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!