said "Cheese" for the first time. I was saying cheese over and over again and she finally said it! Her favorite food is now labeled.

Clara was a bit crazy today. All over the place and a lot of yelling. Her nap schedule is a bit messed up lately. They say when they start walking, which Clara does more and more every day, that their nap schedule gets a little crazy.

It is so funny seeing Clara walking. I was in the bathroom filling up her tub and around the corner she calm toddling away. It is sort of funny to watch Clara walk when she is tired because she gets really sloppy. Falling all over the place and not really paying attention to where she is going and what she is doing. When she is tired, she will just throw her body at her destination. If it is you, that's OK because you can catch her. But if it is a toy, not such a good turn out.

Following more one line commands

When I ask Clara for a kiss, she will either raise up her head for a kiss or slap you in the face! It is pretty funny though. It is so sweet when she does want that kiss. Clara will also retrieve things if you ask her to. I asked her the other day where her shoe was and she looked down at her foot (which was missing her shoe) and she looked around for her shoe.

Officially Walking

As of yesterday, I would say that Clara is officially walking. When her friends were over, she was toddling around more and pretty much kept it up all day. It also seems like she is doing less of the penguin walk and more of a real walk! Today at her gym class, it was the first time she was really walking around. She is so funny because she will start to walk but does not do the best job stopping. When it is Matt or I that she is walking to, she basically throws herself at us because she knows we will catch her! Matt was telling me that she did that to my grandmother and she basically let Clara fall face first into the ground. Nice.

Clara thinks walking is funny. Sometimes as she is walking with her hands up and out, she just starts to laugh as she walks. She usually also has a big smile on her face. I think she is having fun with it.

Happy New Year

Welcome 2006! We did not do to much for celebrating since we just stayed at home. We paused the movie at 11:00 to watch the ball drop in NYC. Clara started to cry in her room right when Dick Clark was counting down. At midnight, our neighbor was lighting some fireworks and we were worried that they would wake Clara up! Luckily, she stirred a few times but did not wake up.

Today, Clara had her playgroup friends over. She had a good time playing with her friends. It was the first time we had playgroup here. She really likes to watch the other kids play and sometimes has a hard time sharing her toys :). She seemed to practice walking a little bit more as she was watching the other kids walk.

"Tiss"

So I think Clara said Kiss this morning. Matt was on his way out to work and Clara and I were sitting at the breakfast table. Matt kissed me goodbye and Clara put up her arms and said "TISS!".

She picked up her face and let Matt give her a big kiss and then she smiled :)

Independant ME

Clara really seems to be exerting her independance these days. She is much more opinionated about what she does and how she wants things done. She complains quite loudly and gives that "pucker" face when she wants to do something and you tell her no. Heather was just telling me she does that face a lot when she is trying to get her to share with Preston.

I am sitting downstairs working and I hear her complaining quite loudly because Heather is probably trying her to make her share! Oh boy! I am in for a lot of trouble with that baby girl :)

Demands demands demands :)

Ever since everyone left for Christmas, Clara has been pretty demanding. I came up after working yesterday and I picked her up. She immediately asked for help and I got her the animal she wanted. She then asked for milk. It was actually pretty neat that she used sign language like that. I am going to figure out a few more signs to teach her.

She wants to be held ALL THE TIME by me right now. I think she missed me with all these other people around.

Help

Clara learned how to do the help sign on the 22nd. Very exciting! It is a useful one. Today Matt was holding her down giving her kisses and she started to do the help sign. Pretty funny!

Christmas

My parents were here for Christmas and Clara really warmed up to them. She really seemed to like my dad and would do the monkey smile for him on command EVERY single time. It is always funny too. It is really rather adorable.

My grandmother was also here yesteday and Clara really did not like her. Whenever my grandmother would want to hold her, Clara would turn away and she even swiped at her a couple of times. Naughty baby!

Clara got a lot of toys for Christmas and some clothes. I think she had a good time but did get overwhelmed with all the presents that we even stopped opening them and several of them are still sitting under the tree unopened! She is too young this year to know and every now and then I will pull out a present for her to open. She starts out getting excited about opening presents but then sort of slowly gets bored with it and has yet to really rip into anything. She was afraid of some toys though! We got her these cars that go when you bring them back and they move forward. For some reason, she is afraid of the orange one. I have not figured that one out yet!

Overall, I think Christmas was a success. Dinner was great. I made my first turkey dinner and I thought it came off rather well! It was fun to make it.

Come here kitty "titty"!

