Walks and Doors and Leg Hugs

It's been awhile since I posted about my littlest lovey, and there is SO much to tell and show. I'm going to include an obscene number of videos, but I'm not sorry. I regret nothing! Clara just does too many cute things every second she's awake, and it's my duty to capture them for posterity--and cuteness.

• We've determined that her first official word is "door," which she pronounces "dough." We've made it a point to keep the bathroom doors closed (and often our bedroom door), and she definitely noticed. (She's SO observant!) So she started getting very concerned when she would see one of those doors open (only when one of us is with her... if she's alone she sneaks in and wreaks havoc), and she would point at the door and speak a whole lot of gibberish that always repeated and/or ended with "dough." 

• She loves to play this game in which I sit down on the ground and she comes up behind me and pushes me over as I say, "Woo!" Then I sit back up, and she does it again. At some point the game evolved into me pulling her up piggy-back style and leaning forward so she flings forward as I say, "Weee!" I'll do it a few times, leaving forward and then sitting back up, and then put her down. And she always whines a bit and tries to climb back on my back.
• When you ask her to, she'll often give high fives. She typically gives them to Daniel upon request. One time he said, "High five!" but didn't put his hand up in time, and she slapped him in the face. He discovered he can almost always get her to hit him in the face by asking for a high five with his hand up and then dropping it before she can hit it. She never stops herself from hitting him in the face, and sometimes she bops him a few times for good measure.

• She still doesn't really say any words (not even "Mama" or "Dada"), so communication has to be done with gestures and pointing. The time she most often needs to communicate with us is mealtime. When she wants more food, she taps on her tray. When she's done, she leans out over the side of her seat and whines. When we ask her what food she wants, she shakes her head for "no" or gets a big smile on her face and says, "Neah!" for "yes."

• When she's done eating something, she holds out her bowl or plate until we take it. It's so cute! What's not cute is how picky she is. She's as bad as her siblings! It's super frustrating. We can't get her to eat any meat or vegetables or anything. She eats eggs, waffles, pancakes, PB sandwiches, grilled cheese sandwiches, pasta, macaroni and cheese, yogurt, Babybel cheese (her absolute favorite), cheddar, fruits, applesauce, baby oatmeal, any kind of cracker (she's obsessed with animal crackers), and any bread we make for dinner. Not super balanced... and she's still iron-deficient and taking an iron supplement. *sigh*

• She always laughs when Aubrey or I dangle our hair in her face.

• She has a weird obsession with drinks. If she at any time sees a cup, she must have it and drink from it. She gets very upset if we take a cup away or if it's empty when she tries to drink from it. She can never have enough drinks.

• Here's a cute video of Aubrey making her laugh with cups.

• On nights when we don't have dance, OT, or PT for Aubrey, we watch a family show together. Clara used to be content sitting on my lap while we watched, but she recently decided she wants to sit on couch with us. If I try to put her on my lap, she throws a fit and tries to roll off of me and squeeze herself between me and whoever is sitting by me. She doesn't actually watch the show much. She mostly babbles adorably, plays with the blankets, and pokes at whichever sibling is sitting next to her.

• She looooves taking walks and has started grabbing her shoes and bringing them to us a lot. The other night she did that after it was dark, so we couldn't go for a walk. When we said we couldn[t do a walk right then because it was ark and cold, she cried. And my heart broke. It broke again the next morning when she grabbed the shoes, held them out to me, tried to put them on herself when I didn't immediately do it for her, and then cried when she couldn't do it. Needless to say, we went for a walk despite the cold.

• She's such a sweetie! She often comes up behind me or Daniel, buries her face in our lower legs/butt (haha) and gives us hugs. I CAN'T HANDLE THE CUTENESS! Speaking of cuteness and hugs, here's a video of her giving me (er, my head) hugs at bedtime. You'll notice she pats me during the hugging, which is another thing she does that kills me.

