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!