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.