Clare at Two and a Half Years

Posted on by heather.e.d.mcpherson@gmail.com

I’ve noticed that my blog posts have become more perfunctory and not as well-written. Sorry. I blame the sleep deprivation and general busy-ness of two kids. Hopefully my story telling will improve in the next few months – either that or I’m going to have to start taking even cuter pictures to keep this blog interesting 🙂

OK, with that out of the way here are some things I want to remember about Clare as a two-and-a-half-year-old.
  • Her absolute favorite food right now is bread. But not just any bread, toast with peanut butter and jelly. She could literally eat this three times a day (and often requests it for every meal). I limit it to once a day but she thinks that she has to eat a toasted peanut butter sandwich every day.
  • The other day we had a friend baby-sitting for Clare and when they had gas Clare asked if they had “frogs in their pants. The frogs are barking!”
  • She seems to say the funniest things in the car. On the way home from the airport she, she out of the blue, rapturously declared “I love my vitamins!” The other day in the car she started a stream of consciousness chatter that included “I love hummingbirds. I’m a hummingClare!”
  • She is a very sweet big sister to Sam but she’s desperate for him to play with her. The other day she asked me “can I take Sam into my room? We want to play.” I often find her laying next to him in his little baby gym or on my blanket, batting at his toys along with him, trying her best to make his baby “play” a two person activity.

  • A not-so-cute development is that she sometimes get into serious contrary phases where she says “no” to EVERYTHING. Even if it’s something that she wants, her first impulse will be negative. I can walk into her room and say “Clare, it’s time for breakfast. Let’s go get some oatmeal.” Her response will be “No! I don’t like breakfast. I won’t get oatmeal!” Then a minute later she’ll be in the kitchen climbing into her chair for oatmeal. One night I heard her say “No! I won’t do that!” while she was sleeping. She was literally being contrary in her sleep.

Sam at 2.5 months

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We took Sam for his 2 month pediatrician appointment today (even though he’s officially 2.5 months old) . He’s off the charts – literally weighing in at 16 lbs. 11 oz. and 25 inches long. He’s more than doubled his birth weight and has grown 4 inches in 10 weeks. He’s growing so fast it’s absolutely ridiculous – in a good way 🙂 He’s also off the charts cute.

As he’s getting older, he’s starting to interact with his world a little more. He’s batting at his toys, trying to grab them, smiling and cooing at us, and watching everything with wide eyes. He has a very sweet, relaxed way about him but we’ve noticed that he’s always moving. Considering how strong he is my guess is that once he wants to become mobile there won’t be much that will get in his way.

The pediatrician told me that Sam is showing signs of very early teething. He’s not getting teeth or anything but he’s drooling a little bit and showing other signs that his teeth may come sooner rather than later. She also mentioned that we’ll probably talk about starting solids at his four month appointment, which is something that has occurred to me as well. Of course I’ll follow his lead on it, but I just have a hunch that he’ll be asking for food earlier rather than later.

Because it’s entirely possible that Sam will be my last baby, it makes me a little bit sad that he is growing up so fast. Fortunately he’s extra cuddly and I’m well aware of how fast babies grow into busy kiddos. We spend lots of time snuggling and Sam is really turning into a Mama’s boy. Last night J and I went to a parenting class and fabulous Auntie Carrie watched the kids (both of them at once! Carrie is amazing!). At one point Sam was fussing and Clare told Carrie “Sam doesn’t want you. He wants his Mama.” It seemed like she was onto something because when we got home I took Sam into my arms and he immediately fell asleep. While on one hand I love this, I know that this will make things harder for Adam once I go back to work. We may need to work on getting Sam to bond to other people.

Here We Go A-Travelin’

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Another year, another trip to Tennessee to visit with family and show off a new baby. Of course it’s never that routine as it’s always a wonderful, special time to see people we wish we could see more of.

Besides our usual visit, we had a few special experiences not the least of which was introducing Sam to everyone. Of course everyone loved him – was there any question?


