Starting this thing up again…

I somehow lost track of time while writing Claire’s blog over the 6 months, and I wanted to revisit the idea again. I’m not even going to try to catch us up on the last 6 months since so much has happened, so we’ll just start from here and I’ll drop some tidbits in here and there about things that happened during the lapse.

Jeff and I have decided that Claire definitely inherited his memory. She picks things up faster than I would expect a two year old to do. About two weeks ago she started singing this song “The A goes ah” and then sings all the letters and the sounds they make. Last week I just checked in with her and sang some letters, and she knew all the sounds the  letters of the alphabet make! And when we sing a brand new song (like in her Kindermusic class), she starts singing along on the third verse. It just amazes me, because I can’t even pick up on it as fast as she does. She is very blessed to have that type of memory. Makes us wonder who’s going to be teaching who though!

This last weekend we went to a puppet show at the library (which she loved), then went to the park to feed the ducks and throw rocks into the lake. It was a beautiful day in Seattle, and it was the perfect early evening to be at the park. Claire had so much fun running around the park and remembered hanging out there even though it had been about 5-6 months!

Oh, some news, in case you didn’t know…I’m pregnant! I’m 8 weeks now (due Sept. 19) and doing great so far. I think we picked the perfect time to get pregnant again, as Claire is already very motherly with friends (and dolls), so  we think she’ll be a perfect big sister. We’re very excited about this new chapter to add to our lives. I have an ultrasound picture on the refrigerator, and Claire looks at it every day and says it’s a baby and then pulls up my shirt to look at my belly. So cute! Much different this time around being pregnant. Lots to think about, but much more calm about the idea of having another one.

We’ve learned a lot about Claire since she’s turned two. The terrible two’s aren’t as bad as we thought they’d be. I know that Claire picks up on things quickly and listens very well, and I think the combination of that, and Jeff and me working well with helping her through these tough times, has been great. I’ve read a lot about how to handle situations, and we seem to nip each new issue within a week of it popping up. The toddler bed was probably the one that took the longest, but it taught us a whole new level of patience. Right now we’re really focusing on giving her choices, and when things go awry, to redirect, redirect, redirect. These days there’s so much information out there on the web to teach parents how to parent the best way for their kids, and it’s been a blessing for us to have that at our fingertips.

The latest task with Claire is potty training. Here’s my take on it…I think it would be great it she was potty trained, but at the same time, it’s also not as easy to just run errands when she’s potty trained. I guess I just think about her having to go on a regular toilet without her little lid. Kind of messy and hard. I know we’ll figure it out when the time comes, but I’m okay with not pushing her on getting potty trained right now. She does it when she wants to, and sometimes pees 3-4 times a day on the toilet, other days not at all. I ask daycare every day if she goes, just so I know where she’s at with them. One of her teachers actually said that she thought it was great that we’re not trying to push the potty training thing and just letting Claire take the lead.  We think that when Claire’s ready, she’ll let us know. I don’t want it to be a battle.

Claire’s daycare has taught her so much already. It’s a Christian daycare, but they aren’t pushy. The do teach a little bible story class each day and how it relates to their lives. It’s funny, because when Claire plays with her toys at home and they’ll be “talking” to each other, and their names are almost always Mary and Joseph. They also sing prayer before lunch at daycare “The Lord is good to me, and so I thank the Lord, for giving me the things I need, the sun and the rain and the apple seeds. The Lord is good to me.” Claire and I now sing it every night before bed. She’s so animated with it and loves singing it.

I think she has the characteristics to be an actress or singer or some type of musician. She LOVES singing, and picks up songs immediately, and she loves reading books and being really animated with them. She tells you what’s on the page (even if it’s not what the words say), and hs a happy face one second, and sad the next. She seriously cracks us up.

Since Valentine’s Day is coming up, Claire got a bag of gifts from grandma and grandpa. She carries that bag everywhere and takes out her “hearts”. She wears her necklace everywhere and is so girly with all of it. Thank you grandma and grandpa!

Okay, promise to be better about these updates.

Until next time!

July wrap up

July just flew by! Jeff actually had off for the entire 4th of July weekend, but we didn’t really do a whole lot but relax.  We met up with Mary and Audrey a few times and hit the pool. We had some record breaking heat here which apparently is very rare for Seattle. Everyone keeps saying we brought the cold winters and hot summers from Minnesota with us when we moved out here.