Clara has been doing this for a while and I don't think I have mentioned it yet but when she sees the cats and wants to call them over, she scratches on the carpet like Matt and I do. She does not do it very effectively because she does not do it very loudly but it is so cute that she picked that up. She loves her kitties.

As Matt says, somedays she walks up, rubs her eyes, and says "KITTY!".

Clara's Meals at 13 months

For breakfast, Clara pretty much eats a half a banana that I cut in half longwise and toast strips. She LOVES to drink her milk in the morning as well. I could give her the banana whole but I think she gets frustrated with it sometimes and seems much better when I cut it in half.

For lunch, I usually give her some cold cut strips, a cheese stick (which is her favorite), grapes and some sort of cracker or veggie booty or something.

For dinner, it is varying. I am trying to give her veggies at this meal but I am really not having much luck getting her to eat. Usually it is some sort of pasta (which she loves), chicken if I have it on hand, some veggie, and whatever Matt and I are eating. The other day, I gave her some spinach, mushroom and chicken and she did not like that too much. Last night I gave her a grilled cheese sandwich and she did not seem to like that either! I was surprised at that. Cheese and bread, what is there NOT to love!

Machine gun laugh, BREEEEEHHHH, and touch your nose to the ground

One evening, Clara started yelling at around 10:00 at night and Matt and I got her because we were not sure what happened. In order to calm her down, Matt usually takes her to his office because for whatever reason, it is THE room that works for her. He has a couple of X-Wings in his office and she noticed them. Matt started making one of them "fly" and he was making machine gun noises with it. Clara thought it was HYSTERICAL! After that, when she gets excited sometimes, she laughs like a machine gun. It is SO funny. I got it on tape!

Sometimes, when Clara pets the cats she makes this noise that I wish I could spell it properly. But it is something like. BRRRWEEEHHHHHHH. It is SO sweet. I was trying to get it on tape to remember it but I couldn't last time I tried.

At class on Saturday, the makeup class we did, Clara touched her nose to the ground for the first time! I was working with her to do it a few days ago and she remembered it and did it during class. I was so proud.

Coloring

About a week ago, I decided to start Clara on coloring to see if it would be an activity that she would enjoy. I think she is beginning to like it! I know she definitely likes the crayons. She likes to carry them around like she does with the forks and spoons from her play kitchen and when I take them away from her, she gets pretty made. I was on my computer and I saw Clara go over to her little table, pull off the crayons and the coloring book and start to pull all the crayons and start to color. She seemed to enjoy taking the crayons out and putting them back in the container more than the actual coloring, but I am sure she is eventually going to love it!

A little white lie? Or just a neat trick?

I am sitting here watching Clara eat breakfast and I think she just learned a new trick. To cross her fingers. She is doing with with her left hand (because her right is gripping a fork) and she keeps doing it over and over again. She was watching herself do it as she mastered this new trick!

Milk, Books, Utensils

Clara is really beginning to enjoy whole milk which is a comfort to me since we weaned about two weeks ago. She loves it. I love it when she goes, "AHHHHHHHHHH!" after she takes a big drink.

Her new favorite book right now is this Dora the Explorer book that the Clancy's bought her. It has these buttons on the right hand side that go along with the story but Clara just enjoys making all the fun noises. She says "Duck" when you make the little duckie quack!

For her birthday, my mom got her this huge kitchen set and she loves it. The kid has a thing for utensils. It is so funny. She likes to crawl around with them and use them at meals. I started giving her things on plates and giving her more utensils during meals.

Monkey Smile

Clara has this funny smile that we have dubbed the Monkey Smile. She smiles really big and squints her eyes and looks up. She does it so randomly and she just sort of started to do it when you say Monkey Smile. She does make it cheesier and bigger when you say Monkey Smile too. So cute.

It is a much more pleasant experience than the Monkey Family I had to endure in college...

Where's your nose Clara?

Clara touched her nose for the first time today when you ask here where her nose is! I have been asking her for about a week and she does touch her hair when you ask her where her hair is, but when I used to ask her where her nose is, she would touch her hair instead!

Nik was over and I was trying to show him that she touches her hair when you ask about her nose, but instead, she touched her nose!

Now when she touches her nose, she decides to stick her finger up her nose. Since it is already there, why not!?!?!?

All about the hugs

Clara LOVES to hug me. It is so sweet. She will come up and reach for the hug and puts her head on my right shoulder. Sometimes she pats my back.

