The Busy Work of Being a Toddler

This is the second day in a row Clara has insisted on wearing her "jress" ...aka "dress" ... aka "tutu" for most of the day.

It's fun to see her getting more and more a mind of her own, although challenging at many points as well.

This little girl makes my heart happy.  How can you not smile watching this image prance around the house, busy with the important work of rearranging teacups, building towers, and coloring all morning.

Oh to be a one-year-old again, no worries, no fears, just knowing you're safe and loved, with little more on the schedule than eating, playing, being rocked and read to, napping, and pausing once per hour to do a little dancing when the Christmas clock plays its carol.

Although, now that I think about it, the one thing better might just be being the parent of a one-year-old...  It's definitely good for a lot of chuckles.

It Could Be Worse

Anything in excess can present problems, or at the very least inconvenience.  Clara has developed a couple of recent "toddler fancies" that I find myself fighting against throughout everyday.  You may be surprised that I would fight against...

Eating oranges and hand washing.

But, when child has already had a whole orange for a morning snack and another for lunch, and is ignoring all her other food while reaching and repeating "aurge, aurge, aurge!" in pursuit of a third, you have to put your foot down.  What could so many oranges each day do to a little 30 lb body?  I don't think I want to find out.

And then there's hand washing.  SO fun for this little one year old who can't reach the sink on her own even with her step stool.  She demands to wash her hands (straining for the sink and repeating, "hay, hay!") before meals, after meals, before she takes a bath, after she takes a bath, anytime I wash my hands, anytime I'm in the general vicinity of the kitchen or bathroom, and anytime she notices a sink anywhere.  And after she's washed her hands once, she wants to do it again and again.

While I initially reinforced her hand washing interest, I'm now seeing the inconvenience of letting her wash her hands at her own discretion, so I explain, I reason, I distract.

"You're about to get in the bath, you don't need to wash your hands."

"Hay! Hay! Hay!" she responds as a little cry of frustration breaks through and she strains all the harder to reach the sink.  Eventually I give in, hold her up to the sink, turn on the water, get her some soap, and let her wash them so she'll move on and get in the bath.

It's an interesting dilemma, because both of these new little toddler preferences are so good... but moderation is not such a bad thing either.  I'm hesitant to discourage them, but find myself resisting them quite a bit.

However, Clara's recent interests are going to keep her extra healthy this flu season, so I can hardly complain!

It could be a lot worse.

Next year at this time I'll probably be tackling preferences for making play dough cookies and feeding them to the new baby or something of that nature.  :)

My best 'little' buddy and me.

Mother-daughter.  Makes my heart happy.

High-fiving dad.  Because he's just that awesome.

Love that gleeful expression.

Girly Girl

Miss Clara has been revealing herself to be quite the girly girl in recent weeks.  

Her Papa (Mitch's dad), was the first to pick up on her uniquely girl-ness months ago upon observing her pick up a toy car and pretend it was a cell phone.  With three sons and three grandsons prior to Clara, he noted that he'd seen many phones turned into cars, but never this!

She never lost her love for talking on the phone.  It is her best game and one she plays many times each day.  I've learned quite a bit about my "phone mannerisms" as a result.  She answers the phone with a hi and then proceeds to babble while intermittently inserting a pause and a "yeah."  She casts her eyes around while in these imaginary conversations, as though listening intently and not really seeing.  She paces around, lounges, and gestures with her arms quite a bit, which I've been told I do pretty much. 

What's more, she's getting into wearing pretty dresses.  I tried a hand-me-down Christmas dress on her this Sunday morning to check it for size (it was too small of course... Clara's a big girl), but she got so excited anyway.  She went over to the mirror and grabbed hold of it, laughing, coyly smiling at her reflection, and cooing.  She proceeded to twirl and twist around, very pleased with herself.  I changed her out of it.  Later that afternoon she went to her room, found the dress, brought it to me to put on her.  When I did she proudly wore it around all afternoon until I removed it at dinnertime.

