She’s our little Clarie-Monkey!  Seriously, this kid has perfected her climbing and never misses an opportunity to get some air between her and the ground.  She’s pretty sure-footed and (though I’m tempting fate writing this out) rarely falls.  The picture above she did entirely on her own – my dad is just casually spotting because she wouldn’t let him (or anyone) touch her to help her out.  If we’re at the playground, which we often are, Clare is on the monkey bars.  If we’re home, Clare is often using the couches and chairs as a jungle gym.

 She’s still a huge HUGE lover of books and we often find her “reading” to herself or her stuffed animals.  She’s beginning to get the concept that stories come from words, words are composed of letters, and that each letter makes a sound.  It’s fun to watch her put all of that together with her beloved books.

One of Clare’s new favorite books is Teach Me Spanish, complete with a CD.  I borrowed it from the library and will probably need to buy it soon.  She asks to listen to the CD and read the book every day.  She can count to ten in Spanish and the other day told me “me llamo Clare!”  

One of Clare’s favorite books lately is Madeline, which was one of my favorite books as a kid.  She doesn’t get the idea of Paris, so much, but she loves the rhyming lines.  

We work pretty hard to limit Clare’s “screen time” but in the past few months we’ve started doing Family Movie Night.  It’s fun to explore movies with her and see her taste develop.  Her favorite movie, by FAR, is the documentary Babies.  She LOVES this movie and requests we watch it every time I offer movie night.  She can practically quote this movie – or, rather, she could if the movie had dialogue.  Instead she will tell us “the baby will fall over” or “the puppy is chewing on the Mommy’s toe” before certain scenes even begin – and she’s right!

Other movies that Clare likes include Winnie the Pooh, Dumbo, and the TV show Word World.

Two has been a really fun age for this girl and I can’t wait to see what three brings!

I feel like I write this every week, but is getting more and more mobile.  He’s getting into stuff all the time – he’s particularly interested in the living room rug.  The other day I came in from the kitchen to find that he had pulled up a corner and was industriously picking off pieces of the rug pad.  He’s also started pulling apart the dog’s bed when he gets near it, pulling at my laptop cord (so my laptop now has a new home), and upending his play gym (which will soon be put away along with his outgrown baby clothes).

He hasn’t quite figured out how to get from sitting to all-fours, but he’s working hard at it.  He also LOVES to practice his standing, and bouncing, but he doesn’t have much balance so he’s quite a ways away from standing on his own.

Now that the weather is finally turning to summer, we spend quite a bit of time outside.  Sammy’s a little nature child and loves to be outside.  He watches the sky and the trees, picks at grass and leaves, and is generally in a good mood.  If he’s having a rough day I can usually cheer him up by taking him outside for some fresh air.

Sam pretty much loves whatever Clare does.  If Clare’s in the room, Sam is watching her, waiting on her every word and action, trying to imitate her sounds, giggling when she does something remotely silly, and generally just adoring her.  Anything she does is just fine with him, especially if she’s doing it to him.  She climbs all over him, rolls him over, pulls him up, pushs him down, drags him across the room, and he just laughs and laughs.  In the picture above he’s just laughing and laughing as she lays on him “nose to nose.”

They’re beginning to play very simple games together – shrieking together, waving arms together, playing peekaboo.  The games are instigated by Clare but Sam’s an enthusiastic partner.  Today they were fake-coughing back and forth in the back seat of the car, and then moved onto shrieking back and forth.  In that moment I realized that, when I’m by myself, I’m outnumbered.  They can gang up on me!

 As much as Sam adores Clare, and is so far a willing participant in her lead, she’d better watch out.  He’s a tough little dude.  In the picture at the top she’s actually pinning his arms down, because if she doesn’t he will grab her hair and pull it out by the handful.  Of course it’s not malicious (yet) but it’s wicked.  He’s also getting pretty good at grabbing any toys she might have in his reach and can win a tug-of-war game between the two of them.  Yessir, these two will keep us on our toes.

I somehow forgot what a messy situation introducing food is.  How did I forget this?  Learning to eat solid foods isn’t just about the food, the flavor, avoiding allergens, balanced nutrition etc. but also letting the baby explore the textures and tactile experience of food.  So Sammy spends lots of time playing with a spoon, mashing banana into his tray, dragging his fingers through lentils, crushing cheerios into his hands, working meat in his mouth, and rubbing avocado between his palms.

I spend lots of time cleaning his fingers and face, picking spoons and cheerios off the floor, and doing laundry.

Lil’ guy is still working on his pincher grasp, so he gets pretty frustrated that he can’t feed himself the way he wants to.  Fortunately for him we give him lots of time to practice.

I would write about Sam’s favorite foods, but if he’s in the mood to eat (and most of the time he is) then he loves everything we give him.  He is always happy to have bananas, peaches and peas but he pretty much eats everything.

Clare has been a binky-kid since about birth.  I blame us, since we obviously introduced it to her.  But it’s served us well and has been a source of comfort for her in times of stress.  Last summer, about the time she turned 2, we started working pretty hard to make sure that “binky is for sleeping.”  I hate the look of toddlers running around with binkies in their mouths.  It stayed in her bed pretty much all the time, except when she conned us into keeping it out (see picture below) or when we were traveling on long car or airplane trips.  I’ve periodically raised the issue that one day she won’t have a binky, and we’ve even watched the “Bye-Bye Binky” Sesame Street episode about a dozen times, but Clare had firmly declared that she loves her binky and won’t give it up.  Ever.  Thank you very much.

Unfortunately for Clare, her dentist has other recommendations and it’s my job as a parent to ensure that her health and safety come before her happiness.  It’s a crappy part of the parent-job sometimes and I’ve been dreading the day when I have to take away the binky.  Fortunately for me, sort of, things came to a head this last week and we actually lost Clare’s binky one day.  We looked for it all over the house, texted Adam to see if he knew where it as, and ultimately had to break the news to Clare that the binky was gone.

It was a sad night, and there was some wailing and mourning, but I held her in the chair, rubbed her back, sang my lullaby repertoire, and she went to sleep that night for the first time without her beloved binky.  At one point during the binky-mourning she looked up at me with tears running down her little face and said “did you take it because binky’s are for babies?”  I assured her that I hadn’t taken her binky and after that she seemed to relax.  Since then she’s asked for the binky a few times, but no more tears.  She still has her beloved blanky and teddy bear, so it’s not like we’ve thrown her out into the cold, cruel world without any comfort.

So, good-bye old Binky-friend.  You’ve seen Clare through some hard times but now she’s ready to move on.  Thank you for all of your support.

*So we actually did find the binky, but it wasn’t until Clare was starting to wind down and go to sleep so J and I made the executive decision to stay with the program.  Someday Clare will read this and find out that, yes, Mom and Dad lied to her about the binky.  Sorry kiddo.  We’ll deal with the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy in another post.

This sweet little fella is seven months old today!  Happy Birthday Buddy!

In honor of Sam’s seventh month I’m going to try to to capture the joy and sunshine of this little guy.  Sure he has the occasional cranky moment or two (usually around food or sleep) but his default mode is one of happiness and contentment.  Sam is alright with the world and often finds things just delightful.  His happiness and ease are infectious and he’s so pleasant to have around.  I spend most of my days with him toted on my hip just snuggling and absorbing his Sam-ness.  Adam and I joke that holding Sammy lowers your blood pressure.