Claire doesn't say "No" like the proverbial two year olds in stories and magazines. Instead, when frustrated or angry she says, "I can't". It's got a nice whiny tone to it too. If you say, "Ok, you don't have to (insert current issue here), she changes her mind and says, "I want (insert current issue here). It makes conversations at our house quite interesting.
It's also a hoot to see how she handles her frustration when you tell her you would rather she not continue a particular activity, say, hanging on the kitchen counter and swinging her legs. She gets mad and says, "I run away" and does literally that, into the next room, away from whomever she is mad at, towards her blankie. Sometimes it is hard not to laugh.
We're not quite sure what is happening with her sleeping patterns. A little over a week ago she began waking up in the middle of the night again and stayed up for three plus hours. It's great when that happens at 3am! We've only let her crawl into our bed twice and have been holding hard and fast on not letting that happen again. Of course, that usually means one of us ends up sleeping on her floor until morning.) Then last week she stopped napping. Out of the blue. She took a 2 hour nap on Saturday and on Monday decided she didn't want to nap. Since then it's been a toss up if she goes down or not. If she doesn't nap, she sleeps through the night, if she does nap, we have the 3am visitor.
Drop her nap is the natural answer, but she is only getting 10 hours of sleep. Not enough if you read the 'standards' of sleep requirements for 2 year olds. But how do we force her to sleep? She is still nearly as active as she was when it was warmer out... it's very odd. I'm hoping this is just another short phase and she will slip back into 12 hours of sleep sometime soon.
She's been far more talkative since returning to school. Not sure if it has to do with her interaction with her friends and the teachers but I swear on days when she is at school when I get home from work she uses bigger words and even her sentance structure is better. Could just be me...
checking out the bamboo walkway at the Minnesota Zoo
Claire's Mr. Potato-head pumpkin.
Her first snowman of the year. She built it with dad during the snowy Monday. It tipped over later in the afternoon and that has been the talk of the house ever since. 
Loving those honeycrisp apples!