We’re fortunate to have four generations of McPhersons. Nanny is doing well and loves having another great-grandson. Of course he has to compete for attention from his Papa and Oma with Miss Clare around. She requests demands their undivided attention and usually gets it. She’s been talking about Oma, Papa, Nanny, Jayden, and the horses, fish, dogs, and Hank the Bird since we’ve been home.



Another HUGE treat on this visit was Auntie Donna the Great and Uncle Mike driving up from Alabama and Brenda and Hannah coming down into Nashville for everyone to stay together. It was a chance for Clare and I to meet Brenda and Hannah.


Clare and Hannah just bonded immediately – at the beginning of our first dinner together Clare was playing shy (I’m pretty sure Hannah has never “played shy” a day in her life) and by the time the entrees arrived they were sitting next to each other, coloring together and chatting. There is over a six year age difference, but it didn’t seem to matter. Clare followed Hannah around like a little shadow and imitated her every move. Hannah, for her part, took great care of Clare and was very sweet playing with her.
Traveling with two kids added extra challenges (waking up two children at 5 am for an airport run, for example) but in general the whole trip was very smooth. Clare does so well in airports and on planes, and Sam as content so long as he was fed and being held. The logistics of eating, sleeping, transportation, gear, packing, etc. wears me out but, with the exception of not bringing our infant car seat, we had everything we needed. It’s nice that Sam’s so flexible at this age. In the picture above, you can see we made a bed for him in a laundry basket at Oma and Papa’s.

Clare Stories

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Cute stories from the almost-two-and-a-half-year-old Clare.

We went to Bend for New Years, and I was intent on taking Clare sledding for the first time. There wasn’t a lot of snow in Central Oregon, but we found a popular sledding hill up the mountain. I stayed at the bottom with Sam and Clare drug Grandma, Grandpa and Daddy up the mountain again and again. In typical Clare fashion, she was a very serious sledder. She smiled a little bit, but was pretty much all business of getting down the hill over and over again.
Nothing better than post sledding cuddles and hot chocolate and snacks. (We won’t talk about the bangs… it’s a hair cut gone wrong…)
While we were in Bend, a couple of the neighbors granddaughters came over to visit. Clare was thrilled to see them and immediately invited them to play with her. One little girl was wearing an owl hat and the other had flowers on her shirt. Clare forgot their names, or didn’t hear them, and at one point they paused their playing and Clare said to them “Your name is Owl and yours is Flower.”
We’re exploring new parenting techniques in the face of the toddler years (Oh the whining! Oh the power struggles! Oh the defiance!). One technique is to offer her choices when we have them available. I say “Clare, would you like X or Y” several times a day. “Clare, would you like to wear your brown shoes or your white boots?” “Would you like to paint or color?” “Would you like to go to the playground or walk around the neighborhood?” She’s starting to repeat it back to me, which is funny because she doesn’t always understand the context. The other day she walked into the kitchen and said “Mama, you make or eat dinner?” She’s also been overheard negotiating with G in their playing, saying “OK G, I will play cars with you but after we paint.”

Sam at Two Months

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Sam is Smiling! All of a sudden last week he started holding eye contact longer, smiling, cooing and “talking” back to us. He follows us with his eyes as we walk around and is just becoming much more social. We spent a lot of the holidays with my parents, and my dad mentioned that it seemed like literally overnight he became a different baby. Rather he went from being a squishy newborn to a being a more active and interactive infant. As I recall these next few months are so fun because the baby is fun to play with and show the world, but not mobile yet.

As we’re learning more about Sam’s personality, he continues to be Mr. Mellow. His whole demeanor is very relaxed and fairly calm, though when he gets riled up he can throw a good fit. He’s super snuggly and loves to be held and talked to. When he’s upset about something, and he’s not hungry, a good cuddle will calm him back down.

Sam is a BIG BOY, so all of the cuddling and carrying him is giving me some biceps. In a few weeks we have his two month pediatrician appointment and I’m curious to see what he weighs. My guess is about 15 lbs. since this is about what Maddy weighs and the two of them were about the same heft at Christmas. He’s also in his six month size clothes now. Yes, I will repeat that my two month old is wearing six month size clothing. I’m starting to wonder about when he’s going to outgrow his car seat, bouncy seat, swing, etc. I also need to do some baby clothes shopping.

