Life around here is crazy. Let me repeat – C-R-A-Z-Y. It’s a big mix of good and bad (mostly good) but J and I are each walking around with dazed expressions feeling like we’ve been hit by a bunch of little superballs from all directions. Rather than focus on all of the work stress, family goings-on, packing, trying to navigate mortgages and refinancing (sheesh), I’ll just write some cute Clare stories to go along with Adam’s pictures from January. (Warning: a lot of pictures ahead)
A few pics of Clare “caring” for her animals. This girl loves her animals! Notice that the bear is wearing a bib – of course.
We are now all three speaking in a few full sentences around here. On Saturday Clare told me “I drop my binky” and tonight told Adam “I want my Mama.” She’s also told G “come on Gee! All done!” when she wanted him to finish doing something and follow her. Along with this development leap forward, there is the requisite not sleeping that goes along with it. She’s doing OK at night but she hasn’t taken any kind of decent nap in the past few days. I’m ready for that phase to end so we can get back to our normal schedule.
Painting! Clare is showing more and more affinity for art projects. She loves to paint and color. I’ve also started noticing her coloring with more intention. it’s not just broad strokes on paper, but she’ll tell me she’s coloring “cir-cohs” (circles) or the other day she colored the feet in her coloring book. It will be fun to watch this develop. She’s pretty good with identifying colors, particularly blue, yellow (“lellow”), black and green. Sometimes she takes a little creative license though, like last week she told me I had a “lellow owie” and a “boo (blue) owie” (for the record, I don’t).
The shoes! She still loves to wear peoples shoes around. I bought her some new shoes last weekend and the delight on her face with her “new shoes!” was priceless. (In the picture above with Clare in the polka-dot vest she is singing the ABCs).
She loves to help with laundry. She’s not always such a help with folding laundry, unless you count moving it from one pile to another helping. However, she’s pretty good at loading the washing machine. In the next house our washer won’t be in the middle of the kitchen (joy joy joy!) so she may get out of practice.
We’ll end with a picture of Clare and her beloved blanky. She loves that thing – so much that I’ve bought 4 of them so that we have two at the house (one is always being washed), one at my parents house and one at nannyshare. Clare also uses a binky for sleeping and we work pretty hard to reinforce that it’s for sleeping only. The blanky, however, has a little more freedom to roam and often comes out for middle of the day snuggling. We’re still fighting the February sniffles (I think Clare has had a runny nose for 4 weeks straight) so blanky has been in demand.
One more cute nannyshare story – G picked up Clare’s blanky one day and Clare immediately yelled “No! Mine!” Adam mediated the toddler dispute, but then Clare ran into G’s room and got a blanket out of his crib and gave it to little G. So sweet!
We are the proud owners of a beautiful new house!! J spent last weekend installing closet organizers and getting the posts in to put up gates in the back yard. This weekend is the big move and we are very excited about it! We love the neighborhood, the house, the kitchen, the yard… I’m in the idealistic dreamy stage where I think everything will be perfect in our new house. That is, once we move in.
Some fun new words of Clare’s include “hola!” She doesn’t understand that it means the same thing as hello, but she says “Hola!” over and over. “Hola Mama! Hola Sadie! Hola Daddy!” It’s pretty cute. She’s also continued her pattern of adding a Y to the ends of words, but I think I’ve noticed the pattern that it’s only the things that she loves most. For example, “painty,” “col-y” (color), “milky,” “noody” (noodles – her favorite food), “Wockery” (her toy Wocket), “trucky,” “moony,” etc. She uses the Y when she wants something or is excited by it. 
