Clean nachos

The other day we were out shopping and we were going to bring lunch home to Daddy who was working from home. I asked her if she wanted McDonalds or nachos for lunch and she said, "I want CLEAN nachos!". She is silly that little one.

Big deal!

Yesterday and today were big days in the Owen house. Yesterday, Ellis clapped and waved to the song "Clap your hands with me!" for the first time. I love the way he waves, it is so cute. His fingers all go at different rates but he does it and always has the sweetest smile on his face as he does it!

And today, Clara peed on the potty. Well more let a drop of pee go, but it is better than she was doing! I am dying for her to actually let it all go, have a good pee on the potty but she has not done that yet. Hopefully soon because I am getting tired of this diaper business with her.

Clara's dance class

You can dance, you can dance. She did it! She went to class and she went in and loosely followed the instructor. Most of the time she sort of watched from a distance. There were a few girls there that took the summer session and they were SO cute following the teacher. The kids seemed to like the tap part the best because it's LOUD! She was so adorable all dolled up. Here are the kids dancing! Props to the teacher, I don't think I could be that perky... EVER!

He's crazy!

For the most part, Ellis is such a great baby. He is SO goofy. He has a great sense of humor, like when you put something on your head, he will laugh hysterically in his squeaky little way. Though watch out! He has such a short temper. Matt was playing with his old GI plane, it was right up Ellis' alley. He loves things with wheels, balls and anything that goes VROOM! Well Matt was playing with it, having it zocbvom in the air and fly over his head, basically keeping it JUST out of his reach. He lost it. He started screaming and throwing his arms and got VERY angry! Also, watch out if you have to take something from him that he wants. He fights back hard.

Speaking of fighting, Clara and Ellis fight a lot! It is pretty crazy. She just is having a hard time sharing with him and likes to boss him and tell him what he should play with. And for the most part, Ellis does not want to hear it!

We are trying to potty train Clara. So the other day, I started putting big girl underwear on her first thing in the morning. She really liked the idea and did a great job of sitting on the potty every 15 minutes. She did not have an accident! The next day we did the same thing, she sat on the potty. She has not PEED on the potty yet but she sure will sit there. On Friday, she held her pee in from 9 in the morning to 2 PM for her nap. And she FOUGHT me on putting a diaper on. She did not want to at all. She kept saying that she is a big girl and she is too big for her diaper. I really think this will go well IF she learns how to pee on the potty. We will see how it goes!

He's crazy!

For the most part, Ellis is such a great baby. He is SO goofy. He has a great sense of humor, like when you put something on your head, he will laugh hysterically in his squeaky little way. Though watch out! He has such a short temper. Matt was playing with his old GI plane, it was right up Ellis' alley. He loves things with wheels, balls and anything that goes VROOM! Well Matt was playing with it, having it zocbvom in the air and fly over his head, basically keeping it JUST out of his reach. He lost it. He started screaming and throwing his arms and got VERY angry! Also, watch out if you have to take something from him that he wants. He fights back hard.

Speaking of fighting, Clara and Ellis fight a lot! It is pretty crazy. She just is having a hard time sharing with him and likes to boss him and tell him what he should play with. And for the most part, Ellis does not want to hear it!

We are trying to potty train Clara. So the other day, I started putting big girl underwear on her first thing in the morning. She really liked the idea and did a great job of sitting on the potty every 15 minutes. She did not have an accident! The next day we did the same thing, she sat on the potty. She has not PEED on the potty yet but she sure will sit there. On Friday, she held her pee in from 9 in the morning to 2 PM for her nap. And she FOUGHT me on putting a diaper on. She did not want to at all. She kept saying that she is a big girl and she is too big for her diaper. I really think this will go well IF she learns how to pee on the potty. We will see how it goes!

A couple of funny Clara thoughts

I was eating dinner tonight and she turned to me and said, "Slow down Mommy! Chew slowly". You gotta love your own words coming back to you:)

Another thing she said, we were at the movies. We went to the free summer camp movie, Charlotte's web with Addy and Molly. While every one else was getting food, Clara kept saying, I want to watch a movie while the previews were on. A sentiment I can definitely relate to because they often are quite long! She said, "Go get the remote. I want to watch a movie!" I thought that was hilarious. I had her stand on her chair to show here were the projector room was and I told her that man in that room had the remote and we had to wait for him to decide if we are going to watch the movie.