Stinky daddy

Forgot to mention, the whole time I was gone, Matt did not shower once because he could not find the time. He was stinky!

Gone for a weekend

I left Clara with Matt so I could go to Mols wedding. She did well but I don't think she slept into the morning one night and was up with Matt at 4 AM. She also was a bit whiny, might be teething or missing mommy.

When they picked me up at the airport, I caught Matt outside of baggage claim and hopped into the backseat of the car. Bad move, Clara wanted me to hold her stat and of course I couldn't. We ended up stopping at McDonalds so we could get out and I could eat lunch. She was not too happy to get back in the car! Overall, I think she missed me because I was required to cuddle for most of the day yesterday with her. She is the sweetest.

Clara's fun new things are: slapping her skin, mostly her tummy and chest when she is naked. It is hilarious. She now also pats me on the back when I hold her with her head on my shoulder because I often do that to her. She asked for milk this morning when she woke up and drank a whole sippy cup worth. She loves her moo juice!

She is learning more every day. The day before I left, she started taking steps into the great wide open. She is becoming a big girl!

Walking like a crazy monkey

Clara is def getting more confident with walking. She has been taking more and more steps and it is so funny to watch because it is so exaggerated. Her arms flap out to the side sticking straight out and she sort of walks with her legs sticking out to the sides. It is pretty neat to watch. I am going to be gone for a couple of days starting tomorrow and I hope that I don't miss too much while I am gone! I will be sad to miss any of it.

Directions to Matt for Molly's Wedding - his first weekend alone with her - just him!

December 2005

How to take care of Clara Rose

Daddy’s first big weekend alone with his little girl!

In the morning

When Clara wakes up, don’t forget to give her water, change her diaper, turn of the heater and humidifier.

Breakfast

For breakfast, give Clara some milk, ½ banana, toast strips until she tells you she is all done.

After Breakfast

It is play time and time to change Clara’s clothes.

Naptime #1

When Clara is tired put her down with her lovey and kitty. If it is chilly in her room, turn on her heater. Clara likes to be read to before her nap.

Lunchtime

Clara eats around noon. If you are hungry she is too! Feed her grapes, cheese stick, ½ a turkey slice, and some starch like veggie puffs, cheerios, bread, etc. I give her the starch last. She drinks milk with lunch as well.

After Lunch

This is a good time to get whatever you need to get done outside of the house. Please make sure you bundle her up no matter what her complaints are. AND SHOES SHOES SHOES please.

Naptime #2

Whenever she is tired.

Play time again

Play until dinner. She is most cranky and clingy at this time so don’t expect to get ANYTHING done other than be her sounding board.

Dinner

Mac and cheese is always a popular move. Try and give her at least one fruit or veggie with this meal. There are canned peaches and canned veggies (which I have to go buy so if there aren’t any I forgot to buy them- overcook the ones in the freezer, follow directions). If you get take out, Clara likes pasta or pizza. Make sure she does not eat too much of that or you WILL see it again later.

Bedtime

You know how to do this well so have fun! Give the BBD lots of hugs and kisses from her mommy!

Don’t Forget

1) The baby doll must wear socks and preferably shoes at all times
2) Turn on her humidifier and heater at 77 degrees on oscillate at night

3) Try and keep her hair back so she is not a shaggy dog. A clip is fine, just don’t put her down with the clip to sleep.

NO MORE SUCKA SUCKA

Clara and I officially stopped nursing on Sunday (12/4/05). I was not planning on stopping it that soon but they day sort of got away with itself and it made itself into a good day to cut out the last feeding. I believe it was last Wednesday when I realized that I was going to have to take the pump with me if I did not have here weaned by tomorrow. So I slowly started, took one feeding out after a few days and then Sunday rolled around and I had one feeding left to go, and between staying at Ryan and Amanda's for Evelyn's party and the Switchfast Holiday Party, we did not have time to feed her.

I must admit that Clara really only seemed to mind once or twice when she was being put down for a nap or bed, but I had a hard time with the transition. I always appreciated that time with her as a nice quiet cuddly time where I could play with her hair or rub her cheek. I always found it worth while, that year of nursing when I started to feed her and she was content and rolled her eyes, or closed her eyes in happiness.

That I will surely miss.

Though I cannot believe that I did it for so long and now she is a toddler that is almost walking!

She is certainly getting close, taking a few tentative steps here and there. She has made more headway in talking which is pretty funny. She says dog, doll, duck, done, kitty, mama, and dada. She also repeats sounds too. Nothing like teaching your one year old to moo!