While I cringe to actually “write this out loud” I will say that Sam has turned into a good sleeper. I was concerned based on his first few weeks (which are a bit of a sleep-deprived blur in retrospect) but now he usually only wakes up once a night to eat and easily falls back to sleep. Occasionally he’ll wake up twice, but he’s not up for very long so we are slowly, slowly catching back up on sleep. More often then not, he still ends up sleeping in bed next to me for part of the night because I’m to lazy to take him back to his crib at 3 am. I like our midnight snuggles and he does too.

As Sam’s getting more aware of his world, he and Clare are starting to interact a little more. She’s a very proud big sister and is very good with him. He smiles whenever he sees her and tries to watch her as she flitters around the house.

Christmas 2011

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Merry Christmas from the McPherson’s! While this post has been a long time coming, I’ve assembled a ton of photos to illustrate the merriment that was.
To begin, the picture above is the official Santa picture, and you can see that none of the children were all that thrilled with the experience. It’s actually an improvement on Clare’s previous Santa visits where she wouldn’t even get close enough to him to actually take a picture. I love how Clare and Maddy are giving the camera a very similar look and identical head tilt. Looking at this picture makes me think that I was torturing my child but moments before she and Maddy were happily playing in line together (super cute matching dresses courtesy of Grandma and Grandpa).
Besides visiting Santa, we spent a lot of time relaxing at home, eating, opening presents, and playing with the kiddos. Maddy was eight months old, Clare was almost two and a half, and Sam was seven weeks. It’s crazy to imagine that in six and a half months sleepy, snugly Sam is going to be as active and vivacious as Miss Maddy. Watching the different stages of development was really fun. Even more fun was watching that Maddy and Clare can actually play together a little bit. They really, really like each other and would smile and giggle whenever they saw each other. It was cuteness overload and we all loved it. See pictures below for maximum cuteness!

Besides snuggling with cute kids, we did the usual eating fabulous meals (courtesy of Chef Jeremy), opening presents, and baking/eating cookies.







We finished the whole holiday with a trip to Zoolights – all 9 of us. Yes, there are 9 Dion-McPherson’s now. Sheesh, we’re a basketball team.


Lastly, here is a picture that J took when I dropped some chocolate on little Sam’s face. He doesn’t seem to mind 🙂

Three-Ring Circus

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There are those days when it feels like we’re in a three-ring circus around here, and I’m not sure if I’m the ring master or the person who cleans up after the elephants. Sometimes it feels like both in the same day 🙂

Happenings around here include a great visit by Grandma T, where she met Sam for the first time! Little Samster loved to snuggle with Grandma T, that is when Clare wasn’t monopolizing Grandma’s time with crafts, songs and endless readings of “the Moose book!”

Other notable changes around here include Clare’s graduation from a crib to a big girl bed. It happened in dramatic fashion with a bang and a scream while she was supposed to be napping, fortunately without injury, and has been a bumpy transition. Clare loves being able to get out of bed, and we always have at least one if not multiple reminders for her to get back into bed before she actually goes to sleep. On one nap I crept in to find her sleeping like this, having pulled her name train and her little animals into bed with her. On other “naps” and “bed times” we’ve found her reading on her floor a full hour and a half after bed time, jumping around in her grass skirt, or playing in her closet.

Cute quotes from Clare include her telling me “I don’t like toots” after having some gas and tonight at dinner when I asked her to eat another piece of pizza and she said “Actually I already did.”

Sam’s big news is his incredible growth. I’m pretty sure that my prenatal vitamins actually include some type of growth steroids given the way this kid is growing. The outfit above is a 3 month size and it barely fits him. I’m not entirely sure how I feel about putting my two-month old in six-month size clothing, but it looks like I may have to get used to it. He’s awfully cute though – I mean, just look at that little belly! He gets a little muffin top over his diaper.