ALL DONE!

Last Tuesday, Ellis said his first word. Rather, his first two words. It is so exciting! Along with his first word, he did his first sign. And it was "ALL DONE!". Matt was there when he did it and I was not sure, I asked him and he thought he said it. Well he made it definitive when he said it again, and again! Clara was getting her diaper changed and she wanted to do something else and I said something like, when you are all done. Ellis heard me and he was crawling across the floor and picked up his right hand and signed all done! It was so cute. He has said it a handful of times since then. I am certain he said it!

Dance dance dance

When you tell Ellis to dance, he will dance! He sort of does this circle motion with his arms and bounces up and down. It is so cute! When he hears a tune that gets him, he will dance away! He is crawling like a champ now, and his poor legs, knees and the tops of his feet are getting thicker skin on them because of it. He is also beginning to "talk" more. Lots of dadada and mamama. Like Clara, Mamama is what is said whenever he is upset or wants something.

Where does she learn these things?

Clara is amazing, she is so darn smart and I have no idea where she picks these things up! At dinner tonight, I made her dinosaur chicken nuggets. Always a big favorite. At dinner tonight, she even said, "This chicken is good!". Anyway, she bit the head off of one and she said, "I killed him!". I immediately called Matt and asked him where the heck she learned that because I did not teach her that! She is constantly asking, "What's this? What's that?". It's tiring!

Hi! Hi! Hi!

We went to a surprise lunch at Todai Sunday afternoon and we gave Ellis a taste of Jello for the first time. He was in SUCH a good mood while we were there and the Jello put him over the edge. We were sitting near a lot of walking traffic and Ellis was screaming happily and appeared to be waving at everyone that walked by. He did it for a long time and some people laughed at him. It was pretty hysterical!

I'm going to be naughty

Clara was being a bit snotty all day today. She was even saying, "I'm cranky". She kept declaring, "I'm going to be naughty.", "I have to be naughty.", "I can't listen.". Very frustrating!

Eat a picnic?

One of Clara's new favorite things to do is "Eat a picnic!". It is pretty funny.

On the move!

Oh no! Watch out, Ellis is officially crawling as of Friday (6/29). He had been taking preliminary "steps" for about a week but had never gathered enough confidence to do it for more then 2 or 3. All of a sudden, as soon as I put him down on Friday morning, he crawled away! He is getting good at it. Today he spent the afternoon crawling after a green ball in the family room. He is even pulling himself up onto the coffee table! He did it a few times but really has not practiced at it like the crawling. Won't be long though I am sure. I remember Clara crawling and cruising very close together.

He is also saying MA MA MA MA. Clara even noticed it, she was saying at breakfast this morning that baby is saying Ma Ma Ma! It started last night I think. I am not sure but Ellis might have had a night terror. He woke up in the middle of the night, would not nurse and was just screaming at the top of his high pitched lungs. It was very stressful and I honestly did not know what to do to calm him down. Luckily about after half an hour, he did. But it was a hairy half hour.

Oh boy!

Clara said the funniest thing at bedtime tonight that I just needed to document it because it was just too much. She was laying down for Matt to put on her diaper after her bath. "I opened Clara's BUTT!" is basically what she said as she lay with her legs in the air and she prepared her heiney to get diapered. I was dying, I thought it was hilarious. It was not just that she said that, but how she said it with her deep silly voice!

She also kept saying, "I'm fighting, I'm fighting" as she was giving Matt a hard time while he was getting ready for bed.

Almost there!

Ellis is almost crawling. Today he learned some sort of strange sidewinding trick that does propel him forward but it is almost PAINFUL to watch. He sort of turns 1/4 of the way over and then pushes himself forward as he rights himself. It works but it is very slow and his knees are completely red from the effort. It won't be long before he really starts going! Tomorrow we start his gym class and I remember Clara really motoring after we started that class. He is pretty determined these days about learning how to do it. I would say a week ago, if something was out of his grasp, he would just complain about it. My bet is by the end of the week. Watch out world! Here comes Ellis!

Wednesday Last Week

Last week, Clara at breakfast turned to me and said, Heather and Preston are coming today. It's Wednesday. And she was right! I had talk about the day of the week each day is SOMETIMES but I did not think that I did it often enough for her to pick it up like that. That kid is smart. I must have made such a big deal telling everyone what Clara said that she now insists most days are Wednesday!

