What are those numbers you ask? What is the significance of 70 and 35? Well, let me tell ya. At her last pediatrician appointment (the 6 month well check) Clare was in the 70% for height (26.3 inches) and the 35% for weight (15.04 lbs). She’s still a long skinny little thing, but J reminded me that she was at the 25% for weight at her 4 month check so she’s gaining ground. Grow baby girl grow!

It’s crazy to believe that a mere six months ago we were still in the hospital introducing ourselves to our precious little Clare. When I look at pictures it’s hard to believe it’s the same baby – she was such a long skinny little thing. I called her my little bird baby and she kind of was, she sort of chirped and flapped like a skinny little bird. Now she’s round and chubby in the sweet little baby way, certainly makes more noises besides little chirps, and moves beyond little flaps. Gosh these little buggers grow up so fast!

Anyway, I digress. It’s been a good week around here. Mary, Clare’s amazing nanny, was out for the week with a family emergency so we figured out a schedule with me, J, my mom and a substitute sitter to watch Clare. While it took some juggling, we all enjoyed the extra time with her. I’ve been home with her on Thursday and Friday and I’m not really looking forward to going back to work tomorrow. Hmmmm, maybe there’s something to the stay-at-home-mom thing… (that sound you hear is J gulping – I’m just kidding Sweetie, mostly).

Our girl continues to be the most vocal 6-month-old I’ve ever met. Right now she’s playing on the floor and going “Blah blah blah.” It’s pretty funny. Jeremy says sometimes it sounds like we should be able to understand her since her intonation and rhythm are so much like English. No wonder since she loves to be talked and sung to. I’m expanding my repertoire – She’s Coming Round the Mountain and Baa Baa Black Sheep are current favorites. Suggestions are welcome, since I sing the same half a dozen songs several times a day.

She loves her exersaucer and has figured out that if she pushes a specific button music plays. She spent about 15 minutes this morning pushing it over and over and listening to the songs. Fortunately the song changes each time – otherwise we’d be pulling the batteries out. She’s still not QUITE rolling over but came thisclose to going from back to front this morning. She is starting to wiggle around more – Friday night J went into check on her after she went to sleep and saw that she had rotated 180 degrees from where he put her down. She’s very strong and holds herself up in push-ups all the time. She also sat up by herself for about 2 minutes yesterday without any support.

Speaking of bed – she has a new game. It’s called the Binky game and it’s where she spits her binky out instead of going down for a nap. She then pushes herself up on her arms and “cries” for us to come in. I figured it out by hiding behind the door and watching her do it – she spit the binky out, cried and then turned back toward the door to see if I was coming. Little Stinker! We’ll be figuring out a way to nip that in the bud soon.

Swimming continues to be fun and one of the highlights of the week. She enjoyed it a little more this week – talked and ‘growled’ a little more, cried a little less, etc.
On a sad note, our kitty cat Prowler isn’t doing well. We’re working on a treatment plan but also facing the reality that it might not work. It’s casting a shadow over our house right now.

So I mentioned in the last post that Clare has started growling. Here is a video I took on Sunday and you can hear her ‘growl’ at the beginning. Yes, that low noise is coming from Clare. Halfway through the video Prowler cat starts up. Honestly, I should have edited this video a little bit better. It’s really only interesting for about the first 30 seconds.

Another banner week in the McPherson household. It marks the first of the Clare’s “lessons.” We signed her up for swimming lessons and had our first class this weekend. I think the class is mostly for the parents – for each parent/child that was in the water there was at least another person (and sometimes two) taking pictures on the side of the pool. In our case, J got in the water with Clare first and I joined them later. Clare was OK about swimming – she was a little overwhelmed by the whole pool/kids/loud/big water thing and she did NOT like getting her face wet. But we certainly enjoyed it! Besides, is there anything cuter than this little bathing beauty? Our friends Steve and Leah and their little guy Grayson are going with us, so every Saturday you’ll find us at the local community center in the pool.

We’re also making progress on the solid food front. Clare chewed on a pear today and didn’t hate it! I also got her to take half a dozen bites of rice cereal before she threw back her head and clenched her lips together. It looks like maybe, just maybe, she will someday eat from a spoon. Good thing too, since we had extra butternut squash today that I pureed up into baby food. Whenever she finally decides to eat it, there is some delicious homemade squash waiting in our freezer for her. The picture below is her with an apple I gave her earlier this week – she wasn’t impressed.

Happy 2010 from the McPhersons! We rang in 2010 with snores – and were glad of it! I think I was in bed by 9:30. On New Year’s Day we had brunch with my parents and then went over to a friends house to watch the Rose Bowl. The Ducks lost (oh well) but it was nice to spend a relaxing day with friends and family.

The picture below was taken on New Year’s Day. My mom gave Clare an apple chunk to chew on. Clare hasn’t warmed up to solid foods, so we’ve put them on hold for a while. We’ll try again in a few weeks. Until then we’ll do things like what Mom is doing here, giving her pieces of fruit to explore the tastes and textures. Maybe then when we try food again she’ll be more receptive. Our girl has a mind of her own and is, in the words of Mary, “a very strong-willed little girl.”

Tonight we gave Clare her first hair cut. We didn’t cut off to much (after all, her long hair is her signature style) but I wanted to get it out of her eyes. The picture below is right after the cut. She’s wearing the cutest little outfit from Grandma T with matching sparkly Nike’s from Auntie Kathy and Uncle Jon. She looked pretty stylin’ with her new hair do and her snazzy clothes.

A few things I want to remember about 5.5 months:

• She’s still VERY verbal and loves to talk/listen/sing/shriek/roar. Our friends have a little guy who is 3 weeks older than Clare. When we saw them on New Years Day Clare shrieked her familiar greeting and promptly made her little friend cry. Every time she would talk he would get scared and cry. I joked that she was saying something mean to him in baby talk. Her Daddy is secretly proud of her for making the boys cry already.
• The ABCs are no longer the cure-all to get her to smile. Sigh, it was nice while it lasted.
• She’s starting to hug us back – it rocks!
• She’s all about her feet right now and gets annoyed with us during diaper changes when we try to take them out of her hands.
• She’s particular about people. When she really loves someone her whole body just convulses with joy to see them. So far only J, myself and Mary get this response. She likes certain people (generally women) and they get smiles very quickly (her Aunties Debbie, Beth, Kathy and Grandma and Grampa), but in general she watches people intently first and then, maybe, she’ll smile.
• We’ve started teething. Nothing has broken through yet, but there’s been a lot of hand chewing, drooling and crying. J and I feel bad for the poor little kiddo and we both hope it will be over soon.