Her other favorite girly things: talking, SHOES, her baby doll, changing clothes and shoes, and she tolerates shopping outings pretty well too.  And she looks great in PINK!

Giving baby a hug.

And a kiss.

And some swinging.

It's so cute.  I always secretly hoped she'd be the girly type since I totally am.  I love the bows and dresses and tights and frills, so hopefully this means she'll tolerate it all a little longer!

Guest Blog: Directing Traffic

This is Mitch again. Katie has been a little under the weather recently and blogging has been at the bottom of her list. Due to her online absence, I have once again decided to take the reigns.

Story time.

Katie, Clara and I were standing in the kitchen the other day. Of course standing around wasn't good enough for Clara. So just like her father, she formulated a plan, didn't tell anybody about it, and set about executing it. First, she waddled over to Katie and grabbed her jeans and began to push her around the kitchen. We thought she was just playing around, but little did we know this was all a part of her plan. She directed her mom with great confidence and ease.They made their way slowly but surely across the kitchen. At one point she walked over to me and pushed me into the middle of the walkway. She quickly realized I wasn't as easy to move so she strolled back over to Katie. With one last big push Katie and I were now standing face to face. Well, in our case face to chest. Then a little arm wrapped around my calf and another around Katie's. As the arms began to squeeze Clara said, "Hug, hug." It was a nice little moment for our family of three. There we were, in the kitchen, hugging. It's amazing how a little person can change your life.

The End

I don't fancy myself a writer. I did teach math after all. The point being, don't expect many blogs from me.

Hope you enjoyed...

"No Way!"

Clara's newest and seemingly only phrase.

She picked it up on Monday.  By Tuesday Mitch, who had spent the entire day with her while I was in and out of the house, estimated that she had said it at least 500 times.  He also noted that, upon discovering this little phrase, she seemed to have suddenly forgotten how to say any other sound or word.

"No way!  No way!  No way!  No way!" Came periodically from the back seat as we drove around running errands and grocery shopping that afternoon, and not without the appropriate highly-expressive intonation.

It's actually quite entertaining to have an occasional and authoritative "No way!" punctuate your conversation. "It's true!" became our most common response back to her, along with a couple of chuckles and other comical defenses for our previous comment.

Where did she get this you may wonder?  Her daddy of course.  For a long time now it has been his way of reacting to her babbling "remarks," prompting her to continue her pseudo-conversation.

Apparently, she liked it.

17 Months and Growing Strong

Mitch set up our home studio this morning to do some prep for an upcoming engagement shoot.

The result?  Some fun pictures of Clara.  :)

This is her new go-to position.  She has added hair twirling to thumb-sucking, and no longer has any interest in doing one without the other.

The pluses to this are:

1. Hair twirling has replaced hair pulling (she was getting a thin spot)

2. She's sucking her thumb less due to the inconvenience of the two-hand requirement. 

3. It's cute.

Last night she and I watched a movie together, and she sat in my lap, absentmindedly twirling MY hair, as it fell beside her face.  

Also, Clara can find and say many of her body parts now.  Here she is showing off her...

Belly:

Nose:

 

 Cheeks:

 And Eye:

17 mo. olds are a blast because you can teach them so much and they catch on so quickly.  This is especially fun for Mitch and I considering we're both teachers by trade.  Clara is a good outlet for our teaching compulsions, considering neither of us are working in our field at this point in time.

Softball

One fun thing that we get to do as a family each Sunday afternoon is watch Mitch play softball.  It is a great time.  He plays in The Crossing's men's softball league (that's our church), which alone support its entire own league, with around 12 teams!

There are several young families on his team and the teams he plays against, so Clara has playmates and I have other moms & spectators to chat with.  I have gotten to know many more faces from church through the three seasons he's participated.

And because it's fall ball, we have had some outrageously awesome weather. 

For each game, I pack Clara a snack, a water, and a selection of toys.  Yet she still manages to be quite a handful.  ...perhaps even more so than some (not all) of the other children.  She is constantly attempting to climb the bleachers, eyeing other people's drinks, trying to pet random dogs, heading out onto the softball field, going in the dugout, wandering off for parts unexplored, etc.   