Those darn purple "socks"

Yesterday when Heather got Clara up from her nap, Clara was wearing those purple knit booties that Grandma gave her a while ago and had them stuffed into her crocs. She insisted that she needed to wear these for the rest of the afternoon. Why not, they were comfortable enough to sleep in! By the end of the day, her feet had knitted creases in them and had to be DARN hot considering it was almost 90 degrees outside and she ran around eating an apple and going down a slide in them for over half an hour. She almost seemed relieved to take them off at the end of the day. This post is reminding me that I should find them and HIDE them. No ones needs to be wearing purple handknitted booties in shoes while running through the sprinkler in summer! Her obsession with crocs is more than enough for one person to deal with :). She loves the fact that we have the same matching gold mary jane crocs. I myself love them but Clara has taken that love to a new obsession. She wears them all the time. With pajamas, fancy feet or not and apparently they are also great to nap in. They watch her from her stool at night while she sleeps. On her right foot, she has Dory and Nemo Jibbitz. And on her left foot, she has a Daddy Car (Lightning McQueen) and a Mater and a C (Insert ridiculous smile here). They are her constant summer companions. I am glad she likes them!

Finger Man and DaDADA

Ellis started really babbling in the last couple of days. It is pretty funny. Matt was the one that got him to really do it. He was saying Dadadada to him and he repeated it. He also has his own version of Yayayaya. He does this funny thing with his tongue. Last night in the middle of the night, he started to babble and he was a bit looney this evening doing it.

He also loves to discover things with just his pointer fingers. He was doing that the other day when Matt brought his a new toy and he had his fingers ready to go. Just his pointer ones. He likes to touch the details of things. Matt said it was like a Mars Probe the way he had his fingers at the ready to to touch things. It is the perfect comparison!

May

Before the month of May disappears, I better get a blog in before I forget what is going on! Clara is ALMOST in her big girl bed. About two weeks ago Matt and I were talking about getting a dresser for her room and we commented that we needed to get her to sleep in her big girl bed before we had room for a dresser in there since a crib and a bed takes up a lot of room! Well we were in Ellis' room and Clara ran into her bed, curled up and asked to sleep in there. And she did! The whole night without a peep. The next day, her nap did not happen in there but I did create a chart with fishy stickers. For each time she sleeps in her bed without crying or screaming, she gets a sticker. For 7 stickers, a prize! Things are going OK, though today for her nap and right now, at night, she is in her crib. Not sure that that regression is about! It might just be easier to take out the crib and not give her the option. We'll see what we can do.

Onto Ellis news, he is in the complete octopus arm stage. He is so quick and grabs about everything he can. Clara is getting a taste for what really having a baby brother is like, he always wants what she has!

Clara is really into her Snowball cat right now. She likes to bring it everywhere she goes and this evening she actually kicked Ellis because she thought Ellis was going to touch Snowball. I don't think she intentionally wanted to kick him but they were on a blanket in the yard and when he went for it, she kicked her feet in anger and he got in the way. He cried.

Ellis really likes to roll around now. Changing his diaper is a bit more difficult because the first thing that he does when his diaper is off is roll over. He has not quite figured out how to get to a specific destination while rolling but he can get around. It won't be long before he is crawling I think. Feeding him is going OK. He really thinks he can feed himself which is frustrating because it is not the most efficient of CLEANEST way to do it. Sometimes he east something but other times he gets so frustrated nothing happens but a good old fat tantrum. He still nurses like a champ though!

Rolling again

Ellis finally rolled over from his back to his front with a LOT of cajooling. I basically had to dangle a toy at the right angle to get him to roll over. He easily did it too, he just did not WANT to do it!

He is sitting so well. We can finally walk away and he only falls over if he is tired. Clara is beginning to have fun playing with him. I was getting us all ready to head out on Monday morning and Clara was playing with a toy with him. It was nice to see.

Sitting!

Ellis started sitting in the last week or so. He is getting very good at it and only falls over when he is tired. He also started holding out his arms when he wants to be picked up. Something Matt discovered while I was gone in DC for Kelly's Bachelorette party. They must have bonded this past weekend, which is really nice. Matt is now more likely to pick him up before I do! I like to see that.

