It’s so amazing to Jeff and I to watch little Claire take in the world now. She’s such a little person, and seems to just get it. It’s crazy to think about how quickly they learn little things and how much more they have to take in. I learn new things about her every day.
For instance, today I was talking with daycare and I we were chatting about Claire moving over to another center. They said they were kind of concerned with how she’d do with new people since she’s so used to them. I mentioned that every time we’ve had her around people she doesn’t know that she immediately takes to them. However they said that when strangers come to the center, she’ll scream until someone she knows picks her up. That just doesn’t seem like her at all, so I was completely shocked that she’d act that way (unless maybe she got a bad vibe from them). So now it concerns me a little with moving her to a new center. I’ve been touring daycares for the last few weeks trying to find the perfect match for Claire and us. With her at a stage where she’s really starting to soak things in and very impressionable, I want to be sure we find the right place for her to grow. We love the idea of a Montessori, but those are more expensive and a little hard to get a one-year-old into. I’ve visited five places, and all have them have great qualities and a few not so great. Decisions decisions. I need to make up my mind today though. Ugh!
The latest changes:
- She is a walking machine! She just runs all over the house. Jeff chases her and she loves it!
- She’s VERY curious about things now. You can tell she’s on the verge of talking because she points to something and makes her own sound to say “what is that” or “let me see it”. She loves opening and closing things (now the microwave and refrigerator). She’s so proud when she does it too.
- She’s starting to pick up some signing. I think I almost saw milk yesterday. We’ve been trying to do the signing with her so that she can communicate with us. I’m sure it will take time.
- She LOVES books now. She wants to sit down by her book shelf and read all the time. In the morning when we’re getting ready she sits down to read. I feel bad pulling her away when we have to get going. I love that she’s so into them!
- She’s getting into organizing things (well her version of it anyway). She’ll take the magazines out of the rack and then brings them to us, then takes them back and puts them back in. It’s adorable! She gets very focused on it too.
- I think she’s been watching us clean too much, because she gets into the cabinet and pulls out a washcloth and then starts cleaning things with it.
- She’s testing us now to see how far she can get with things. We’ve been trying to keep the remotes and phone away from her, and when we’re sitting on the couch she’ll go behind the end table and look at us with a funny look and wait for us to catch her as she tries to get the phone.
- She’s really getting into dancing now. She has a little move where she squats down a bit and wiggles her butt. So cute! She just loves music! When she eats and we have music on she’ll dance in her chair. And after she eats a bite she wiggles a little more and says “mmmmm” as she moves.
- We have an island in the kitchen with little shelves on the side. We were keeping her snacks and cereal on the shelves, and she obviously figured out where they were. So now when she runs around and she’s still hungry, she’ll go over to the island and pick up a box and either dig into it or give it to us to give to her.
- We’ve started her on eating pretty much whatever we eat (since that looks so much better to her). So she’s been eating curry chicken, stir-fry, risotto, etc. Makes mealtime so much easier (except that I still can’t cook so we have to wait for Jeff to come home and make dinner). We’ve been eating at the table as a family more for dinner though, so that’s been good for all of us. Before it was that we would feed her around 6 pm then we wouldn’t eat until about 9. Just what we were used to.
It’s amazing to think that now we can just let her run around and for the most part we don’t need to worry about her. Every now and then we really have to watch her, but for the most part she’s so well behaved. Love it!