Whine much?

Clara is SO whiny right now. She got a cold when we were in Pittsford and she is particularly crabby about it right now.

Clara is getting better at taking a few steps, maybe a little bit more adventerous! She really thinks about if before she does it and it is pretty great when she does take those steps. Watch out!

She is also doing a bit more sign language. She is doing the scratching thing (which looks just like MILK so not sure what to do about that) for the kitties and does ALL DONE all the time. I think she started to do more when we were away but it looked like clapping so who knows! I am sure it is though because she certainly understands the concept. When you ask her for more and she sees the plate of toast strips, she will point at it or drop the toast in her hand in order to accept more.

Clara has been getting up earlier and earlier. It might have to do with being in a different time change while we traveled and the fact that someone was willing to get her at her first peep in the morning.

Clara's new favorite toy is Hokey Pokey Elmo. She likes to dance to him. Grandma even got her a Elmo Get Up and Go book and she dances to that too. Today is the day we go to the toy store for her Christmas gifts so I am excited about that! Thanks Grandmas for funding her toys!

BIG STEPS!

Clara has been taking a lot of big steps lately. Yesterday, she was even crouched and stood up and then walked away a few steps. She really will crawl for her new kitty.

Clara just was doing something funny. She was playing with Grandpa's pool triangle and was putting it around her waist. Though she got mad when she could not take it off!

First Steps!

Clara officially toke her first steps today. She was standing near the television and in order to get over to the fireplace, she took two steps to get over there. Later, she took a step or two towards me from the fireplace. She is also getting a lot braver when it comes to walking with me, she will do it with one hand! I am excited :) She did this one day short of her first birthday!

DONE DONE DONE

Clara's new thing is she says done over and over again. "Done, done, done, done". She just sort of says it whenever. It is so cute.

She does all done when she is eating pretty much all the time now. I love it, I really hope she picks up some more sign language.

Clara's first birthday party

Yesterday we had a little party for Clara's birthday. Ryan, Amanda, Evelyn and Kelly came over to celebrate! Clara had a great time and was SO crazy after the party. She got all of her presents from my mom, Cherie and us yesterday. I think the hit of the presents was the giant pegasus that we bought her and the Hokey Pokey Elmo that my parents got her. She also really loves the Wizard of Oz thing. She likes to put all the characters from one bucket to the other. I had never seen her play with one toy for so long.

She kept kissing and hugging the "StarButt" as I have named him and it made her laugh when Matt made it dance.

Clara and Evelyn had their first taste of chocolate cupcakes made by Bad Aunt Kelly. Evelyn LOVED it and Clara had more fun watching Evelyn make a chocolate mess of herself than actually eating the cupcake. It was pretty funny.

Evelyn is completely walking now. It is so funny to watch her do it, it looks so darn uncomfortable to watch a baby learn how to walk. She seems to prefer scooting and crawling though when she wants to get somewhere fast. Evelyn is SO SO much bigger than Clara. Clara looks darn small next to her.

The funniest part of the day was when I gave Evelyn the same present that Amanda gave Clara. Too funny, the cute little backpack from a little bit of this. Very sweet!

After the party, Clara was completely crazy after her nap. She played and played and laughed and laughed. I think she liked her new toys!

Almost one

I cannot believe that Clara is almost going to be one. That just boggles my mind. I was looking at pictures of Clara's older pictures from when she was a few weeks old and she has grown so much since then.

She is learning so much now and is so interactive. We have been trying to teach her more sign language. She is having a very hard time learning "More" since it usually involves food and she gets so desperate about food. She will do it if we show her, then show her how to move her hands. But then she defaults to pointing and screaming. She is a stubborn one. She did do all done on her own will, she does that one sporadically.

My sweetheart

Clara is so sweet. She kissed a kitty in her book today. She and Smithers are really getting along well these days. Smithers lets her "pet" him but sometimes she gets really excited and starts to pound on him. I have taught her "gentle" and she does it sometimes! It is pretty funny because she starts to pet instead of pound at makes this "ss sss ss" sound which is similar to kitty. Matt and Clara spent the weekend at the Morans while I went to ND to see the Tennessee game and she was pounding on Colin and Carrie told him to be gentle so she did the same thing. Started to pet him like a kitty!

YELLING!

Sometimes I feel like Clara yells all day long! AHHHH!

I think she is having a hard time with the fact that I am working sometimes when we are home together since we no longer have a nanny. She is ALL over me while I am at my computer and when I pick her up, she cannot decide if she wants to be up or down. She is a little nuts that baby!

