Here is a selection of Adam’s pictures from May. There was lots of outside time this month and Clare mastered climbing ladders and sliding. (Don’t tell, but over the weekend we bought her a little toddler climber with a slide for her birthday!)
Clare is just about 3 weeks away from her second birthday, which I can’t believe in concept but when I look at her and see how agile, verbal and feisty she is, she seems like she’s two already. I remind myself though that she is still just one, and still really a baby who needs extra attention, patience and snuggling sometimes. Still, a few things to remember about Clare on the cusp:
- She can identify and label “boys” and “girls” really well. We haven’t really taught this to her (not specifically) but she picked it up and has started pointing out groups of “boys” and “girls” she sees playing. She also tells me which of the children on her curtains are boys and which are girls. This morning I asked her if she was a boy or a girl. She responded “a girl?” She then told me that G was a boy. It’s a good reminder that she’s always learning and observing, regardless of what we’re intentionally teaching her.
- On that point, Clare has entered the “mimic” stage. It’s so funny to see a little two-foot person repeating back what we say. When she puts her babies or stuffed animals to bed, she always pats them and says “ni’night, sleep tight, bed bug bite (don’t let the bed bugs bite).” This is how I put her to bed at night. She also brought Adam a ‘plate of food’ the other day and told him “careful! Hot!” She’ll pull words out of adult conversations and repeat them (fortunately no bad words so far). She’ll also imitate how J and I are doing things, like pull herself up on the couch and sit at the edge so her legs hang off the edge like mine do, or brush her hands off like J does, etc.
- Clare’s quite the little singer these days. Her repertoire has expanded to include songs she makes up, though these made up songs often include portions of Old McDonald and other familiar songs. While we were in Colorado I overheard her singing and recognized it as the Hookie Pookie. This lead to a family rendition of the Hookie Pookie, which will always be remembered because it caused fussy Maddy to immediately fall asleep in my arms. Deb reports that she has used that trick a few times in the last week and so far the Hookie Pookie puts Maddy to sleep every time.
- Over the weekend Terri and Randall, Pat and Dave were all visiting (hooray!) and Clare was quite enjoying being the attention of so many adults. Dave taught Clare to say Yabbadabbadoo, and Terri brought her a little golf set (that she loves).
- Over the weekend Clare was showing off how well she turns her little Wheely Bug in tight circles. Grandpa asked her what she was doing and she said “cir-cohs” very quietly. He asked “what?” and she looked up at her and said “cir-cohs” very slowly while drawing imaginary circles in the air. My brilliant mechanical engineer father figured it out and we were all impressed that Clare associated circles in the air with turning circles on her bee.
- Below is a picture of beloved Monkey, who stayed in Bend for the last few weeks on an extended vacation. Clare didn’t ask about him to much but when Randall brought him back for her she clapped her hands together and said “thank you!” It was gratifying for me to see her say that, since I probably prompt her 10 or 20 times a day to say “please” and “thank you.” I’ve realized that a lot of parenting is basic repetition. I have a blog post in my head about the phrases that I say over and over again, but you’ll have to wait for that one.
- No last note, just a cute picture that Adam took of Sadie. Poor, forlorn, no-more-attention Sadie… he captioned this picture “have the kids gone to sleep yet?” She does really well with the kids, but sometimes the noise and activity level stress her out a little bit. She’s a good girl, even though she’s been seriously demoted in the family’s rankings since Clare arrived.