Claire has been very interested in the potty this months. She has her own little potty seat and so I talked to daycare about taking her through the process with the older kids when they can. The director was hesitant about this because she said Claire wasn’t old enough to know how to hold her bladder, but the teachers agreed to go with it anyway.  And, guess what?!! She went pee for the first time on the toilet only a few days later! I’m sure it was by accident, but it was pretty exciting for us! She didn’t do it again for the rest of the month, but we figured, when she’s ready, she’ll let us know.

It’s been kind of odd for Claire and I on the weekends since we don’t have her music class for the summer. We definitely miss it, but are finding other t hings to do.

We celebrated my birthday with a wonderful dinner and awesome new guitar! Claire loves playing it too! She’s also into singing happy birthday all of the time now and making fake cakes at daycare, so she was very excited to sing happy birthday to me which was extra special.

This month for daycare was a bit difficult as well. Two of her teachers left. One because she had a baby and decided to stay home, and the other got let go for stealing. It’s kind of weird too because she was my favorite person there and I thought she was so trustful. Very sad. I really miss her, and I’m sure Claire does too. I was a bit upset that daycare didn’t catch her record when they did a background check, but apparently the background check is only for violent acts or acts against children.

We went to North Dakota to visit the Dolan family for a weekend of camping! Claire loved seeing her grandparents and immediately when we got off the plane let her grandpa hold her hand. This is surprising because it usually takes her about 15-30 minutes to warm up to someone.  It was great to see though. We had a wonderful time hanging out with everyone and relaxing. Claire slept with us in Jeff’s parents bed in the camper (they slept on the pull out couch). Claire did great with everything. A little difficult to put down for naps since she wanted to hang out with everyone, but not bad considering she was out of her element. Her grandparents also got her a little pool to hang out in. She absolutely loved it! Grandma got her some roll on soap  that she had so much fun with. She’d go in and then out of the pool, then in, then out. So cute! She wanted to go for rides on the golf cart all day long. And, they were doing Christmas in July, so everything was decorated. Claire completely took to her Uncle Mike as well. He was great with her!  It was a short trip, but very worth it. We hadn’t seen everyone since Kerry and Mike’s wedding, and it was great to relax and be with the family again.

 

When we came back, we walked into more record breaking heat. Most people don’t have air conditioners out here because you don’t need them, but when I went to the store to buy one the day after we came back, they were sold out statewide!! It was upper 90s-100s for about a week or two. Absolutely insane! It was so awful sleeping, so we decided to try downstairs. Claire didn’t like that so much since we just got back from traveling and she was out of her room. I think she was a bit confused. I finally found a portable a/c unit online and ordered it. It got there the next day. Ahh relief! The thing didn’t work that great, but anything was better than the sweltering heat. They couldn’t even have the kids outside at daycare because it was too hot. That’s all everyone talked about here and we all wanted rain back. And wouldn’t you know it, the day after we got it, it started cooling off. The things you’ll do for comfort!

Let’s see what else Claire’s up to:

• Talking in short sentences.
• Understanding what we say and abiding by it.
• Singing so many songs.
• Voicing her opinion.
• Climbing up and down stairs on her own (no falls yet!!)
• Telling stories.

Love my little angel!! That’s our July in a few paragraphs.

June wrap up…

It’s so hard to find time to keep up with this blog, so I figured I’d do monthly wrap ups instead.

June was an interesting month for Claire. Lots of development going on. Learning to repeatedly say things like “mine” or “my turn”.  She’s quite a manipulator with the boys at daycare. One of her teachers is always saying that she’s very smart about how she goes about getting the things she wants. She’ll see someone with a toy that she wants, so she grabs another toy and shows that one to them. Then they want the toy she has and she takes the other toy away from them. I guess one day she also was pushing a few kids and had to go to timeout. But that must have ended quickly because it only lasted one day. There’s another kid at daycare who pushes other kids all the time, so that’s where we think she picked it up.