Let's just say I don't exactly sit back and watch the game.  Despite all the chasing, reprimanding, supervising, and redirecting, we still manage to have a great time.

It's just fun being a family.  I like coming to support Mitch, watching his big plays (the 25% of them I actually catch anyway), watching him lead his team, and debriefing/assessing his batting percentage and contributions on the car ride home.  

I like Clara being an environment of community, which we have truly found at our church, and building friendships with other women.  

Softball, you are my friend. :)

Clara carries her toys from the parking lot to the bleachers.  She normally can't make it the whole way without sitting down right in the middle of the sidewalk play with them.

Popcorn

"Like father; like daughter," as the saying goes, continues to hold true for Miss Clara.  Brian, Jan, Brandon, and Kevin will understand the significance of this video easily, but for the rest of you who have taken an interest, let me explain.

Mitch is serious about his popcorn.  He ate it nightly during his teenage years.  When we started dating, I was a little put off by the fact that he didn't seem too excited about sharing any of it with me either.  

Since we've gotten married, he's taken his popcorn habit to the next level.  He doesn't make it every night, but he will frequently fill our largest mixing bowl full of "home-made" popcorn.  It's quite a science.  He will either air pop it with a spray bottle of melted butter in hand, evenly coating it as it pours out, or kettle cook it in our giant stock pot.  

He's much better about sharing now, but can still finish this large quantity on his own, and often does.

So for me, it's quite entertaining to see Clara insistently interjecting herself into the "popcorn" way of life, as Mitch tries to relax with his popped handiwork while watching some Hulu.

This is a small sample of what went on for quite some time.  Notice he's rather stingy with the popcorn he gives.  But she was relentless.

Makes me giggle.

Learning Explosion

Learning Explosion

Clara is in the midst of a definite learning/development explosion.  Within the past few weeks she has starting learning like crazy!  Here are a few examples of the things we're seeing her do.

• Blowing kisses (...we never taught her that... ?)
• Doing the Itsy Bitsy Spider actions 
• Patting a back, high fiving, knuckles, kissing, hugging on command.
• Dancing on command or when music plays (her favorite move is to "worship" by sticking her arms up in the air--so cute!  I did that once day and now she's all about it.)
• Understanding a lot of what we say to her, including "wait," "no," "come here," "bring me that ___," "sit," etc.
• Knowing her boundaries: she no longer tries to stand in the bath, get breakable dishes out of the cabinets (although she knows exactly where the mixing bowls that she IS allowed to play with are located), pull the books of the bookshelf, play in the trash, etc.  The boundaries we've emphasized with her, she respects.  So encouraging!
• Identifying her belly, hair, nose, eye, ear, and toes, although she gets pretty insistent that her "eye" is located on the side of her head at times. 
• Playing games with us (pat-a-cake, break the pickle)
• Understanding her surroundings.  Her eyes show that she is with-it. She finds ways to communicate what she wants most of the times, but also reverts back to her much-loved whining tactic at times.
• Signing: "more, all done, please, food, help, up"
• Talking: She says "no, mom, dad, eye, more, yeah, hi, up"
• Babbling continuously throughout the day.  There's no doubt at this point that she's going to be a talker.
• Carrying her baby doll around burping it, an outflow of her recent exposure to baby Anna and Grandma's persistent and vigorous (and effective!) newborn burping techniques
• Going up and down stairs by herself successfully, sitting and sliding down a slide, and crawling through tunnels.
• Identifying some of her animals correctly

Melts my heart.

Busy talkin' and rockin'.

Not sure about this one.

It's so fun!  We can pretty much "teach" her anything we want to now, because she is picking it up so fast.  I am having the best time with her.  Kids are awesome.

Meeting Baby Anna

Clara and I finally had the pleasure of meeting Baby Anna, Crystal's newborn daughter, earlier this week at the ripe age of one week old.

During Crystal's pregnancy, we had often mentioned how cute the exchange would surely be when Clara met her cousin for the first time.

