"Mommy, fight the bug!"

(Okay, so I started this post a long time ago and just took forever to finish it. Some things are old news now, but I had to keep a record of them as having at one time been true.)

This girl has really come into her personality in the last few months. She's sweet and mischievous and funny and sensitive and stubborn and curious and happy and loving. Gosh, I just love her! She heals my soul every day with her hugs and smile and sweet, little voice. She's also becoming increasingly vexing as she gets into everything, but hey... that's the age, right?

I could wax sentimental forever, but I'll refrain. Without further ado, a few things about my littlest lovey:

• She says the cutest and funniest things!
• "Oh gosh" (when something small goes wrong or unexpectedly)
• "I look pretty!" / "I so pretty" (usually after we've dressed her... it KILLS me)
• "Tastes good" (about any food she's enjoying)
• "I jump high"
• "Mommy, fight the bug!" (when we kept getting flies in the house)
• "Dang it!" or "Oh, dang!"

• "No, won't!" (when she's being a buttface)
• "I spooky!"
• "Uh fat?" for "What's that?"
• "Bee Dee" for "Z Bar" (a food item she's obsessed with)
• "Big catch?" (when she wants to jump off of something and have me catch her)
• "Uh bum huts" for "My bum hurts"

• "Don't see" and "Don't reach" instead of "I can't see/reach"
• "1, 2, 5, 6" (when she's "counting")
• "I skeem" for "ice cream"
• "That's funny!"

• One day she found the cake carrier, brought it into the kitchen, and said, "Do cake?" 
• When we drop Aubrey and Carter off at school, she watches them walk away and says, "Too big" (as in she's too big to go to school). That started because when she would say, "Go too?", I would say she was too little to go to school yet but that she'd go when she got bigger. I don't know how she mixed it up, but it's pretty cute.
• She used to sing "Baby Shark" all the time. It was too cute to even be annoying!

• At dinnertime she often gets down from her seat, walks over to me, climbs up to kneel next to me on my chair, and whispers in my ear. She doesn't say actual words though; she just fake whispers. It's so weird/funny.
• She often puts her hands on the side of her face, like when she's being silly or thinks something is funny.
• She likes to give thumbs up a lot, and it's my absolute favorite.
• One time I took her to Sam's Club and got pizza and frozen yogurt for us. After that, she told Daniel every night he put her to bed that she had had pizza and ice cream. I guess it made an impression!

• We went for a family bike ride this summer, and she rode in the bike trailer with Carter as Daniel pulled them on his bike. Aubrey and I got ahead of them, and the following conversation happened:
• Carter: "Mom, wait up!"
  Daniel: "No, keep going!"
  Clara: "Mom, keep it open!" (a reference to keeping her bedroom door open, which she insists on)
• I buy Frozen (as in the movie) yogurt, and it has the characters on the containers. She always calls Olaf the "snowflake" instead of "snowman."
• She always calls squirrels "bunnies" and says, "Where bunny go?" when they run away.
• She likes putting socks on her hands. She loves gloves, but she can usually only find one, so...
  

• When I would sing to her at bedtime, she used to say, "Fast!" and "Slow!" throughout each song to indicate the changing speed at which she wanted the song sung.
• Speaking of bedtime songs, she always asks for the following:
• "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star"
• "Baa, Baa, Black Sheep"
• "I Love to See the Temple" (which she calls "the temple song")
• "Old Mother Hubbard" (which she calls "the puppy song")
• And speaking of bedtime in general, she always insists on having the fan on (no matter how cold it is) and her star projector on. After we read two books, she asks for snuggles in my bed (where we do our singing), then snuggles in Aubrey's bed, and then snuggles on the floor, where we point out the stars/moons on the ceiling and put our hands up to watch the lights move across our hands.
• At Aubrey's and Carter's school fun run, she danced on the sidelines and entertained everyone who saw her. She was always swaying, but when the songs picked up, she'd get even more into her dancing. She also clapped for and waved at kids running, which was so sweet.

• She always used to refer to food as "nice" when it wasn't too hot. Same with bath water.
• Speaking of food, she refuses to eat dinner... basically always. I really hate it. She does eat corn really well though...

• She has an ABC book that she always calls her "A B book," and for some reason that's so cute.
• She LOVES sharp cheddar cheese, and when I cut her slices she always asks fir a "teeny tiny one." When I give her a tiny piece, she says, "Awww," and hugs it. Evidence of the cheese love:

• Speaking of hugs, she always hugs the cat in this touch-and-feel Good Morning, Good Night book we have. The page with the cat on it got ripped out, and she would always say, "Awww," when that page fell out, pick it up, and hug it. In the same book, there's a little girl at the end who is lying in her bed with a blanket that can actually be moved around to cover up the girl. Clara always says, "Oh no! Baby cold!" and puts her hand over the girl before pulling the blanket over her to make her warm.
• She also likes to cover people with blankets in real life, too. She covers me up if I lie down on the couch, and she did this for Daniel last night when he fell asleep on the couch. He woke up like this:

• When we snuggle at bedtime, she sometimes wraps her arms around me and gives me a hug. She snuggles her face into mine, and it's THE BEST.
• She loves trying on other people's shoes and walking around the house in them. In this bonus shot, she was two different shoes and no pants! She's so cute that she can rock any look, am I right?