Clara barely noticed that I was gone but she was happy to see me. Clara and Ellis were both in good moods yesterday when we played around, I think they missed me! Though on Sunday night, I think Ellis was sort of mad at me and was extra cranky with me. He is nursing like crazy right now though! They mowed through my breastmilk in the freezer because the doctor cut him back to breastmilk and rice cereal because of the hives he had late last week. There is nothing like trying to leave when your kid breaks out into mysterious red spots. Lovely.

Ellis at 6 months

Ellis had his 6 month checkup yesterday. He is 15 lbs 7 oz and 26 1/2 inches long. This officially makes him too long for his car seat! Oops! We will have to switch soon. Clara was the same length but at 17 lbs at the same age. Ellis is getting closer to sitting but is pretty darn stubborn about not wanting to do it. He is certainly strong enough he just likes to jut out his pelvis. He likes to stand on his two legs though and supports his weight for a long time on them. He has Elvis' hips when he does it though! Ellis has been almost sleeping through the night. He likes to go down around 7 and if you wait too long he gets pretty darn cranky. Sometimes he gets up around the midnight hour and lately around 6 AM. Sometimes he goes back to sleep but this morning he was so happy and cooing that we were up with him until about 7:15.

Food is going OK. Ellis really likes the rice cereal and loves to eat it fast. He gets cranky though when he starts getting full. So far we have tried peas and he ate those but apples and sweet potatoes really made him mad. They basically end the meal even if he has only had a couple of bites of rice cereal because he hates the taste so much. There is a lot of gagging and anger!

adj.

Clara LOVES to use adjectives to describe everything and it always cracks me up. New fresh clean diaper. New fresh cold white milk. It makes me laugh and we certainly encourage it giving her new adjectives to learn every day. The latest ones I have been doing are trying to teach her obscure colors like turquoise and peach. She is getting good at those two. Magenta was a bit hard for her to grasp though.

Third day of food

We did dinner again with Ellis. I took 2 ounces of formula and mixed it would two tablespoons of cereal. He got frustrated in the middle of the meal and I picked him up because he was getting upset. He proceeded to barf the whole meal all over me, or at least I thought. I was not prepared for the second round of barf that came shortly after! Not sure what that was about but I will keep a close eye on it. He had a red rash on the left side of his face but sometimes his face gets really flushed when he is tired.

Ellis' big week

Ellis is just short of 6 months old and had a HUGE week this week. It was the week we traveled to NJ and he changed so much in the short time that we were away.

Ellis rolled over for the first time on March 15th. He rolled from tummy to back when he was on the floor of Cherie's house. He did it again later so he has the taste for moving now! He even sort of scoots just the littlest bit forward when he is on his tummy out of efforts to roll over.

Ellis also gives kisses now. He will grab your face and like all over your face. I am pretty certain that he does it on purpose! He is so sweet. He is ALMOST sitting. Very close to sitting for a short period of time. I know he wants to because when you sit him on the boppy he will try and sit up. He is getting stronger tummy muscles.

We also started Ellis on rice cereal on Sunday. He LOVED it. I knew he was ready because he was very into watching other people eat and seems to want to participate in meals. We gave him his first meal while he was in his exersaucer at breakfast on Sunday. He knew exactly what to do and there was no denying that he likes food. He was so excited about food last night, he was kicking his legs all over the place. I ran out of food and he obviously wanted more, started complaining to me. But as of dinner last night, he had not pooped. I am going to start him on peas tomorrow night! I am sure that will go well.

Ellis is now sleeping in his crib at nights and for naps. He seems to be falling into the pattern of three naps a day. Good news for us! He just needs to start sleeping through the night. I think Matt got a taste of my nights when we were on vacation. A bit sleepless and looney!

Almost 5 months

All of sudden a month has gone by without me writing anything down! Ellis is so amazing. We are having a ton of fun with him. He is SO close to rolling over but not quite there yet. I think it is so funny to watch him try and do something so hard but I don't think he is clear on exactly what he is trying. He gets so frustrated so easily though when he wants to do something and he can't. Like if he wants to get a toy in his mouth and he can't do it, he starts to SCREAM! He still has that high pitched scream and the angrier he gets the higher pitched it gets. It is really funny actually.

