Clare has never been quiet about her opinions.  She’s never really been quiet period – she’s an outspoken sort.  Now that she’s getting more articulate we’re hearing more about her opinions.  Mostly we try to laugh… mostly.  Here’s a selection of quotes describing life with Clare lately.

“Mom!  Can I help you put laundry away?!  Oh boy!  I’ll put the underwear in the drawer!” 

I accidentally pulled Clare’s hair to hard when I was putting it into a pony tail and she started to cry.  Then I mentioned that she needed a hair cut.  She replied in her angriest, most obstinate tone “No I do not!  I’ve had TO MANY hair cuts and I do NOT need another one!” 

Clare was sitting in the kitchen nursing a bumped elbow and still sniffling a little bit from her injury.  Sammy came up and started babbling at her, also holding his elbow.  Clare started crying again and wailed “Sammy is saying bad words to me!” 

I walked into Clare’s room on Monday during nap time and did my usual “Clare, it’s rest time so you need to stay in bed, relax and look at books quietly.  It’s time to rest and relax.”  She looked up at me and, without missing a beat, said “Mom, can I get some new boots?” 

We’re trying to teach her about words associated with time, both past and future.  She gets confused by this a lot and anything in the past is “last year” or “when I was a baby.”  This can be “Last year when I went to G’s house…” and she went to G’s house yesterday or “when I was a baby I drank from a bottle.”  Anything in the future is related to her birthday – as in, “will we go to Alaska before or after my birthday?” and “I will go back to school on my birthday.” 

Speaking of school, she continues to ADORE school.  She’s made several little friends, including her “bestest friend in the whole world forever” whose name also starts with C.  The Montessori philosophy encourages a lot of independent “work” but the girls have figured out that they can “clean the classroom” together so I think they do lots of cleaning and polishing “work” – with lots of talking and giggling I imagine. 

Rather then write a post about Easter, a post about our beach trip, and an iPhone photo drop I’m just going to throw them all together into one disjointed photo drop post.  I sort of feel that way when I look back on March.  It was a great month full of travel – a trip to Tennessee, a day at the beach and a weekend in the snow.  Sheesh, no wonder I’m tired.  Well, here is a picture goulash to capture it.

Holidays aside – it’s regular life around here.  Lots of time spent outside enjoying spring flowers and sunshine.  Lots of playing and silliness.  Lots of the good stuff both at home and out in the world.

Now that Clare is deep into her preschool years we’re beginning to see the next phase of family life.  She’s growing up, has a longer attention span, has some capacity to skip a nap or a snack, and just has a little more flexibility.  Now rather than just playing with her on her level, we can do activities with her that are her playing with us.  Case in point: we took an overnight trip a few weeks ago to Mt. Hood to go sledding.  As you can see from the picture above, we all LOVED it. 

Clare especially LOVED it.  She adored sledding, grinning from ear to ear as she went down by herself and with us.  She loved playing in the snow (Daddy’s girl).  She really appreciated being with Mom and Dad by herself – eating at restaurants, staying in a hotel, and having our undivided attention.  It was such a treat to just be one on one with our girl.  She is so big and independent now.  She toted her own sled, went down the hill by herself, kept track of her hat and mittens, and just generally participated more as our equal than as our child.  Of course she is three, so bedtime was at 7:30, we asked “do you have to go to the potty?”, and I may have threatened a time out.  But it was a inkling of more fun family times to come.