I’ve been reading a lot lately about the toddler stages. One of my books “What to Expect in the Toddler Years” makes it sound like the 20th-21st months are very difficult with toddlers. I know I just said some not so nice things that she does, but that’s all the “difficult” that she’s been the last few months. She just keeps getting more and more amazing as our little toddler. She’s so smart with how she picks up on things so quickly. She has this new thing where she tells you to “stay there” and puts her hand up towards you. Then she wants to go do it on her own instead of us helping. We were taking a walk the other day, and she loves pushing her stroller. So she started pushing it, and kept telling Jeff and I to “stay there”. Then we’d slowly follow her and she’d turn around and do it again (this is as the stroller is coming back down the little hill towards us). We couldn’t stop cracking up! I also just got a new car, and she felt so special in it. She knows it’s mommy’s car, and points to it and says it.  She’s also really into watering the plants now and always wants to help us out with watering when we’re outside.

We just had her last Kindermusic class until September. In the interim, I’m going to sign her up for Little Kickers (soccer for toddlers). Should be really cute.

It’s also amazing how well she interacts with other kids that we hang out with. She does so well and loves running around with them. She’s really tough too and plays hard. She’s always copying what her friend Audrey does. Audrey is 2 years older than her, and they just adore each other. Whatever Audrey does, Claire wants to do.

This last weekend was 4th of July, and finally Jeff was off for the holiday. It was really hot here (85-90) and perfect for the summer holiday. We went to the Redmond Farmer’s Market, grilled, went to the race track to watch the horses, and bummed around. Claire went on her first pony ride and had so much fun. She kept saying “my turn” after she got off. Then she saw the jockeys on the horses, and said “my turn”. We headed home early and she slept on the way home, and when she woke up from her nap she said “my turn”. This little girl cracks me up! She just becomes more and more perfect, and amazes me every day!

Claire Goes International

It’s been quite some time since I last wrote. We’ve been so busy and I’ve been preoccupied at work, but I don’t want to pass through Claire’s early years without writing notes about what’s going on in her life.  Here’s a bit of a lengthy update of what she’s been up to the last few months.

April: Claire is going international. We filled out an application for a passport for all three of us for a vacation to Jamaica last month. We got Claire’s picture taken, and although she loves the camera, she sure wasn’t showing it when they snapped the pic. Looks a little goofy.

Claire has recovered considerably from the ear infections. Now she’s teething. If it’s not one thing, it’s the next. That’s okay though, just a part of getting older.

We had a little Easter get together at our house with some of the friends we’ve made out here. Jeff had to work, but we had the moms and kids over on Saturday to dye the eggs, and then the dads came over with them on Sunday for brunch and a hunt. The kids had a blast. We had Michel, Mary and Audrey; Matt, Jennifer, Grand and Merrick; Santiago, Melanie and Nathan; and my cousin Chrissy. Claire had so much fun, although I think she was a bit confused why so many people were over at her house. We went to church Sunday morning (just the two of us), before the party on Sunday. Great weekend.

Her daycare and Kindermusik classes have been going awesome. She’s picking up so much now. She loves dancing, playing music, talking in her own language, singing, reading, everything. She’s always a happy girl.

Claire got her first official haircut this weekend. I found a cute shop that specializes in little kids cuts. Jeff wasn’t so thrilled about the price ($25) which I agree with, but it was for her first experience. She did fantastic and didn’t care that someone was messing with her hair. They had cute little cars that she got to sit in with toys and a movie to watch. Good thinking to keep them so occupied. Her little mop turned into a cute little haircut.

Claire and I headed back to Denver for the weekend for a little family and friends time. We stayed at my dad’s house this time since my mom just had hip surgery. She’s recovering well, but it would have been hard for her to carry Claire at all. Claire definitely took to Mema, Papa and Nanners. They had a blast with her. She did great. It was a quick weekend, but enough for her to get to know everyone more. She left knowing everyone’s nicknames.

Claire is now very much into anything Elmo. Not sure that she always knows who Elmo is because she calls other characters Elmo, but she’s learning. She also loves trains and has been watching Thomas the Train. We have Kids Fitness On Demand with Comcast, so we tried some kids yoga and she loves it. She tries her best to do the moves and will call out “yoga” and puts her arms over her head for the move. Adorable!

Her appetite has started to thin out a bit (not necessarily her belly size yet thought), and she’s definitely starting to test us with things. She threw her first few temper tantrums this month, but we nipped those in the butt early on. I think she’s going to test us quite a bit to see what she can get away with. Funny though because she doesn’t do that at all at daycare. Hmmm.