He has this funny laugh that he does when he is upset too. He is a really good complainer. Likes to talk it up when he is upset and wants something else. Sometimes it is easy to talk him out of it. For example you just do something silly, like a funny noise or a funny dance and he has this guffaw laugh that he does when he swings from annoyed to happy. And sometimes he does that same laugh when he almost seems like he is trying to talk himself out of a cranky mood. He cracks us up!

There are very specific things that Ellis does not like. Tshirts, not being held when he wants to be, being up too late past his bedtime and hunger are among them. Otherwise, he is such a great and easy going baby. We are very lucky!

Clara is enjoying her newly reorganized room. We moved the bed out of Ellis' room and put it into hers and she LOVES it. We have not let her sleep in it yet though she really really wants to. She loves to run in there and bury herself in the bed. She is pretty insistent on it. I actually had to change her clothes and diaper while she was in the bed today! A little nuts. We need to get bed rails before we allow her to sleep in the bed though. I think she is really going to like it once we let her, though I am curious to see if she is going to walk all around when she gets that new freedom. We will see!

Suck that bottom lip

Ellis starting doing the funniest thing last night. He was in his bath, something that he is mildly OK with as long as he can look at himself in the mirror, and he started sucking on his bottom lip when I did something he did not like, for exampe, washing his hair or scrubbing his ear. All day today he was sucking on his lip. It was pretty funny. When he saw me or when he was bored, he would make these loud smacking sounds with his lips. It really was very cute.

Ellis at almost 4 months

Ellis is changing every day. He is beginning to show signs of wanting to roll over. He'll pick up his legs up high and turn to one side. For the most part, he was doing it to the right but the other day he did it to the left when he was trying to grab Clara. He accidentally grabbed her hair and you can imagine how much she liked that!

Ellis loves things that Clara did not like when she was a baby. He likes to be rough-housed a bit. It makes him giggle. The kid has a great laugh! He is so easy going and easy to read. I am grateful that I have had easy babies! He is getting better about laying on his stomach, sometimes he likes it but he still tires of it quickly. He is doing a good job. It will be nice when he can hang out like that a little bit more.

He just loves people. Clara would often coo and toys but Ellis does not do it unless it is a person. If there is someone in his face, he is pretty happy! Definitely a people person. He is not sleeping through the night yet, though with my kids, I certainly did not expect that! On a good night, I will put him down at 8, feed him at 11 when I go to bed, and he will wake up at 5 and sleep until 8. On a bad night, enter in waking up at 1 and 3 in there. It is amazing how your body gets used to no sleep. It is only when he does that a couple of nights in a row that I get super tired.

Clara is amazing at how fast she is learning and comprehending. The other day, I was writing out her name and she knew most of the letters. She knew C, thought L was a K, knew A and thought R was a K. After a few times she recognized it all. She wanted me to spell Mommy and Daddy as well.

A couple interesting Clara stories was Matt was wearing his Superman shirt and Clara thought it was a pizza. The shape and color are right!

I was at a MOMS club meeting and a women inappropriately grabbed Ellis from me when I was cleaning chalk off of Clara's hands. Clara got so upset. She started saying, "Mommy hold Ellis?" over and over again. Each time she said it she got more upset. It was interesting to see her get upset over this lady holding Ellis. Maybe she likes him after all!

My kids won't sleep

Ellis is having such a hard time learning to take naps during the day. He is very particular and likes it VERY quite so when the kids are upstairs playing, he often wakes up and won't sleep because he hears things going on.

Over the weekend, Clara did not take a nap the whole time. We would go through the motions of putting her down and she just lay awake talking to herself and listening to her fishes for about two hours! No complaining, which is good. She needs the downtime anway! She did it three days in a row and then again during the middle of the week. I don't know if this is heading down the path of no nap, I sure hope not.

Giggle giggle giggle

Ellis giggled for the first time in the last couple of days. This morning was his first real laugh. I can always get him in a pretty good mood right after he wakes up for the first time in the morning. When I am changing his diaper I'll say hi and touch his cheeks. That always gets BIG smiles. And when I kiss his cheek and neck, he laughs! It is so darn cute. I love it :)

Ellis at almost 3 months

Ellis is changing so fast it is just darn right scary. He is such a good baby though he LOVES to be held. He has not exactly fallen into a routine yet, I am waiting for that to happen. He loves to nurse and when he is done, he likes to stretch his arms. His hand still has a bit of a nervous newborn reflex to it when he does that, where it sort of vibrates slowly back and forth. I remember Clara doing that too. Ellis loves to look around and see what is going on, and often when there is something interesting going on, it causes lots of smiles!