Well, it's official

Clara ate cat food

Standing!

Clara has been standing mroe and more lately. It is so funny because she is standing but does not really seem to be acknowledging the fact that she is doing so. For the longest time, she would not walk with me like most babies do. She would walk with her walker (LOOK OUT!) but for the most part if you had her two hands her legs would buckle underneath her.

Anyway, so I just pulled Clara away from playing with the cord to the iPod speakers and put her down in front of the toy box and she stood! For a few seconds too. The longest I have seen her do it.

Carrie

So we let Carrie go. I feel really bad about it because I am all about guilt, though I know I should not feel that way. We really gave her many chances and sometimes I feel taken advantage of. But I do feel bad that Clara and her have created a relationship and now that is over because Carrie made some poor choices. But there is not much I can do about that. It got to the point where I felt I could no longer trust Clara with her and that is certainly something I had to end.

Duck Du Du Du

Clara said duck through out her whole bath today. Duck du dudududududu. She is so funny. She seems to be saying Kitty more and more. We were in her room and she said Kitty when she saw one of them in the hallway before I even saw him, so she told me a cat was there!

For some reason, she had a cry fest this afternoon. I think it was because I was telling her no to touching my laptop and she might have been hungry. She seemed much better after dinner. She had some leftover pizza and I made her some pasta with peas and threw some tomato sauce on there.

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 :)!

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Clara's new sound is Bbbbbbb where she vibrates her lips and hummms. It is cute... but spit-y.

When did she get to be such a big girl?

Matt and I have noticed over the last few days that Clara is a big girl. She acts like one. She crawls like a big girl, acts like a big girl and IS a big girl.

Clara did something funny the other day in bed. She had her froggy (the bath one) and she was putting him to my lips and I was kissing him, then she put it to Matt's lip and he would kiss it. She did that a few times. Then she did it to Matt's nipple :). I thought it was really funny.

She has this new scream. Yesterday she was really cranky after Carrie left. I sat her down for dinner and fed her dinner and she cried and complained the whole time through bits. Her new favorite food is yogurt, she will eat so much of it, she will get sick later over it. She did it again at dinner tonight when Matt and I were eating (she was up past her bedtime because Matt had riled her up :)) she was sort of yelling over and over again. It was funny.

We love that baby :)!

The whirlwind is over

It has been a long time since I have posted mostly because there has been about a billion things going on!

First all the new things going on and then to random commentary:

1) I left Clara for the first time with Matt and his parents and all went well! I missed her so much but it was good to get away
2) Clara's two top teeth broke through today!
3) While I was gone, Clara learned to take a bottle and she now does less of the army crawling and now does big girl crawling!
4) Clara learned how to clap her hands in the last two days. They are silent claps, but claps nonetheless.
5) When Clara is upset now, she goes "Boom Boom". THAT is funny. She is definately talking more and saying new things everyday.

After I got back from the Ozarks, Matt's dad was here and helped Matt and I unpack some. That was very helpful! On Thursday, he came back with Evelyn and on Friday, Scott and Robert came for the weekend. Needless to say, it was crazy around here.

Evelyn and Clara are SO different. Evelyn is all go go go (just like her daddy!) and she is SO LOUD! Her new name is Everyell Owen. And I cannot believe the amount of food this child consumes. For dinner, she had about 1/2 jar of veggies, some cereal, 1/2 jar of veggie/meat mixture and then some fruit on top of it! It is amazing the amount of food she packs in. Clara eats about a 1/3 of what Evelyn eats in one day. No wonder Evelyn has surpassed Clara in weight. Though Clara is still chunkier than Evelyn. You play hard you gotta eat a lot to make up for it.

Evelyn certainly tired out her grandfather who watched her for the weekend while Amanda and Ryan were at Chris Guyer's wedding. It was fun to see the two girls interact. I saw a zerbet conversation this morning between the two of them. It was pretty funny. And they would follow each other around the room and sort of fight over the same thing. But they really did seem to enjoy each other's company. When Evelyn would yell, Clara would just sort of look at her in a dazed and confused look. And it happened often because Evelyn likes to give her tarzan yells pretty often!

More later, gotta post the pictures.

Clara's Life and Times

I wrote this for Matt's parents for when they would be watching Clara while I am at the Ozarks:

Clara’s Life and Times

Her basic schedule:
Below is Clara’s basic schedule. Rule #1 for her schedule, she does not really follow a schedule  but this is basically what happens everyday. Our days are rather fluid except on days when we have a class or something.

