Anyone who spends five minutes with our family figured out that Clare is a number one Daddy’s girl. Daddy was the first person to hold her, kiss her and talk to her and from that moment on the two of them had a special bond. Of course it doesn’t hurt that she looks just like him! Here are some pictures I took of them goofing around on the couch yesterday.

In this picture they were making “elephant” noises at each other. They’re both good at making noises at this point Clare has a better elephant impression than I do.
Other happenings in our house include Clare is now walking! Tonight, at my parents house, she pushed herself up to her feet from the floor and walked 20 feet. She’s been spending lots of time practicing this, so it’s exciting to see it come together. It’s pretty cute because when she would go a few feet she would clap for herself and sometimes it would cause her to fall down.

The outfit above is part of the “Grandma T” collection for Clare. I sent Teresa home with extra fabric from Clare’s birthday party decorations and she turned it into the adorable outfit above. It’s a little bit, so our growing girl will wear it into the fall. Isn’t it cute? I love the details!

Clare has turned into quite the little mimic these days. If we rub our hands together, she rubs her hands together. If we wipe our feet, she wipes her feet. We’ll notice her nodding or shaking her head along with a conversation, or imitating speech patterns more closely than before.

Below are pictures of Clare at the playground with her new nanny, Adam. As you can see she’s turned into quite the “kid” as opposed to baby with her climbing and sliding.

It was also a sad week in the McPherson house when we had to put down our sweet kitty-cat Prowler. He’s been sick for several months but it was still hard to make the decision. We’re missing him a lot around here. Clare has looked around for “kitty” several times and J and I miss his greeting us at the door, his sitting in our lap and his general presence.

Dear Clare,

Nothing is safe these days from Clare’s exploration. Babyproofing is nothing compared to toddler proofing! No drawer is unpulled, no string unpulled, no container undumped, no button unpushed, etc. It’s so fun to watch her explore her world! She just delights in finding reactions in things, especially when something makes a noise. Wooden toys are banged together, music is played, bells are jingled and when it’s silent… well, that’s when we have to watch out!
Clare continues to be very vocal. “Book” is a favorite word and it usually gets her read to. She calls out to the “kitty” and “dog” whenever she can. She’s started saying “bunny” sometimes and a variety of other words that we can’t recognize.

I was reminiscing today with J about what we were doing a year ago at this time. It was a few days before my due date, I was trying to come up with things (anything) to keep my mind off of how big and uncomfortable I was, it was really hot and we were getting fed up with waiting for the baby. And we still had two weeks before Clare actually came into the world. I’m so glad to be on this side of it!

Clare’s vocabulary is expanding and she’s starting to use words at their appropriate times to convey things. We were at a restaurant last weekend and she reached over to the table next to us (very close to ours), tapped the man sitting there on the shoulder and said “Hi!” She also says “Hi” in the mirror and when she greets someone. Today she pointed to someone walking behind us and said “Bay-Bee.” The man was holding a baby, she was right! She’s also saying “dak-u” in the same singsong voice that we often say “thank you” when she gives us things. She hasn’t quite figured that one out yet – we say thank you when she gives us things, not her, but she’ll get there.

When Clare was a few months old we went to a friend’s first birthday party. I was watching the birthday boy and all of his little friends and thought to myself “those one-year-olds are certainly busy.” Well, now that I have my very own I agree with my first impression. Our particular almost-one-year-old is awfully busy crawling, exploring, tasting, pulling up, climbing over, grabbing, talking, lifting, rolling, hitting things together, throwing them away, etc. Every once in a while she’ll sit down with one of her beloved books, but for the most part Clare has places to go and people to see. Since my nickname for her is Bug, these days she’s a Busy Bug or a Doodle Bug.

We celebrated Jeremy’s first Father’s Day last weekend with my parents. Unfortunately the weather didn’t cooperate, but darnit we decided to go hiking and have a BBQ so we did it anyway. You can’t tell from the picture below necessarily, but we did have a nice time even though it was a hike in the rain. In fact we had waffles at the Waffle Window in the rain, hiked in the Gorge in the rain and then BBQed in the rain. My mom said it reminded her of camping – I think she was being charitable 🙂 But the Father’s in question (my dad and J) thought that the company made up for it – especially one smily and kissy little girl named Clare.

All this busy-ness makes for a sleepy little girl. Below is the position that Clare finally crashed into a nap in this last week. I don’t know if you can tell from the position but she was literally mid-crawl and she just couldn’t keep her eyes open anymore. Regardless of whether or not she’s a Busy Bug, Cuddle Bug or Stink Bug on a given day when I see her sleeping like this it reminds me that she’s my precious little angel.

Our girl is now an active eleven-month old! How did that happen? I don’t know if it’s the crawling this month or what, but suddenly she has the look of a kid instead of a baby. Our little bean is growing up.

She is pulling herself up on everything. Not only is she pulling up but she is creeping along holding onto furniture and getting into all sorts of things. She’s also transferring from one object to another and starting to experiment with standing without holding onto anything. She hasn’t figured out how to get down yet (besides yelling for someone to help her) but she’s strong enough to hold herself up for quite a while.

Clare has started to really enjoy her stuffed animals, particularly “Monkey” and “Henri the bear.” She talks to them, gives them hugs and kisses, and carries them around with her. She’s also been very affectionate and gives us lots of hugs and kisses too. They’re pretty precious.

Everything, from toys to the washing machine, receive a pointed index finger and “bah.” I’m not sure exactly what “bah” means but she sure points out the world around her.

She continues to love food and eating. Her favorite foods are still meat and fruit, though strawberries and cherries may be outranking blueberries and favorite fruits. She also really likes buttered toast and pasta with butter and parmesan. She’ll pretty much eat anything, but she likes to feed herself thank you very much. Unfortunately for her there are certain foods, yogurt for example, that need to be spoon-fed to her. She tolerates being spoon fed but we’ll all enjoy the days when she can feed herself with a spoon.

Fortunately this month she’s started drinking water and juice out of a sippy cup. Phew – I was beginning to think it would never happen. She’s partial to grape juice, but, since I’m the one who does her laundry, I prefer water.

She is the most joyful little girl. When she laughs her face lights up and her whole body shakes with joy. She also loves to laugh and giggle, particularly when she’s tickled. So we do a lot of tickling around here.

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’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.

Here is the video I promised of Clare’s first crawling. The quality isn’t great (taken with J’s iPhone) but it’s a pretty sweet moment. Our favorite part is at the end where she gives a little cackle as she’s reaching for the book.