Clara is more and more interactive each day. She has such an opinion on things it is funny. You can really have a conversation with her now. It might be about something little like if she likes a certain food or not but it is a lot different than it was a few months ago. You can really see her brain working!

Oh my how we grow

Ellis is growing so fast. I blink my eyes, and all of a sudden he has grown out of his 0-3 clothes and I have to go to the store and get him a whole new wardrobe of 3-6. And he is only 2 months and 2 weeks old! He is really beginning to interact with us, smiles when you say hi. He even has this sound that sounds just like "Hi". His happy place is on his changing "pad" in the spare bedroom downstairs. After you change his diaper, he is all smiles. And he has such a HUGE big smile that just takes over his whole face. He is so sweet! He already has me wrapped around his little finger. He has been sleeping OK by himself at night in his bassinett. But during the day it is still a struggle, he really likes his swing but I don't want him getting too used to it! At night, he wakes from 2-4 times. A lot for his age I think but he falls back asleep quickly when I nurse him.

I have been trying to do tummy time with him every day at least for a little while. He is getting better at it but is often not a big fan of it!

Clara is getting older and older every day. She basically can do the whole alphabet on her own and sing "Twinkle Twinkle" from start to finish on her own. We started to let her watch television. Right now, the big hit is "Frosty the Snowman". She can watch it over and over again if we let her!

Today for breakfast, for the first time, she asked for something that was not right in front of her or something that she did not have recently. I don't even remember the last time she had eggs for breakfast but she asked for them and ate them! I don't mind making if she actually EATS it! Her gums are swollen today and I think that she is getting her two year molars.

Ellis - first three weeks

Ellis is now three weeks old. He is doing pretty well though I do spend the nights sleeping with him and I am hoping that ends soon! His nickname is Angry Man though. When he is unhappy, he tells us LOAD AND CLEAR. He goes from 0-60 in less than one second. He does love to be held though and it is hard to argue with that because he cuddles up close to you.

Wearing him the sling has helped a lot. Giving me some hands to have free to do things around the house. Clara seems to be adjusting OK. She has been asking repeatedly for Mommy and Daddy hugs so she is a little bit starved for attention. I feel bad for her sometimes but when I am nursing Ellis and she is trying to sit in my lap, it makes it a little hard.

Ellis is almost in 0-3 clothes. The one pieces work well but the two piecer newborn sizes still fit him well. It is just a matter of how to keep his socks on! I looked back at Clara's baby book and he is about a week ahead of her on that.

I think that Ellis smiled at me today. I was talking to him while he was awake and I thought I saw a fleeting smile! It is so hard to tell because he does it in his sleep so often. They are really so sweet when they do that.

He still has his quivering lip and when he stretches, his hands still twitch. I forgot how sweet that is, you forget about all those newborn quirks until they are right in front of your face. A lot of the times, he makes faces that remind me so much of Clara. He purses his lips like Clara and it is amazing how much they look alike when they do things like that.

Ellis Stats and his first week

Ellis was born 6 lbs 15 ounces, 20 3/4 inches long at 5:39 PM on 10/3/06. When we left the hospital, he weighed 6 lbs 12 ounces and was back up to 6 lbs 13 1/2 ounces at his first doctors appointment when he was 5 days old. We had to go back to the hospital that day to get his bili test done because the doctor thought he looked a little yellow. Fortunately, Ellis was OK and no more of those tests! They are not fun to deal with.

Things are going well. Clara has been an absolute wonder adjusting, I think it helps that we have people around specifically for her. In the last two days, she has shown interest in the baby. Asking to see the baby and even kissed him a few times. I do miss hanging out with her! I got to spend some time with her playing with the camera this morning which was fun. Her new game, which is actually a rather annoying but sweet one is, she wants to see herself on the camera but has no patience to let me take the picture first. So as soon as the camera comes out, she says, "I see Clara?" over and over again and gets upset if you try to take the picture first to show her! This morning, she was asking to see baby on the camera. It is funny because she knows who Ellis is, that Ellis is his name, but she only calls him baby and refuses to say his name. She has said it a few times and when Heather K. asked her who Ellis is, she looked at the baby but still did not say his name. It will be interesting when it is going to just be the three of us hanging out. Thanks goodness I have some time before that.