As it turned out, Clara was none-too-sure about her wiggling, beautiful, dark-haired, sleepy little cousin.  Much like a new sibling, Clara was quite put out by all the attention Anna was receiving, especially from her MAMA.

Since I was meeting Anna for the first time, it was only natural that I would be given the honors of holding her for a while.  I could not believe how tiny she was!  And so cute!  Unfortunately that lasted all of about 15 seconds before Clara noticed and came to investigate, whining and pulling at me, and eventually barraging her way onto my lap, though unsatisfied with even these results.

photo by Crystal

"Hey, mom, what about me? I'm here. Aren't I important? Hey, mom? Mom? MOM? What about me?" she seemed to say.

photo by Crystal

 It's a little hard to enjoy a newborn when you're fending off an unhappy, "unloved-feeling" toddler 3x her size intruding her personal space.

This is how I eventually had to experience my niece. 

photo by Crystal

Poor Clara could not have a moment's rest while Anna was in my care.  I passed Anna off to grandma.  Clara sat in my lap, sucking her thumb, and casting frequent suspicious glances in Anna's direction.  "Who is this little person intruding on my show?" she seemed to wonder.  And there's no doubt Clara has been the center of a lot of attention these past 15 months.  

It was disappointing to not get more time cuddling with Anna because I KNOW how fast she will change!  She will not be this baby next time I see her.

Nonetheless, I'm grateful for the time I had with her! I think Clara will adjust... soon...

Adele

Most babies/toddlers have some TV show, video, or movie that captures their interest at a young age, more so than any other, and will hold their attention for extended periods of time.  For Zoe, it was Wall-E.  For Will, it was Elmo's World. For Connar, it was Shrek.  

Once discovered, these precious bits of multimedia become a mom's best ally (when not over-used).  They come in handy when you're baby's ready to start the day but yet it's way to early to actually be awake,  you're trying to do your hair and make-up, they're fussy and discontent for no apparent reason, dinner has to be made and babies pulling at you aren't helping things, or you're not feeling good.  

Or so I'm told.

You see, until now Clara has never showed the least bit of interest in TV.  Overall, I'm pretty happy about that fact and have no intention of it being a big part of her life.  However, there have been times when I really wish I could have a 10 minute reprieve to accomplish something pressing or take a short break.  Especially considering Ms. Clara is of the... social... nature. 

Well, her day has finally come.  Mitch made the discovery last week.  What is Clara's one fail-proof, multimedia fascination?  

Adele music videos.  

We tried other artists, but no one captivates her quite like Adele.  Fortunately Mitch and I both also like Adele.  Here's a video Mitch took for the record.  If you make it past the first 30 seconds of Clara's unwavering fixation on the computer, you'll see her trying to sing along.

It's so fun getting to know this little girl more everyday!

Things To Remember

At 15 months, Clara is 31.5" tall and 25.5 lbs.

This is what Clara wore to church today.  Mitch thought it was pretty cute...

Nicknames 

• Stinky Pete
• Stinky
• Claras
• Clara Monster
• The Monster
• Clar-sters
• Cla-wa
• Kid

Cute Things We're Teaching Her

• Smoosh your face
• High five
• Head bang
• How to make the "buble-buble-buble" noise with her fingers and lips
• Dancing
• Knuckles (Fist Bump)
• Hand shake
• Hug
• Kiss

Words She Says

• Up-- said "p" with a big puff of air and no actual vocals
• Mom-- said mom-om-om
• Dad-- said da-da-da
• Hug
• Yeah
• Car
• Cracker

Games We Invented

• Mitch and I kneel on the floor about 8-10 feet away and Clara runs from one parent to another getting for a swept-up style hug, laughing the whole time.  Mitch and I have such a great time too!
• Clara crawls away, Mitch grabs her feet and pulls her back, and she crawls away again.