Around 5 AM: Clara wakes up once before she actually wakes up for the day. If you try and keep her up at this time, she gets very cranky so do your best not to actually wake her up very much or stimulate her enough where she cannot go back to bed. This includes talking or changing her diaper. Try giving her a bottle at this time, though I think a small one is all she needs because she just needs to be lulled back asleep again.

7-8 AM: Clara will wake up for the day. This is pretty much her happy time except if she wakes up on the wrong side of the crib. She LOVES to play. Matt knows ALL of her favorite toys.

About half an hour after waking up, changing her diaper, and playing in her pajamas, it is breakfast time!

Breakfast: Clara tends to not eat very much at breakfast. I usually make a small amount of cereal (see “Making Food” below) and some sort of fruit mixture. If it is a #1 container, I will make about half. If it is a #2 container, 1/3 will be fine. It is perfectly normal for you to make breakfast and she will refuse to eat ANY of it. Serve breakfast with water. Sometimes when she is eating, she gets thirsty and won’t eat until you give her some water. She prefers her water cold. While feeding her don’t let her get the spoon until the end of the meal or you will never get it back and it will cause a meltdown. Don’t forget to do the “EAT” symbol (see Matt for this) and “ALL DONE” when it is complete and before you take her out.

After Breakfast until first nap: Play, play, play (oh and change a poopy diaper, if it does not occur first thing, it usually hits between breakfast and her first nap).

Recently, Clara has not been taking her first nap ever since she has been sick. Not sure what that means for you guys! She has been going down for a nap at around 1 or so. And only take that one nap which means she is SUPER tired at bedtime and I have been moving everything up about half an hour because of it.

8:30 or 9 to 10 or 11 - First Nap: She takes her first nap EARLY. Signs of an impending nap are loud whining, clinginess, random outburst of crying, rubbing her eyes or scratching the hair around her ear. Give her a bottle before her nap in her room. The glider is perfect for it! If she is not too tired, I like to read her a book or two before feeding. If you are lucky, she will sleep for a while and you can clean up the mess she made at breakfast . (See “Putting Clara to Sleep”)

After her nap: Change her diaper and play play play! (See “Playing with Clara”)

Snack: Sometime after this nap and before her second one, if you want, go ahead and giver her a snack. This is a perfect finger food time. But not necessary. (Though is she is not taking a bottle well, it might not be a bad idea to get more nutrients in her)

1-3 – Second Nap: Her second nap is basically when she gets tired. It is all based on how well she slept for her first nap and activities that you guys did after her first one. For example, being outside totally wipes her out and she will sleep long and hard after that. This nap usually does not last very long. Feed her before you put her to bed.

After her nap: Change her diaper and play play play!

5:30- Dinner time! Clara eats more at dinner than she does at breakfast. We usually give her one or two veggies. I usually make more cereal and a little more veggies.

6-ish – Once she is done with dinner, we usually play a little in her room and then prepare her for bed. That takes a while because she LOVES her bath and one of her favorite things to do is play in her room. Matt very capable doing the bedtime routine so I won’t bother writing it down though some things Matt forgets:
1) Lotion her up after the bath
2) Vitamin her up – give her the TriViSol (the PolyViSol tastes HORRIBLE and she gags). .5 is OK. Keep a wash cloth handy to wipe her mouth!
3) Wipe well in all her fat crevices or else it will get irritated and bleed. Wipe under her chin (get in there good), behind her knees, in her folds near her private parts, and under her armpits. Those are notorious for holding water in there and getting irritated.
4) Brush her hair
5) Dump the tub water out of the duck so the toys don’t get mildewy and slimy
6) Brush her teeth with the toothbrush that has the little plastic bristles. It really does not do much but get her used to the idea of brushing her teeth.
After she is ready for bed, read her the Quack Quack book and any others. The Quack Quack one is her absolute favorite.
Oh, and lots of kisses and remind her how much her mommy misses her and is thinking about her every second of the day (with a margarita in her hand). Feed her before you put her down.

Bedtime is normally 7 PM. After that, you really should not hear from her. Sometimes she might cry in the middle of the night but we are trying to ignore her (as the doctor has stated would be best). If she gets SUPER upset, of course go in there and feed her before you put her down).

Lately, since Clara can stand in her crib now, we have actually had to keep her up a little later to calm her down and allow her to fall back asleep without getting too upset.






