Clara just gets awesomer!

Finally, a post about the wee one!

In the past few months, Clara has really started becoming her own person.  I mean, she always has been, but now she has very strong opinions on things.  She knows when it's time for things, she knows she gets string cheese after Emily gets off the bus.  She knows we hop in the bathtub after we get upstairs to go to bed (except when we don't, and then it's upsetting!).  She climbs into her carseat on her own, and you know, I don't know why people are so anxious to turn their kids around forward-facing, because it's just as easy to leave it rear-facing and she doesn't care one bit!  When she cares, it'll probably make sense to turn it around anyway.

One of the most fun things has been Clara learning to sing.  She can sing Baby Beluga, and Teddy Bear, and she'll bring me the book, turn around and back herself up and plop into my lap.  She's so insistent - you WILL read this to me now, because I'm already singing it and I'm in the right place, so, start singing, lady!!  and i just kiss her cheek over and over and over again. :)  Her first song was Twinkle Twinkle, of course, and she would sing it back to me at bedtime as I sang to her in the dark.  Her sisters are so obsessed with Taylor Swift's "Trouble" that when I laid Clara down the other night, she was humming and ended up mixing the two songs, and I could definitely hear it was more of the latter.  *sigh*  goofy girls!! 

She loves to imitate her sisters, whether it's wearing their shoes and clonking around the house, or sitting at the piano, turning pages, touching the notes on the page and then playing more pretty notes with her fingers.  She also LOVES books now.  She'll flip by them herself or insist on being read to.  I have to be careful not to get board books flung at my head - she's pretty insistent!!  And it makes bedtime a bit of a struggle because she wants ALL of her bedtime books read to her.  I try to limit it to three!  After we left Goodnight Moon at Jenny's house one weekend, she started branching into other books, and she loves it.  All three girls have developed an obsession with the printed word since we gave up satellite TV, and hardly ever have it on anymore (not like we ever did much anyway!).  It's pretty cool!

And Clara is a total crack-up, too.  Amanda asked her this afternoon if she had pooped, cuz she smelled bad, and Clara shook her head back and forth quickly, in her typical adorable little fashion.  And Amanda said noooo, you smell bad, did you poop?  And her response, whether coincidental or purposeful, was a little shrug and expression of "eh, you got me!"  And off she went to the bathroom to get changed.  Hilarious!!  She actually did poop on the potty one time, which we haven't even tried with her for months but it was AWESOME.  it was during Emily's birthday party, while she was opening presents, and I did NOT want to be missing out due to changing a disaster diaper.  And I didn't have to!  best baby ever!!  And of course she hasn't since, but who cares?? that rocked!!  And I deserve it, too, cuz her tummy appears to still be sensitive to everything.  I gave her two wheat-thins crackers yesterday to see if gluten still gives her trouble, and whammo, this afternoon her system announced that yes, it does.  It is such a drag to operate with such a strict diet, but if Audrey outgrew it around 2.5 to 3 years, maybe I can do this for another year? or two?? ugh...  Cuz now she really knows if her sisters have something that she can't, so I'm trying hard to not let that happen too often.  Like tonight, she got her own gluten-free noodles while the rest of us feasted on the real thing, and no apples or pears or onions or tomatoes for any of us (except me, cuz I MUST have tomatoes this time of year! :) ). 

She's getting to be more coordinated now, getting up AND down stairs pretty well, and getting faster and faster.  She's had a few major biffs lately, resulting in a skinned-up nose and a hitler-mustache-style abrasion above her mouth.  Guess she learned the hard way to practice running on grass instead of concrete!  She's a tough cookie, though.  Tonight she chipped a tiny bit off her bottom tooth because she slipped while climbing onto a chair at the dining room table.  she cried a little, but not nearly as long as I would have if I'd chipped a tooth!

And all this, and her only real words are "Bup" (up) and "ahhdaaa" (all done).  And maybe Mom and Dad, but it's hard to know.  She is SO expressive and so busy listening to everything that's going on, that she doesn't really need words.  Can't even get a "nana" out of her and she LOVES bananas.  And I remember Audrey was a lot the same way, so I'm fine letting Clara learn however she likes.  She's pretty lucky that I'm finally figuring out some things the third time around. 

I sure like her an awful lot, and she likes me too. :)  She's a bit less of a mama's girl than she was a few months ago, but I don't mind her clinging to me most of the time.  When Amanda came one morning, Travis was holding her, and she wiggled out of his arms and went running through the kitchen, right past me, to greet her!  Made me feel so good, that she feels so loved while I'm at work!  But in my arms, it's such a good feeling, like she gets aboard and feels right at home, where she should be, with her mom.  It's fun to be paired up with such a little beauty!