Things She Likes

• To carry her spoon and plate around all day, stopping every once in a while to dip into or stir her imaginary food
• To dance
• To TALK.  She carries on quite the impassioned conversation throughout the day.  Her babbling is getting so intricate in its diverse sounds that I'm pretty sure she thinks she's on par with the conversational abilities of the adults in her life.

Busy talking to no one in particular.

This has got to be the most cute age ever.  I can't imagine a little person getting any cuter!

The Container Phase

Clara has recently entered into what I like to call the "container phase."  It's a developmentally-expected phase in which children find it fascinating to put objects into containers.

The unexpected part is the quantity of less-than-desirable item/container matches she's managed to make.

So far we've had:

• a shoe in the kitchen trash
• a plastic clip in the dryer
• a toy in my friend's glass of water (she was holding and drinking from it at the time)
• my cellphone in water-filled BATHTUB (There it was, looking back at me through four inches of bath water.  I saw it all happen, and rescued and dried it instantly.  Somehow it's still working...)
• toys in our shower
• items in the dishwasher
• my glasses case in the bedroom trashcan 

She made for the toilet with a container of my makeup, but thankfully I intervened in time.

What's more she's managed to "hide" two of my contact cases.  Now I'm using my double back-up and last option.  I've searched the house for them and can't image where they could be.

Looking so innocent.

Aside from all her container work, she's also constantly misplacing items from one room to the next.  She'll walk out of her room holding a diaper, then enter my room and notice a more interesting hairbrush. So, she drops the diaper, picks up the hairbrush, and toddles into the kitchen where she notices the dishtowel.  She drops the brush, pulls down the towel, and toddles into the family room where she notices a toy.  Down goes the towel, and with toy in hand she ventures over to the office where she finds a coaster that's calling her name, etc.  She seems to always have some treasure or another in her possession.

On a mission, bookmark in hand.

Picking up the house has become quite an involved task.  It's fun though.  I just really wish I knew what she did with my contact cases...

Energetic Afternoon

I wonder if blueberries + banana + manderine oranges can give a kid a sugar high, because my one year old is literally bouncing off the walls right now. She's staggering around her playroom, falling about every four steps, running into everything, and laughing a squealing in great delight. I don't think she's even looking where she's going, but she seems to be having a wonderful time! What's more, she's over the top excited about her toys, including her "push popper," which she just figured ut how to use. Mitch and I are cracking up watching her.

I think we hit the ultimate combination of energy food at lunch today or something.

Here is a sample of what I'm watching.

Yep, She's a Climber

There are many kinds of babies in the world. Some are picky eaters, while others double-fist whatever you put on their highchair tray. Some quietly play, while others have a lot to say and don't like to be ignored. Some are observers, while others run head-long off steep ledges with frazzled mothers trailing behind, grabbing them by the belt loop at the last second as they dangle over disaster. Some shake off their boo-boos, while others cry and crawl toward the nearest comfort source for a little hug of reassurance before continuing on in play. Some are scared to let go of the couch to take their first steps independently, while others seem to have no regard for possible risks and dangers.

 After watching Clara's mobility and personality take shape in recent weeks, I can now report that she is the latter in each of these scenarios. She is walking, talking, eating, curious, daring, attention-appreciating, socially-oriented little girl, and it's so fun watching her do her thing.

And what's more, she's not only a competent walker, wandering to and fro about the house at will, she is also quite the climber. I've watched her climb up on her kids table, our ottoman, couches, end tables, hearth, rocking horse, retaining wall, and even her lower closet shelf. She will only let me hold her for about a second before she starts climbing me, which usually involves a foot planted right in my gut. We don't have much concern about her damaging furniture, and I'm happy to see her working those little muscles and developing coordination.

Now if only she new how to get back down...

We're working on it,

Katie Left Her Computer Unguarded

This is a guest post by Mitch. WARNING: the subject matter of what you are about to read is 100% male. Being the resident male in the household, I was the only one willing to "man-up" and tell it like it is.

The other day Clara was playing and started to get her grunt on. Katie took her into the bathroom, sat her on the toilet, and Clara did her business. That alone is pretty impressive. Even more impressive... that's the fourth time she has used the toilet for its intended purpose. She has been known to use it for unintended purposes though. Who doesn't want to splash in a random bowl of water?