Putting Clara to Sleep
Oh this one is going to be a challenge! Here are some tips and pointers. Normally, I nurse Clara until she is at least calm from playing and then I put her down awake. This usually works out for me especially for her morning nap and going down for the evening. Sometimes she will cry when I put her down, but then after crying for about 5 minutes or less, she will just simply start to moan. Moaning usually leads to sleep, even if she moans for half an hour. It is important that she know how to put herself to sleep. So for example if she cries out at first when you put her down, that is OK. Give her time to calm herself down. However, there are always exceptions to the rule. I don’t like to leave her up there when she is crying so hard she is gasping for breath. If that occurs, we normally pick her up and walk her around to calm her down and then start the process all over again. Matt usually has some success walking her around on his shoulder until she is asleep. Clara likes to sleep with something in her crib, particularly the crocheted blanket I made her or the ducky cloth that you guys gave her. She likes to grab onto it when she is asleep and it comforts her. Since it can be warm, we usually leave the fan on the second option when we put her down and I check on her in the evening, I turn it down to the third option. Her room is the warmest one in the house.

Making Food
To make Clara’s cereal, we either give her the rice or oatmeal. I end to give her the oatmeal one because the giving her rice too many times in a row causes her to become stopped up a little. I usually wet the cereal enough where it is the same consistency as the food in the jars. She does not like it when it is too pasty. For the veggies or fruits, I usually give her about a third of the 2 level food or a half of the 1 level food for breakfast and a little more than for dinner. To warm up her food, hit the power button until the power is at 40. I normally start with 10 seconds and then take out the oatmeal and continue warming up the other food at 40 power for 5 more seconds until it is complete. If it is in the fridge, it might take one or two more 5 second intervals. Mix it up in between so it does not get too hot! I usually taste it before I give it to her to make sure it is not too hot. Don’t forget to put a bib on her. Clara likes to feed herself sometimes. When she is like that, I use the little dipper to feed her instead. Or, you can put a piece of fruit (but not strawberries since they are high on the allergen list) in the little mesh bag. I mash up the fruit a little bit before I give it to her. Good luck taking it away though . While we feed her, give her water. Sometimes she gets too excited about the water and drinks to much so I usually take it away before she is actually done. For finger good, you can give her the veggie puffs or Cheerios. Because we are ultra paranoid, we still cut it up into little pieces. She is still trying to figure out the pincer grasp so give her some pieces so she does not get too frustrated.

I organized Clara’s pantry shelf for you guys. All the ones in the front are sort of random. The ones on the rotating shelf from top to bottom are breakfast, dinner and dinner/meat options. The meat ones are sort of touch and go at this point. You can give it to her but her poop schedule is a little questionable after that because her body is still trying to sort out the whole carnivorous aspect of her diet. Use at your own risk…

Don’t forget to put a bib on Clara. Normally I put a pile of them in the shelf in the family room because I am always forgetting to grab one upstairs.



Playing with Clara
Clara loves to play! She certainly has her favorite toys. They include Checkers, MoJo the Monkey, Forbin the Bear, the foam fish, turtle, ladybug, etc, her cups (or any cup or bottle for that matter), the Discovery ball, and her telephone. I am sure Matt can point out many more.

Tips on giving Clara a bottle
The nanny, Carrie, has been working on giving Clara a bottle for two weeks. She has had some success with the Dr. Browns bottles. They are different than the Avent bottles in that they do not allow a lot of air out and allows the baby to eat without getting too much gas. (FYI, burping Clara rarely works). There are many pieces to the Dr. Browns bottle (the bottle, the tube with a larger area, the beige piece that fits on the tub, the nipple and the cap to hold the nipple on). It will not work without all those pieces. I have a lot of milk stored in the freezer. They are in 3 oz bags. Warm the milk in warm water as you did for Evelyn way back when.
Carrie says that Clara takes her sweet time drinking from the bottle and she prefers it warm, which might mean that you need to warm it a few times before she finishes. If that does not work, Clara does drink from a sippy cup VERY well so if you need to feed her the milk that way, that should be OK. Though be warned, it will be ALL over her (and possibly you).