At night, Ellis does not like to sleep by himself. It is odd because he will do it during the day as he is right now. But at night, he often fusses unless I hold him. So we have been sleeping on the couch together, just as I did with Clara. I am not really sure what to do about this situation because I know it is not the safest but it sort of works for us.

For the most part, Ellis is a great baby. Only cries when he has a reason. He loves to look around when he is awake and reminds me of Clara so much. A lot of his facial expressions are EXACTLY the same as Clara made. There is this one face where his lips are pursed and I swear he looks exactly like Clara because she used to do that face all the time. He has started to smile in his sleep, that phase where he is sort of sleeping but sort of not and a huge smile comes over his face. He even laughed in his sleep once already. Ellis has this great sad face too. Weird to say so but his eyes frown before he cries.

L & D of Ellis Matthew Owen

I was told the Thursday before my 39 weeks that we were going to deliver on 10/3 if I did not go into labor on my own. At that doctors appointment, I was 1-2 cm so the goal for the weekend was to make that a little better so I did not have to go in to the hospital on 10/2 for Cervidal (mostly because it did nothing for me when I had Clara!). At my doctor's appointment on Monday, I was 2-3 and they decided to have me come in on Tuesday (which is a good thing since I was at the hospital with Heather all day Monday since she had a timely bleed). Tuesday morning, they called at 6 AM and told us to call them at 8 since they were a little busy and wanted to wait to induce me. At 7:15, we got another call and we were told to come in! We got out of bed, and headed to the hospital.

We arrived to a slow start. They did not start me on pitocin until about 10:30 and turned it up. I was already having my own contractions but these brought them to about 3-4 m minutes apart. We watched a DVD while they got all my drips in order (insulin, sugar, pitocin, iv) and all of a sudden at around noon, my water bag broked on it's own! It was a strange feeling because I was not expecting it at all. That was good news for me though because it was one less thing the doctors had to do for me.

Shortly after that, the contractions starting getting pretty bad. Unfortunately, there were a lot of people at the same time asking for an epidural so I had to wait for over an hour and half for one. They had to call a second doctor in to do the floor for epidurals since there was such a demand. I got that second doctor and by the time he came in at 2:30 I was in a LOT of pain (and about 5 CM) so he gave me an epidural AND a spinal. The spinal kicked in right away and I was pain free for about an hour or two. Shortly after THAT, I started to feel the contractions again. We did a boost of the epidural twice but my pain was multiplying more than that so I did not feel it. They checked me again (I would say sometime before 4) and I was 8 cm and shortly after that I was 9. I was feeling so much pressure though, they decided that I should start to push. We did that with the nurse and after pushing for a while, the called the doctor who told me to STOP pushing because he was delivering another baby and needed to be there when I got the baby out. That was probably one of the most painful and awful experiences of my life, having those full on contractions and not being able to push. We waited for far too long, maybe about 40 minutes and finally they let me push. I probably had to push for another 20-30 minutes (for a total of an hour and ten) and he came out! The doctor said he is a star gazer, facing the wrong way which is why the delivery was so awful. I could feel almost all of it. When they were going to make the cut, they asked me if I could feel the knife and I could so they had to give me a local. And I still felt it when he cut. I must say, Clara's was a walk in the park compared to this delivery. I was rather immune to what was going on "down there" for her delivery.

But in return, I got a perfect baby boy! You could not ask for anything better.

Play da-doh

Clara LOVES play doh. I started playing it with her when we started the art class because it was the first time she was exposed to it. She LOVES it. She asks for it by saying, "Play Da-Doh?". She likes to ask for specific things to be made, like a dog, or a horsey, or a fishy. She likes to tell you to roll out the dough. Sometimes she has a hard time letting you roll out the dough though since she does not want to let go of any of her dough prizes that she has accumulated. Unfortunately, the carpet underneath her table is collecting some crusty playdoh. Lucky for her, we are removing this carpet soon!

Towel?

I went to get Clara out of bed today and she was hugging a TOWEL! She had grabbed it out of the dirty laundry that is next to her crib and was cuddling with it. I am not sure if she did it late last night or this morning. She is looney that baby!

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!