Claire has been busy the last few weeks. Mom apologies for not updating the blog, we've been battling colds and blogging has taken a back seat. She is overdue to upload some pictures and promises to get some loaded soon. 

Claire continues to amaze us with new skills. Her drawing skills continue to improve, she really likes to draw 'circles' (or what seem to look like circles). She appears to be leaning towards black as her favorite crayon. She draws a line or a circle, stops and points to the line and says 'na'. ('Na' is her word for everything she can't pronounce. 'Da' is a close second.) We assume she is saying, "look at this cool line I just drew!". 

She has really started to engage with her stuffed bears. She likes to have them sit in her booster seat when she isn't eating and enjoys bringing them bottles so they can get a drink. Yellow bear even made a trip to the store with us last weekend. She hasn't given up on her blankie's as her loveys but the bears sleep with her at night and she is certainly attached to a particular few. 

Her motor skills are moving right along (no pun intended). She can move herself around on the sit and spin, now she just needs to learn how to approach it and sit down without falling off. She is also climbing on everything she can get up on - and trying on others. Last week she figured out how to open certain doors in the house. She is intent on figuring out the door handles that are more ball shaped, those have kept her from getting out and she wants to be independent! 

She really likes to sit on mom & dad's bed and either play handheld poker (start 'em young!) or tear out the tape flags mom brings home from work. Somehow these tape flags find there way into every room of the house! 

New words have been added. Claire can now say a version of bye-bye. It sounds similar to her word for bubbles and reminds mom & dad of the SNL skit where David Spade and Helen Hunt (?) escorted people off the plane. Buh-bye. It's fun to hear her add words and she knows she is going to get cheers when she says something. 

Learning and Playing

(Look Grandma Jackie! I like my horsey!)

Claire had a busy weekend with Thanksgiving and mom being home for four days in a row. She had a great time at Grandma Jackie and Papa's, bringing Grandma Jackie nearly all of the letter magnets from the fridge. Claire also had some quality time with Jared, Rachel, Mitch and Jake. At one point we saw her trailing after Jake and Mitch. "Hmm...wonder what my cousins are up to", she thought. On Friday we worked on drawing the connection between who she saw on Thursday with the family photo book. Papa will be proud to know she has said his name on more than one occasion.  

Lots of playing and mom & dad saw some progression in her abilities. We've been working on drawing and after dad worked with Claire on painting the lights turned on and she started moving the crayon back and forth. Many masterpieces were drawn this afternoon.

She also helped dad shovel the first 'real' snow of the season. She looks like a giant pink marshmallow in her snow pants and jacket. 

Buba

Claire has a new word!

Go ahead, ask her if she wants to blow some bubbles. She might nod and say 'buba'. Dad has been working on getting her to say the word and she finally mastered it a couple days ago, right around the same time she actually was able to blow hard enough to make her own bubble.

She has been jabbering more the last several days and we're just waiting for words (or things that sound like words) start to form. Nana seems to be the fall back for everything (not just banana, but grandma Joanne & Jackie, and the cat). But she is obviously communicating with us the best she can.

Her latest feat is letting us know when she needs a diaper change because she has gone poop. She points her to diaper and starts poking herself. She did this to mom last week and also to the nanny.

She is also very interested in the toilet. She will come into the bathroom while mom is drying her hair or getting ready and tries to lift the toilet seat cover. She looks under and around trying to figure it all out. You can bet she will be receiving some new books associated with learning how to go potty for the holidays from mom & dad. The sooner the diaper thing is done, the better!

The first 'snow' of the season

Claire experienced the first 'real' snow this morning. Her snow pants are a bit big and she has a hard time getting up if she falls down.

She also wore her first bandage of her life. For some reason she thought it would be a good idea to stick her little finger in the return vent in the dining room. Dad said no tears were shed, little trooper.

Introducing... Flat Claire!

One of dad's latest works of art is Flat Claire. Dad traced Claire one day and worked on creating a life-sized version of Claire. So far we have used it to discuss different body parts. It's pretty funny to see Claire standing next to Flat Claire.

Claire continues to enjoy the 'new' used stroller mom & dad scored a couple weeks ago. Claire likes to put 'baby Tina' or any one of her stuffed animals in the stroller and walk them around the basement.

She is also continuing to climb on her chairs to 'color'. She spends more time using the crayon on the table than the paper but she is certainly practicing getting up and down on chairs. Poor girl is just like her mom. Once she sits on the chair she is miles away from having her knees hit where they should and feet touch the ground.

Claire still chases the cat around until Tabby runs into the laundry room. The gate is one of Tabby's only saving graces left in the house.

The last week has been a bit rough with daylight savings time and a new tooth. The tooth finally broke through yesterday and she slept in until 7am this morning. Perhaps we turned another corner?

A Beautiful Butterfly

Eric Carle's Hungary Caterpillar has nothing on this beautiful butterfly. 

Ms. C dressed up and went to five neighborhood houses last night. She is pictured above with Isabella dressed as Tigger. Isa is 4 months younger than Claire and lives across the street. 

We went earlier in the evening while it was just starting to get dark. Dad carried her from house to house so she wouldn't trip and fall. She had a hard time with the hood but was a good sport for the most part. 

Fall fun

Dad raked up some leaves Saturday afternoon so Claire could experience playing in the pile. She enjoyed throwing them in the air and plowing through the pile strewing them along behind her.

Claire stops to smell the flowers while playing in the leaves, with her handy wrench in hand just in case.


Mom and Claire stop to roll around in the leaves.

(sorry for the dark photos, mom is lazy and didn't do any adjustments!)


A couple new words have entered (down and boom), although she doesn't say these without prompting. She's certainly communicating more and more and understands a lot of what is said around her. She's been saying something that sounds like 'tickle, tickle, tickle' but we know that isn't really what she means. It sounds more like she is experimenting with 't' and 'l'.

She's found out how to take the tabs off her diaper. Mom continues to tell her that if she would like to learn how to potty train at 16 months we're ready to pull the trigger (not really, no potty yet). She also enjoys zipping up her pj's at night.

Claire enjoys singing Wheels on the Bus (with the actions) and walks around the house making the 'wheels' motion. She also likes Itsy-Bitsy Spider and throws her hands in the air at the start of the song. We've been working on Ring-Around-the-Rosy as she likes to turn around but prefers to watch other fall down :)

Her favorite books have changed in the last week, much to mom and dad's relief. We're now reading a lot of Nursery Rhymes.