• Speaking of patting, she has taken to patting the back of her diaper when she's pooped. If we ask, "Did you go poo poo?" she'll reach back and pat her bum. She is at the stage of going away to poop, but if I catch her doing it (she does the face and the grunting, so it's pretty obvious), she reaches back and pats her diaper. Classic.
• She is finally comfortable going down the stairs in our house, including the longer staircase down to the basement. She'll randomly go down there for awhile, and she always comes back up with either the TV remote or one of Daniel's video game remote. She walks up to one of us all proudly and reaches up to hand it to us. Incidentally, she also does this with our phones. Even if they're sitting right next to us, she'll grab them and hand them to us proudly.

• She loves brushes and brushing her (and my hair). Why is that so sweet?

• One night I heard a loudish banging sound coming from Clara and Aubrey's room. I went to investigate, and I found Clara doing this:

• She was legitimately asleep as she did this, and she didn't even wake up when I finally flipped her over successfully. Instead, she started going this:

• I managed to document her first time wearing shoes, which was at Nana's and Papa's house. She was freaked out by them at first, but she got the hang of them. I love her funny little walk!

• I only have one video of some of her first steps. It's not great, but it's what I have, which is better than nothing.

• Before she could walk, she used to love it when I'd get down on my hands and knees and chase her around. Doesn't she have the best laugh?

• We've taught her to wave goodbye and to even blow kisses. I only have the waving on video, but it's pretty dang cute!

• She loves feeling the wind on her face. Even when it's cold, she does a little happy shiver and smiles. 

• She has discovered she likes hot chocolate. I made the mistake of leaving an empty hot chocolate mug within her reach, and she took the spoon out of the mug, licked it, and was hooked. Now whenever a mug is within her reach, she grabs the spoon, licks it, puts it back in, pulls it out and licks it, etc. I've started giving her small cooled off spoonfuls when I have it, and she's a fan.

• She likes covering herself with blankets and getting snug. We just recently started giving her a blanket in her crib, and she loves it. She won't sleep without it now!

• Doesn't she have the best little cheesy smile? Here it is again.

• When she's done eating, we always wipe her mouth and hands. She anticipates the face wiping by scrunching up her face and quickly shaking her head back and forth. Of course, when I tried to film her doing it, she wouldn't cooperate. But I did get this video of her wiping her own face and tearing uop the paper towel (which she always does if I put it down within her reach).

• I love her surprised reaction to me opening this little expanding ball thing. That face!

• She loves music that she can dance to. When she hears it, she has to dance!

• This chair dance is my favorite. It shows how she shoulder shimmy dances. It's the best!

• She likes to randomly open her mouth wide when she looks at people. Not sure what that's about, but I like it.

• She is SUCH a mimic. My favorite thing she's picked up is "washing' herself at bathtime. She started doing it one day, and now she always does. Cracks me up!

• I just think she looks super cute here...

• At some point recently, she had her first peanut butter cup. She looked so cute eating it that I had to take some pictures. 

• She really likes sword fighting with Carter. She's pretty passive in this video (she's usually more engaged in the fight), but it's still cute.

• She's gotten pretty into books lately, and she has strong opinions about which books she likes. She absolutely will not sit with me to read a book she doesn't like. She tends to like books with animals in them (though she is decidedly not a fan of Sandra Boynton's Little Pookie books. She likes her other books though! Haha. Books with flaps always go over well. Here she is reading one. Doesn't she just looks so cute reading with her daddy?

• And speaking of cute photos with Daddy...

• But I can't be left out! So here's Mommy and cute Clara. 

• She really likes baths and will start trying to get into the bathroom as soon as I say the word "bath." She comes running if she hears the bathtub filling up, and it's so sad when it's for Carter and not her.

• Her little hand got shut in the bathroom door one night when Carter shut it quickly to keep her out. It was bruised and sad-looking for weeks, and then the nail started to peel off. It was attached on one side and kept getting caught on stuff; it was so sad! It would bleed, and she would cry, so I finally clipped it off. But it was so sad/cute how she would hold up her hand and babble sadly to show us she was hurt.
• Carter got a blow-up car for Christmas this year, and Clara gets very excited when it's not being used by her siblings so she can have a turn.

• She also loves Carter's new RC car. She often brings it to us and says, "Eh! Eh!" until we turn it on for her. She likes to "drive" it herself, but she is mesmerized by watching one of us drive it.