May: This month was particularly busy for us. It was a big birthday month (Jeff turns 30, Mema turns 55, Papa turns 60), so we decided to take some vacations to celebrate (plus, we completely deserved them).  We headed to Florida to celebrate the birthdays with the family on May 14-18 then went to Jamaica May 18-23. We were a little concerned how Claire would do with all the traveling and sun, but she was a champ. We got her a seat on the way to Florida since it was such a long trip. We had her dvd player with Elmo Goes to Grouchland and some books, and she did awesome. All the people around us were shocked because the other little ones nearby were quite fussy. So proud of our little lady. She had the best time in Jamaica. She kept calling it “Maica”. It was the most amazing time for Jeff, Claire and I to spend together. She did her first pool dip in Florida and has been addicted to the water ever since. She played in the beach, went on the boat, hung out with the family, and even got a little color. Can’t wait for the next family trip.

I still desperately want another baby especially after seeing how amazing Claire is. I know the next won’t be the same, but I think Claire would make a great older sister. She’s so loving and caring. Now I just need to convince Jeff. So any of you out there reading this, help me out a little please.

Well, that’s the last few months in a nutshell. Claire’s talking, singing words to songs, learning her numbers and letters and developing quickly.

Here are the pics from Colorado, Florida and Jamaica.

Learning the word no

Claire has gotten on a new streak of using the word “no”.  We ask her questions all the time to see what she has to say, and for the last week or so, every time (just about), it’s no. “Claire, would you like to take a bath…’no’.” “Claire, would you like to get down…’no’.” Kind of cute right now. Except she actually wants us to follow through with not doing what she said no to, which sometimes can be hard.

Last weekend I bought some bubble bath for her since she loves bubbles. Well, when we put her in she completely FREAKED! She wouldn’t even sit down. So I quickly washed her off and got her out. And now every time I try to give her a bath she cries on her way in and says no constantly. Not sure what scared her because she used to love baths. And, she wants me to blow bubbles while she’s in there, she just doesn’t want them to fill the tub before she gets in. I thought maybe it was because of water getting into her ears with the ear tubes, but the doctor told us at the follow up visit that it was fine for water to get in her ears. Then I thought maybe it was because she had really bad diaper rash, so bad that she couldn’t get in the bath because it stung. But even though now it’s gone she still cries getting into the bath. Once in for a few minutes, she starts playing with her toys and is back to normal. Interesting kid.

So I have to gloat again about my little lady. Daycare just says the best things about her. They’re always saying how good she is and how smart she is. Makes me so proud. I keep eating it all up. I think the same about her, but it’s always nice to hear it so often from them. They say she’s their favorite (but I’m sure they tell that to all the parents) .

We booked our trip to Jamaica last week, and Jeff and I are so excited to finally have a family trip together next month. We went to get our passports and everything. Claire’s looks so goofy. Costco didn’t do a good job of getting her to feel comfortable. One of her shoulders is shrugged up to her ear and she has a funny look on her face like “what are you doing?”. Anyway, it should be an awesome trip for us to spend some quality time together. We go to Florida first with the family for all of the May birthdays. Jeff turns the big 3-0 this year, so I wanted to do something special for him. Then we head to Jamaica for 6 days. Can’t wait to see little Claire in a bathing suit on the beach! She’ll definitely need the sunscreen so her little pale body doesn’t burn, but I’m sure she’ll have a blast!

We’re having a little Easter egg dying and hunt get together this weekend with some of the couples we’ve met out here and their kids. Everyone is coming over to the house Saturday and Sunday. Unfortunately Jeff has to work, but I’ll be sure to take plenty of pictures of Claire in her little Easter outfit and hunting for eggs. Pssst…she’s already been practicing a little and is loving searching for them. Then she dumps them out over her head. Luckily they’re empty plastic ones. She’s just such a little angel. LOVE MY LITTLE LADY!!

Ear tubes

After three months of consistent ear infections, we finally decided that it would be best for Claire to have ear tubes put in. The long-term effects if we didn’t do surgery weren’t good, so we went for it. She went in on Monday morning. Jeff and I were a bit worried for a few reasons.