Great story so far but nothing that would make a me too proud.

Later that evening I got home from work, and Katie yelled from the other room, "MITCH, will you unclog the guest toilet."

I quickly replied, "Why? I NEVER use THAT bathroom."

"Because YOUR daughter clogged it up today."

At that moment I didn't really know what to think. I was overcome with emotion. My eyes started to water a little bit. My throat tightened up, and as a tear* ran down my face I realized why I was so proud. Because deep down inside, in places no one wants to talk about, Clara had a little bit of me in her. 99.9% of the time she's the cutest, most girly, little one-year-old I know. Which means we couldn't be any more different. But every once in awhile, when no one is looking, just like on this beautiful Spring evening, she shows that she is indeed my daughter. And what dad doesn't want that.

*parts of this story might stray from the truth to enhance the overall effect of the post

The Celebrating

I can't think of anything more fun than watching my little baby begin letting go of the sofa, letting go of my hand, and taking those first few awkward steps.

For Clara, it all started with one step, taken on her first birthday.  She's since added steps, improved her balance, and gained boldness.  Over the past two weeks she's worked on her walking every day.  To date, the most she's done is seven "Frankenstein-style" steps together.

I watch on, in giddy excitement, as my baby amazes me with her newly forming abilities.  And of course I have to scoop her up and dance around to celebrate each of her new accomplishments!

And so it goes.  I position Clara standing next to the ottoman, scoot back a few steps, and invite her to walk to me.  With a giant grin on her face, she lets go, takes a step or two and falls on me.  We celebrate.  I swing her high into the air twice and then give her a giant hug, flinging her from side to side.  Clara giggles and squeals.  I reposition her, and again she walks, this time giggling before she even lets go, knowing what's coming at the end.  Two steps later we celebrate.  The third time she completely fails, tripping over her own feet and falling flat before she ever lets go of the ottoman.  She doesn't know the difference though, because she's already squealing and giggling as she fumblingly crawls to me for a celebration.  I scoop her up, and just as before, we celebrate.

I hope she knows that she's loved, so much, despite anything she does or doesn't do.  I will continue to teach her and show her that as she grows.  Walk or trip, we have so much to celebrate in this precious child that God has given us.

As a matter of fact, the celebrating just may be the best part.

Clara at One Year

 Weight: 23 lbs. 13 oz. (85th percentile)  Starting to thin out just a tad now that she's a speed crawler it seems.

Length: 31.5" (98th percentile)  In other words, it's pretty darn hard to find a 12 mo. white female baby any taller than Clara!

What she can do: She can take two steps together, put objects into a container and take them back out, point, repeat sounds, throw a ball (kind of), run little cars around the floor, and use some limited sign language.



What she likes: She likes turning the pages of her books, throwing things on the ground, strawberries, melon, frosting, cheese, and most foods she tries, the remote, her outdoor swing, walking while holding our hands, her friends, and "talking" a lot.

Sleep: She sleeps through the night except when she's sick.  This month I invented my own sleep training method where I offered her a sippy cup of warm milk when she woke up at night rather than nursing.  She was mad, but eventually drank some.  Then, when I put her back in her crib she would cry but soon fall asleep because there was no hunger to fuel her crying (unlike the Ferber method where you don't feed the baby or pick her up).  After a few nights she quit waking up, just like that.  It was never the food that she needed, she just liked the comfort of nursing in the night.  That was a happy success.  Unfortunately she's been sick lately, so she wakes up some and I end up rocking her back to sleep.  It's a bummer to be awake at 2am, but it's sweet to rock a baby back to sleep.

Other information:  Overall, she is a happy, fun, curious baby who likes to be on the go!

Celebrating the Big 1.0

Clara's first birthday party was today.  It was fun to gather our closest friends and family together to celebrate her.  