A note on the formula: I bought the premixed kind since I know about your fears of mixing formula. Just kidding, I know it can be a pain and much easier to have it all ready! Anyway, they suggest to make sure that she gets some breastmilk each day is a better approach at using all the breastmilk first and then moving to formula. So whatever works, at least try and give some breastmilk and then some formula. They say not to mix it either. (And P.S. by they, I mean the academy of pediatrics guide book (the purple and white one), I will leave it out for you guys as some good cereal reading). Since we have not really been giving her formula (she started on it a week ago, it was the first time she had it since she was a day old!) yet, I was not sure what kind to buy. Buying the one with iron in it made me nervous because it can make her backed up and a backed up baby is not always a happy baby. But the whole formula aisle was a little intimidating and I just got some random things but they did not have much of a choice of the premade kind. I did even know what brand to get! So I got the brand Evelyn drinks and sees to enjoy! In general, formula seems to confuse Clara a bit but hopefully she will get it. If anything comes out of this experience, it will be VERY nice if Clara learns to take a bottle because it would make life a little easier . It has been a little TOO long now, her being dependant on my body so much!











Going to the pool
Clara loves the pool so enjoy! Here is a list of things I normally pack to bring with us to the pool:
1. Sippy cup full of water and ice
2. Her swimming hat (make sure she wears it, it is hard to get it on sometimes so basically give her a distraction and put the cap on when she is busy with something else)
3. Extra suntan lotion (don’t forget to grease her up before you even head out!)
4. Towel
5. Extra swim diaper
6. Regular diaper
7. Lotion
8. A comfy outfit for after the pool
9. Swim shoes
Before you leave the pool, I normally change her diaper to a regular one and put on her clothes since she falls asleep in the car so it is much easier to get her down for a nap when you get home if you don’t have to change her clothes. Also, don’t forget to put lotion on her before you cloth her so her skin does not get too dry. Also make sure you bath her that evening.

Sign Language
Matt knows the words we are working on. We have had some success with it but she is still a bit young to be communicating back. They say it could take months for a sign to even come from her but she has done it in the past! We do: Eat, More, All Done, Kitty and Milk. See Diagram Matt for this 

Clara’s Closet
For the most part, her closet is pretty organized. All the clothes that she currently wears (she is in 6-9 comfortably and 12 months are a little large but she wears them anyway). In the middle are the two tiers. On the top of the two tiers are Clara’s sweaters and long sleeved tops to the left and to the right are all her fancy dresses. On the bottom are Clara’s clothes for everyday. Most of the outfits are paired together on a hanger. To the left of the tiers are Clara’s PJs. To the right are the clothes that are still tagged and either have not been washed yet or are too big for her.

Clara’s t-shirts, burp clothes, socks, bibs and shoes are all in the wardrobe. Blankets and towels (middle) are all in the dresser where the changing pad was. All extra sheets and covers for the boppy or changing pad are under the crib.











Random Important notes
1. Be sure if you go out, especially on a hot sunny day, even if you are just going to hope in and out of the car, that you put suntan lotion on her. And a lot of it. She tans through 50 SPF so I can’t even imagine how dark she would get without it!
2. Wherever you go, bring a sippy cup of water and ice with you since she gets thirsty, thirsty, thirsty.
3. Make sure you put a hat on her if it is really sunny out. Basically, if you are wearing sunglasses, she needs to wear a hat.
4. Please don’t over dress her. One of the easiest things that can happen is overheating in the summer.
5. Please change her diaper on the floor. We have stopped using the changing pad since she really tries to get away now when you are changing her diaper.
6. We have a bag of safety items we have been slowly installing. They are on the shelf in the family room. Feel free to go wild especially if you see her getting into something. We are still in the process of babyproofing the house so any help would be great.
7. There is an additional pack and play in our bedroom. So if you want to make a playpen somewhere else, that might be useful.
8. I bought a drying rack for the bottles but it has not been opened yet. It is in the cupboard with all the bottles. Enjoy.
9. Sanitizing bottles. Make sure you do so before you use them. There is a microwave thing you can use. It is circular and in the cabinet where the formula is. Add 6 oz of water and microwave for 4 minutes. Leave in microwave for 2 minutes and then they are sanitized.
10. Emergency numbers are
a. Clara’s doctor: Dr. David Schwartz 630.289.8800 and his emergency line 630.289.8801
b. The rest of the numbers are by my work phone in the basement.

Ma ma ma ma ma Rar rar rar rar rar

The baby doll is a little looney! Tonight she had a hard time going to sleep so I went in there to get her since she has been sick. We took her to the doctor today and she just has a cold. Anyway, when she got tired she just started going on and on and on. MA MA MA MA MA RAR RAR RAR RAR RAR. She is so funny. Since she has been sick, and she gets a little tired, she has taken to just putting her head on the ground and resting. So funny.