• When she's trying to figure something out, she taps her pointer finger on her closed mouth and says, "Hmmm." Then, when she gets an idea, she points that finger up in the air and says, "Aha!" She totally got it from the show "Cocomelon," but I still think it's adorable.
• Speaking of which, she looooves "Cocomelon." She also loves a show called "Mighty Little Bheem" and is completely obsessed with the movie Encanto. Every time we get in the car, she asks for "Miracle," which is what she calls Encanto. She would happily listen to that soundtrack all the time, every day. When she gets screen time, she almost always goes to Disney+ to watch Encanto. Here are some cute videos of her singing along to specific parts of the songs:

• We had the following funny conversation one day:
• Clara: "I want a cat."
  Me: "Oh, you want your cat toy?"
  Clara: "No, a cat."
  Me: "What kind?"
  Clara: "Meow."
• Speaking of cats, she often pretends to be a cat, and she's the cutest little cat I ever did see.

• One time she started randomly flapping her arms, and Daniel asked what she was doing. She replied, "I'm doing this," and kept on flapping.
• She asked for my breakfast one morning (like she does a lot of mornings), even though she had already eaten her own. So I gave her some. Then this conversation happened:
• Me: "You're just a dirty little breakfast thief!"
  Clara, holding up both hands for me to see: "All clean!"
• For awhile there, she used to get angry when I would call her "Baby." She would just repeat her name until I called her Clara instead.

• She also gets angry when I call her "little person," usually responding with, "I not a person!" Hehe.
• When she sleeps, she often shakes her head back and forth, causing her to wake up every morning with a very impressive rat's nest hairstyle.
• She loves to sing the song "Rain, Rain, Go Away," even when it's not raining outside. 

• Whenever I've left her with someone else for awhile, she repeatedly says to me, "I miss Mama," when I come back. It's just the best thing ever.
• She is a HUGE fan of PEZ candy and got her own dispenser for Christmas. Whenever all of the candy was gone, she would hold up her dispenser to show it was empty and then open her mouth and point inside to show that's where it went. 
• There have been a couple of times now when she was sick and missed a nap for whatever reason, leaving her super tired. Both times she fell asleep on the couch like this... so cute/sad! (Aubrey took this funny video, so I'm using it instead of my photo of it.)

• She gets really excited when we drive by the cows on the side of the road, and she always asks where they are if she can't see them. One time I said maybe they were inside to stay warm. She said she throught they were napping. Then she proceeded to talk about how they were reading books and using their flashlights and snuggling... Oh, it was so cute. 
• One night, around Christmas time, she started being really silly when we asked her to say thanks for something. Her little tongue out laugh is so cute.

• For awhile there she would shout "Pete the Cat" from crib when she didn't want to go to sleep. She thought it was hilarious *shrug*
• When we come home from somewhere, she likes to stay in car and play for awhile, so I just close the garage door and go inside until she decides to join me.

• She is obsessed with Daniel's flavored waters and calls it "fizzy wawwie." At first she called it "fluffy wawwie," which was even cuter.
• During dinner, she always does two thumbs up into a clap. She does it at each family member until we do it back to her.
• We sometimes play this game in which we call each other a goose and then deny being a goose. It's cuter than it sounds.

• When I told her pacifiers were for babies and asked her, "Are you a baby?", she said, "Yes." When I said that no, she wasn't, she said, "I'm baby Luke" (referring to her cousin). Well played, kid.
• She has definitely gotten feistier and will say, "I hate [insert object here]" when it's not what she wants. Examples: When I told her she couldn't watch shows because it was time for lunch, she said, "I hate lunch!" When she had to sit in her cousin's car seat, she told Aunt Kara, "I hate this seat!"
• Oh, and speaking of funny things she has said to Kara, she once sassily said to her aunt, "You have messy hair!" 
• She loves going on walks outside, no matter what the temperature, and she particularly enjoys crunching Fall leaves. She's definitely my daughter!

• One night we had cornbread muffins, and Aubrey threw a huge fit because her muffin fell apart when she tried to butter it. We sent her to her room to calm down, and when we called to her a few minutes later that she could come out, Clara ran upstairs and said to her through the closed door, "You eat the muffin. You don't scream. Okay, Aubrey?" Daniel and I almost died laughing.
• Carter had an inflatable plane for awhile, and here's Clara riding it like a horse.

• If she hears Carter's bedroom door open after everyone is put in bed, she shouts, "Daddy, Carter's coming out!" 
• When she wants me to play with her build-a-garden thing, she says, "Mommy, build flowers me!" It's impossible to say no, especially when she follows the request with her sweet, "Peeease!"
• Her laugh is SO funny. It's low and raspy and almost maniacal. I absolutely love it.

• We recently switched her car seat to forward facing, and on the first drive she kept saying, "Woah!" whenever I would turn or do anything, basically. She also likes to ask if we're on the freeway a lot.
• She is obssessed with coins and steals them from anyone whenever she can.
• We started therapy for Aubrey and Carter, and at the office there's a huge chalkboard. Aubrey always plays hangman with me while we wait to go back, and Clara started mimicking her. Hehe.