There’s no keeping her on the farm once she’s seen Paris… or at our house there’s no keeping Clare in one spot once she’s figured out how to move. Oh how things have gotten interesting around here in the last few weeks. Clare is quickly leaving no corner undiscovered, no speck on the floor unpicked-up, no box unlooked in and no bag, shoe, pet food dish, trash can, or other potential toy unexplored. I don’t think I’ve ever paid so much attention to what, exactly, is on my floors before. Sweeping and vacuuming and daily occurrences around here and she still manages to find some thread or speck we haven’t cleaned up to put in her mouth. Sigh… it’s good for her, right?
Clare has also mastered the art of crawling with her toys – either in her hands, like the picture below, or sometimes in her mouth. It’s pretty funny to watch her explore her world. the other day she was crawling with a sock in each hand (?) and when she got to the wood floor she couldn’t figure out why her hands kept slipping out from under her. I do a fair amount of chuckling (when I’m not racing to keep a step ahead of her) at the predicaments she gets herself into.
Clare’s newfound mobility has necessitated some minor home repairs to babyproof things in our teensy, tinsy little condo. For example, below J is putting a shelf about 3 feet high in what used to be our hallway coat closet. Why would he do this? So we have a place to put the cat’s food that’s out of the reach of one little human crawler but within the reach of a little feline crawler. 
Our sweet little baby is turning into quite the sassy little toddler. She understands what “no” is, and it will often give her pause when we say it to her. However, Little Miss is quite opinionated and will tell us exactly what she thinks about things, specifically what she wants and when she wants it. She hasn’t figured out how to give commands yet, but I suspect that once she figures it out we’ll have a bossy little girl on our hands. Her vocabulary hasn’t increased necessarily but everyday she practices a new word or sound. Today it was “bay” – everything she pointed at (which was everything) was christened “bay.” Yesterday was “duck” day. She’s also quite a little singer and makes all of our adventures a musical. We got quite a bit of attention in New Seasons last weekend since Clare serenaded the store literally the whole time was shopping. I’ve never been inspired to song while grocery shopping but apparently Clare was.
Nothing specific about this picture – I just thought it was cute that Clare took the top 3 blocks off and put them in a line in the bottom of the exersaucer. She’s quite methodical.
Lastly, she leaves no part of the house unexplored. Here she is examining the heater. She’s started pulling herself up with more regularity, so we may spend this weekend taking our babyproofing up a couple of feet.