1. She couldn’t eat/drink after midnight the night before and surgery was at 8:30. If you know Claire, she likes to eat, so we thought she’d throw a fit.
2. She had to have general anesthesia.
3. It’s surgery for heaven’s sake!

But Claire surprised us! We went into the hospital for a 7 am arrival time and she did just fine. No crying for food or milk at all! We practiced putting the mask on her, and she actually had fun with it. Surgery took a total of maybe 15 minutes and then we got to go home. She was a bit groggy for the rest of the day while I stayed home with her, but back to her normal self soon enough.

The only concerns I have now are that we have to be careful so she doesn’t get water in her ears. I gave her a bath last night and wasn’t really thinking about it. Luckily I caught myself before I got her hair wet. Everything was fine. We had to do ear drops for three days (which of course she doesn’t like), but she’s fine. We go for a follow up appointment in 10 days to see how her ears are doing. Before the surgery she still had some fluid behind her ear drums. I just hope this is the end of ear infections for our little lady!

Blah, blah, blah…now ball, bye, baby…

After 16 months of talking  to myself, my little lady is starting to say real words! Awesome! And she’s picking a new one up daily it seems. Her first words were baby, bye, and ball, but now you tell her to point to her ear, and she points and says “ear”. So she’s getting to know her body parts already. I know in the books it says that she should start knowing them around 16 months, but it says that she should point to them, not say them as well! So she knows: ears, eye, door, ball, beep beep (for car), car, puppy, baby, and bye (from what I can remember those are what she knows). She just started with eye and nose this weekend, and door was today. She closed the door and said it. What a relief it is to have her saying things now. I honestly think it’s a combination of her incredible daycare, her weekend Kindermusik classes, and some of the “baby genius” shows we let her watch. Michelle, the director, from daycare said that Claire is very smart and that she picks up on things very quickly. She said that you show her something once and she remembers it. She also said we really need to be careful for the things we and our friends say around Claire now because of how quickly she’s picking them up. Good thing and bad thing I guess! It’s just so cool to see everything coming together and her growing up. I truly am amazed by her every day. She listens to us and knows what we’re saying. Whether it’s just nodding or shaking her head no, she’s able to communicate with us now. Love my little lady!

Washing Hands

Claire’s new daycare is great about teaching kids hygeine. So great, that she actually comes home, climbs up her little step stool to the sink and waits there and yells for us to come wash her hands. It’s adorable. I think she probably just likes playing in the water, but she looks so proud and grown up when she stands their waiting.  And she’ll wait there forever trying to reach for the faucet and turn it on herself. We’ve already had a few water fights in there and she just has a blast!

Oh, last night while we were talking with grandma and grandpa on the web cam Claire said “puppy” to their dog Jake! She saw another dog earlier that day, so I wonder if that’s how she picked it up.

Here’s a quick shot of her and dad enjoying the Super Bowl yesterday. She seemed really into the game and was cheering. Wonder where she gets that from since we never watch sports. Must be a natural sports fan!!

The month of January

What a month it’s been!

So the last post I wrote was about Claire and the pacifier and crying. Well, here’s the story about all of it. She actually started a new daycare called Tree of Life Day Care on January 5. We decided to do a new daycare because we weren’t sure she was getting the development experience she needed during the day from her last provider. They were great with her, but we just wanted more. Plus, it just was getting annoying to me being practically pushed out the door the second I got there to pick her up at night because the provider needed to catch her bus. Lights were practically off and she was just waiting there for me to leave. Anyway, so we found this new daycare which is closer to us. It’s in a church, about $250 cheaper a month, and they’re into a lot of the stuff we are. They really focus on development, and the kids are older. I think it’s what Claire really needs at this point.

