Month: February 2011

Celebration of Love and Stuff

Posted on by heather.e.d.mcpherson@gmail.com
Happy Valentine’s Day from the McPherson family! As you can see, Clare is our favorite valentine. She’s in a little Valentine ensemble (aka an art project made on a paper bag) that she and Manny Adam have been working on the past few weeks. Clare has been loving the art projects, requesting “painting” regularly.

TOUCHDOWN!

Besides Valentine’s activities of reading books, eating (and cheering for) dinner, and Clare’s favorite hugging/kissing relay between her parents, we’ve been celebrating J’s birthday. On Saturday we dropped the kiddo off with the grandparents and went into wine country with our friends. BC (Before Child), I don’t think I fully appreciated how luxurious a whole day spent just enjoying food, wine and good company was. To top it off (and it didn’t really need topping, the day was so nice) J and I stayed at a very nice winery resort complete with delicious dinner and brunch. Ahhhhh… long bubble baths, a warm fire, good wine, sleeping in, uninterrupted conversations with each other… it seemed like a little slice of heaven.




But, of course, by Sunday morning we were itching to get back to our little sweetie. She had a great time with Grandma and Grampa but I think she was glad to see us as well. We’ve had lots of hugs and kisses since – if we give her a kiss she’ll ask for “a hug” and vice versa. She continues adding to her vocabulary, including providing a running commentary to our lives. She tells us “Grandma cooking,” “Daddy yawn,” “I sit,” “Mama back,” and any other activity that might be going on. She also picks up any word even if we just say it once. Tonight I taught her tortilla, and I bet she’ll be asking for more tortillas tomorrow.

Another item on the short list

Posted on by heather.e.d.mcpherson@gmail.com
So I’ve added another item to my “things that stink about being a parent.” It’s a short list because, honestly, parenting is pretty great most of the time. More often then not (at least in my 19 months of it) it’s joy, fun, funny, or at least pretty good. But up until last week I’ve said that there two things that really make parenting a struggle 1) exhaustion and 2) constant and unending fear. Now I can add item #3 – shared illness.
We’re in our third cycle of family colds here at Casa Mac and we’re only half way through winter. Runny noses, sore throats, whining, crying, up every few hours with sneezing and coughing fits, general irritability x 3. It generally starts with Clare, moves to me and then finishes with J. Now Clare has finished with her cold cycle (and this last time was a rough one for her… and for us), I’m just about done and J is in the throes. Hopefully we’ll have a few weeks off before the next cycle starts.

Sickness aside, Clare is ridiculously fun and verbal these days. Yesterday she told our friend Carrie (Auntie Caw-wee in Clare-speak) that “Mama at work.” Tonight she said (with coaching) “I love Mama” and then immediately said (without coaching) “I love Gee.” She sings all the time – my favorite is her version of “Down by the Bay.” It goes a little something like “Down by Bay! alamala Moose! Mama Say! Down by Bay!” I’ll try to get it on video one of these days because it’s definitely something that I want to save.

Some of Clare’s new words (or word combinations) include her using the word I as in “I sleep,” “I read” or “I drink.” She’s starting to refer to combinations of things with “and” like “O’s and milk” or “Mama and Daddy.” She’s also starting to recognize social roles – as in she’ll point out the mother in a book. Tonight we were reading a book (Down by the Bay by coincidence) and she pointed to the cartoon “mama” in the book and then patted my arm and said “Mama.” She knew the difference between the book Mom and her Mom. Very cool stuff.

A couple of cute stories:

  • During the Super Bowl clare kept pointing at the screen and cheering “Go Ducks!” She learned that cheer back in January when U of O played in the BCS Bowl.
  • She would not go to Ami’s today without her bead necklace. I tried to get her to leave it behind but she wouldn’t hear of it. It’s the first time she’s had such a strong opinion about what she’s wearing. I see a whole new phase of our life starting…