I'm especially thankful for Ryan and Crystal and Clayton, Amanda, and Zoe who came down early to hang out and help set everything up for our Sunday afternoon party.  It was so nice to have some help, and fun to spend some time together.  Ryan and Clayton were brave enough to take the babies to the World Bird Sanctuary while the ladies stayed back to decorate and prep food.

These are some pictures (taken by Ryan), from the excursion.  

Clara just starting pointing this week.  She picked up this "one-year-old skill" on her birthday.  

Click the image to enlarge.  It's pretty funny.

Crystal paused us to take a family photo together before the party started.  I'm glad she did!

 Clara "bashed" a cupcake for our entertainment.  She was slow to dive in, but once she had a taste of the cream cheese icing, she got pretty excited.  She vigorously shoveled it into her mouth, hand over hand, until only a clean cupcake was left.  That wasn't quite as interesting to her, but she did naw on it a bit.

Having fun playing in icing.  ...oh, and I confiscated the cake, she didn't eat it all...

It was a delight to be surrounded by family and friends.  We are so incredibly blessed by the people God has placed in our lives.  Thanks to everyone who came or sent your wishes!  :)

No Big Deal

Mitch and I have taken to tagging the phrase "no big deal" on to any statement we make to each other about something unexpected and amazing that Clara has just done for the first time.
I think of it as our way of poorly/comically masking our "stereotypical first-time-parent" extreme excitement at everything new she does.  But lets face it, it's awesome to see your baby girl do new things so casually while you have no idea when and where she learned them.

Lately we've been yelling things across the house like:
"No big deal, Clara's just standing."
"No big deal, Clara's just putting the rings back on her rocking tower."
"Clara's walking along holding only one of my hands right now, no big deal."

"No big deal" is code for "This is a big deal!  And you need to come running right this minute to see it!"
It's fun.  This little girl is learning so much every day.

Oh, and, no big deal, she just took her first step on her birthday yesterday. :)

Clara's First Set of Wheels

It's cute to see how proud Clara is of each and every new discovery she makes.  Working on her "walking" these past few days has been a highlight for her.  When she gets fussy, I stick her behind her walker and she's all smiles!

The one requirement for her forward progress is that I'm standing in front of her.  Otherwise she doesn't make it anywhere because she's too busy stopping to turn and grin at me.  She wants to make extra-certain I'm seeing her accomplishment.  She's impressing herself.

So fun.

10 Reasons Why Babies are like Puppies

Let me start by saying, babies are people and WAY cooler than any pet.

But, some of the baby/puppy behavior similarities are pretty entertaining.  I don't currently have a dog, but I know a thing or two about them.  Here are a few of the similarities I've noticed.

1. They both travel on all fours.
2. Both carry things around in their mouths
3. Both beg for treats (when I'm eating something in the living room Clara pulls up on my knee and looks at me imploringly with her big eyes.  I share)
4. Babies and puppies eat things off the floor (I can't wait for the end of this phase)
5. They know their names and simple commands
6. Both enjoy going for walks
7. Both chew things up (thankfully babies don't do too much damage, usually not anyway...)
8. Both whine to communicate what they want or need
9. They will both pee on your floor if you don't take preventative measures (it's happened)
10. Babies and puppies both go in a pen (playpen, dog pen)

Has anyone else noticed this?  Any that I missed?

Little Friends

It's been fun to see Clara taking more interest in her little friends lately.  So far she plays well with other babies and really enjoys having a friend around.  Who can blame her, considering she's alone with me most of the day.  I think it's cute, so I've been collecting pictures.

Clara's so excited to play with her friend Jacob.  She shows him her wooden activity tower.

Clara and Jack raid a cabinet.  Jack shows Clara his secret stash.  He also taught her how to get in the cabinets at our house.  

Will loves to give Clara hugs and kisses.  He can also say her name.  Clara loves to follow Will around and involve herself in whatever he's doing.  They're buds.

Clara and Owen, riding in the airplane together.

Playing with cups at Lucas's birthday party.

Wow.  All of Clara's friends are boys.  Not sure how I feel about that...
Zoe, Izzy, where are you?!