In other Sam news, he’s a very vocal baby. J calls him loud, because he is constantly grunting, snorting, straining and cooing, even in his sleep. He’s starting to coo at us, which is about the sweetest sound ever. We’re also starting to see more smiles, generally around eating, but they are a sight to behold. More pictures coming soon.
Clare and Sam in matching pajamas! Clare was nice enough to share her blankie with Sam as well, which is a very nice gesture for her.

It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas

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We’re in the full swing of Christmas preparation around here, and it’s really fun with a two-year-old. The big activity so far was getting our Christmas tree and a few decorations. In general we keep our decorating fairly minimal, just a simple wreath and a few boughs outside and a few things inside, but I plan on adding a few items each year until we’re fully Christmas-ed out. We’ve also had a few visits with Santa and some fun local activities, but more about that later.
First order of business was a visit to a local Christmas tree farm. It was particularly cold that day (even Alaska-tough Grandma T thought so) but the trees looked pretty with the frost on them. This particular farm, the same one we bought our pumpkins at, has nice people (they cut our tree down for us – which J appreciated), and some animals for Clare to wave at.

The trees we chose were particularly large, so we all got a big laugh out of watching J and my dad try to fit them into the back of the truck. We ultimately paid a little extra to have the trees wrapped up so that they fit.

The finished tree! The best part was when Clare woke up from her nap and found the tree set up with lights on she threw her fists into the air and shouted “It’s Christmas!” We then decorated the tree together – and by that I mean Clare pranced around, playing with ornaments and chanting “decorate the tree! decorate the tree!” while I put the other ornaments on.

Stockings Hung by the Chimney with Care!
It’s fun to watch Clare grasp some of Christmas. She’s gone to visit Santa a few times, but hasn’t gone closer than three feet to him. She’s perfectly happy to talk about him, point him out, and give a few “Ho Ho Ho’s” in his direction but when we get close to actually talking to him she clams up and hangs onto Mom or Dad. She wouldn’t even take a candy cane from one Santa we visited, but once J gave it to her after the visit she really enjoyed it. I’ve tried to explain to her that Santa Claus will come to our house, but it will be at night when we’re sleeping, and she looks at me like I’m nuts. Besides that, when we talk about waiting until Christmas to open presents she’s equally confused. I think she assumes that Christmas is the tree and not a day in the future.
Our future plans include some light sight-seeing (which Clare calls “sparklies”), some cookie baking and decorating, and the family excitement once everyone arrives this week. I can’t wait to introduce it all to her and experience that child’s Christmas magic all over again.

Stories from the Clare

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Some recent cute stories from the Land of Clare (and some pictures that Adam took in October and November):


An evening last week she comes into the living room wearing shoes and socks (she had bare feet earlier), with her coat on and carrying a purse. She said “Can you open the door for me Mama? I go to the store.” I told her that we were going to stay home and she said, without missing a beat, “OK, I pretend then.” So she got her shopping cart and pretended to go shopping. Adorable!

We were in the car with Sam, who was crying pretty loudly. Clare watched him and then tells J and I, “he doesn’t like his hat. He wants to take his hat off. You help him take his hat off?” Sam had somehow gotten the string of his had in his hands, so I untangled it and took it off of him. Pretty quickly he did stop crying (probably more from the motion of the car than the hat). Other times Sam has cried in the car and Clare has told me “he’s to little for the car” and “Sam needs a binkie.”

Last week G told Clare she was a big boy, and Clare responded “I not a big boy. I a little girl.” She also likes to tell us that “Daddy is big, Mama and Clare are little, and Sam is tiny.”


Another day G was crying and Clare looked at him and said “you need a nap.” I love that she’s a little problem solver already!

Christmas Card Cuties

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Multi-talented Adam came over on Thursday to take some pictures of the kids for our Christmas cards this year. Trying to get two kids not crying, in the mood for pictures and behaving semi-decently kind of scared me, but we got a good five minutes of Sam not fussing, Clare sitting still, and some very sweet pictures.


“Squeeze!” (Notice Mom’s hands are close by making sure that the squeeze doesn’t get to tight)

“There’s his mouth.”