So she went in the first few days and was fine. Then on the third day she had a bit of separation anxiety. I’m sure she thought that she was just going there temporarily and then realized it might be more permanent then she thought, so she kind of freaked. She clenched onto my legs and wouldn’t let go and cried when I tried to leave. I felt awful! But it had to be done. She does great as soon as I leave, but it’s the initial goodbye that throws her.  I was questioning whether moving her to a new daycare was okay, but I just had to think it would take a bit of time. I called my mom non-stop about it though, but she assured me it would be okay as well. So the next week and a half it was the same reaction each day. By the end of the second week teacher Nathan held his arms out to take her and she put her arms out as well. Relief! The next day she just went right on in and didn’t look back. That was the best feeling ever! I didn’t feel guilty anymore! And they said that she is such a pleasure to have there. She wasn’t doing so good with her naps at first (waking up in an unfamiliar place and then crying a little), but now she’s doing great. She’s the youngest one there and all the older kids love having a little one around they can play with. She gets tons of attention! They’re great about teaching hygiene and good eating habits as well. She goes outside to play just about every day and has to brush her teeth after lunch. She gets so excited now about washing her hands there. She feels like a big kid! And in just the first few weeks we could already tell what an impact it has had on her. She’s trying to talk a lot more (saying ba for ball, baby, bye). It’s just so exciting to see all the changes! She’s coloring (of course they give us all the pictures and we’re posting them all over the fridge). Too fun!

So she does great while she’s there, but then she comes home and clings to us and cries when she doesn’t get what she wants. I don’t want her to think that anytime she does that that we’ll pick her up, so we’ve been trying to help her understand that. It’s tough though when she cries so much. So we had gone into the doctor on the 17th because we thought maybe she had an ear infection again. Sure enough, she did. And it was another double ear infection and really bad. So she went back on antibiotics again. It’s tough, because she’s teething as well (her molars are coming in). So I wasn’t sure if she was manipulating us with the crying, if she was teething or if she really was sick. Tough being a parent and having to try to figure those things out. I felt awful, because I was letting her cry it out at night when she was going to bed again thinking that it was just another phase we needed to get through. Turns out that she probably really was in pain. Ahhh! So the meds were for 5 days but she still seemed like something was wrong. So we brought her in again on Wednesday. Sure enough, one of her ears still hadn’t recovered. This doctor said that if we have even a few more then she’ll have to get tubes in her ears. I really don’t want to do that. It’s not supposed to be bad, but I’d rather avoid surgery if we can. She seems to be doing better now though. We’ll see how it goes!

Other then that, we’ve just been staying busy with her Sign and Sing class. She’s really been having a blast with it. When the music comes on she starts dancing around (just like mom:) ). We all sit in a circle with our kids and Claire goes straight to the middle. She loves being on stage! Speaking of that…daycare is in a church and the kids go upstairs into the church towards the end of the day to wait for the parents and they have drums up there. Every time I pick Claire up, she’s up there banging away on the drums. So cute! She’s not that bad either! Lots of musicians in our family, maybe we’ll be adding another one! Hopefully not a drummer though…that could get noisy!

I think that’s about it for this month. She’s just moving about and really developing her own character. She has this cute face where she looks like she’s trying to look upset but a smile is just peaking through.  Oh, she LOVES bananas now and even holds the banana by herself. She’s eating everything we eat (well, except spicey foods). I think we have another food lover! Jeff cooks in front of her all the time and now she loves spending time in the kitchen. Oh, and she’s definitely a dancer. Put some music on and she moves her arms (kind of like the chicken dance). Super funny! I’ll have to get a video of her doing it. She kind of gets shy when we try to do it with her, but maybe I’ll be able to sneak one in.

How to get her way

So with all the time off, Claire seemed to get quite comfortable with the one-on-one time, and started figuring out how to get me to do things for her. She’s just starting to get into the crying stage where she cries until she gets what she wants. The big thing is the pacifier. She’s quite addicted to it. She’s been waking up at night crying a ton and then wants us to hold her and give her the pacifier. I don’t really want her to have the pacifier all the time because I don’t want her to be dependent on it or mess up her mouth from sucking on it all night. But when I take it out, she wakes up a few hours later crying for it, so then I don’t get any sleep because I’m up and down. So the easiest thing is to just give it to her, but then I’m not really helping her sleep on her own. I know she’s teething, but I think this is a phase of crying and getting what she wants. So Jeff and I have agreed that we need to help her sleep on her own and sleep in her own bed all night rather than coming to our room early in the morning. The first night of having her cry was really tough. She kept going and going. I finally caved and gave her the pacifier. But last night we were strong and she seemed to already pick up on the fact that we weren’t going to play the game. It’s nice because Jeff is off now for the week so he can really spend some good time with her and help her with this. What a relief for me!