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.

Meatball Nose

My baby! She has changed so much in the last month. Why does it all have to go so fast? I don't want her to grow up, but I love watching her do it.

Okay, enough with the cliche sappiness. Let's get into the fun Clara details!

• She loves being upside down. And I love her little smile!

• When she sees that either Daniel or I has a diaper in our hands, she crawls away quickly to try to escape the diaper change. She's smart!
• She pulled herself up to a standing position for the first time on July 30th.

• We were pretty sure she was saying "ah da" to mean "all done," but we weren't sure. But then one night everyone but her was upstairs, so she went to the bottom of the stairs and tried to crawl up. She stood there leaning on the second stair for awhile, watching all of us moving around up there, and then she said, "Ah da," and sat down and crawled away.
• She started doing this thing where she pretends to blow her nose, and it absolutely kills me. She even makes a blowing sound!

• Daniel tried to teach her to put her cup back on her tray instead of throwing it on the ground when she's done taking a drink. As she finished a drink, he would tap his finger on the tray a few times to indicate she should put the cup there. She started copying him when he did it, so we thought she understood. But then she started doing it when she wanted more of whatever food we were feeding her. Oh well; it's still cute!
• She likes to use paper towels to wipe down her tray and the table. She's such a little mimic!

• Speaking of being a mimic, one night I read her a book with animals in it, and Aubrey made the different animal sounds for her. She particularly liked the horse, and she started copying Aubrey as she did it. Hehe.

• She always pulls the kitchen hand towel down and rubs it along the floor. She also loves putting it on her head and crawling around with it balancing there. Needless to say, we have had to change the towel often, and now we're hanging it out of reach.

• She has not been a fan of whole milk. We tried to switch her to it a couple of weeks before her first birthday, and she was not having it. She wouldn't drink more than a little bit, and she stopped having wet diapers. So we quit the cold-turkey approach and started cutting the milk with formula again. We're finally back to all milk again, and she still doesn't love it. But she does drink most of it now, so I'll take it.
• Some of her favorite foods include Ritz crackers, graham crackers, peanut butter sandwiches, and scrambled eggs. When I hold them up and show them to her, she gets very excited. Sometimes she claps. She also loves baby puffs/yogurt melts, strawberries, bananas. Swedish pancakes, and yogurt.

• One time she picked up a baby doll and hugged it to herself while saying, "Mmmm." It was the sweetest thing ever! I nearly died from cute overload.
• She has gotten very into giving hugs. I LIVE for these hugs. All I have to do is say, "Hug?", and she will lean her head onto me. And sometimes she will just crawl up to me and lean her head on my leg, both when I'm sitting on the couch and when I'm standing in the kitchen making dinner. I gope she continues to be affectionate with me.

• She has started standing up on her own and smiling so widely as she does it. I love how proud she gets of herself! She will stand there for as long as she can, fall down to her bum, and get back up again. It really feels like she's practicing.
• She started using the walker, and she loves it! She's even better with it now than she was in this video, but this is one of the first times she used it, so it's special.

• When she's on the couch, she likes to crawl over to the armrest, stand up, and fall back down to her bum on the cushion. It always makes me nervous, but I of course never leave her on the couch alone; I'm always there. And it's cute how fun she thinks it is.
• She loves turning the pages when we read to her, but lots of times she just wants to turn the pages before we've even read the words. And she definitely has book preferences. Some books she loves, and others she tries to take out of my hands and throw on the ground. She's so discerning! Haha.

• She has four teeth so far. She likes having them brushed (the bottom ones anyway), but she hates it when anyone tries to look in her mouth. She was really not a fan of her first dentist visit. 
• When we tell her no, like if she's trying to do something dangerous or gross, she just looks back at us and waves with her little fingers flapping up and down. It's like she is hoping her cuteness will distract us. There was one time when Daniel told her no (as she tried to grab dirty dishes from the dishwasher, which she loves) and she burst into tears. That was equally funny and cute.
• She actually has really good motor skills. She can put the coins in the piggy bank. She figured it out fast! And her proud little face.... oof, I love it!

• She very often insists on feeding herself. She does not want us to do it for her anymore. It's both cute and annoying. She makes a big mess and never gets as much food in herself as we do, but we also can't force feed her, regrettably.

And yeah, many times she gives up on the spoon and eats with her hand (holding the spoon in the other hand though, of course).

• This is just a funny, cute face she made one time. That's all.

• And this is from when she fell asleep on my lap after she threw up from having a stomach bug. Sick is bad, but snuggles are good! So very good.

Okay, I could go on and on, but I'll stop here. I love, love, love this girl! I'm so glad she's mine.

Clara Turns 1!

My last baby turned one, but I didn't cry! I definitely had bittersweet feelings all day, but I mostly just enjoyed the day with her. Unfortunately, it was a busy day, so I didn't get to spend as much one-on-one time with her as I wanted.

Aubrey had her first e-learning day, which meant she had a 9:00 Google Meets video. She wasn't cooperating, so I was trying to listen for her and even speak for her when necessary. And then Carter kept asking me for thing after thing. So that made breakfast hard, but I finally got the traditional birthday Swedish pancakes made.

 

Clara had already had Swedish pancakes before, so she knew she liked them. And she decided she didn't want to wait for me to take photos, so she went for it.

And when she got it, she really went for it!

I did finally take it away and break it into little pieces for her. Also, can we talk about the little birthday crown I made for her? I can't stand the adorableness...

I also made her a C pancake because, you know, birthday. And she did eat all of both pancakes! So there you go.

After breakfast, Clara napped while I got myself and the kids ready to take Carter to preschool. Then I had to come home and bake Clara's birthday cake. Then it was back out to pick Carter up from preschool and back home again to decorate the cake.

Once that was done, I got to sit and watch the kids for a bit. Clara enjoyed her balloons, but not in the way I expected, haha. She was all about pinching them.

When Daniel came home and Nana and Papa came over, we were able to start the real celebration of this sweet, adorable, wonderful baby love. We started with a little dance party courtesy of the Beatles's "Birthday."

We also called Grandma and Grandpa on the iPad so they could watch presents and cake and feel at least a little bit like they were here.

We and the kids picked out old toys that were stored in the attic to give Clara as gifts (because we're cheap, but we're also resourceful). Carter picked the singing and lighting up farm toy that attaches to the walker we already had out for her.

She was a big fan!

Aubrey gave her two old Olaf and Sven stuffed animals. I didn't get a photo of those, because as sweet as it was that Aubrey chose them, Clara isn't too into stuffed animals yet.

Nana and Papa gave her a singing, counting, spinning mushroom toy. She was SO into it. She wouldn't pay attention to anything else we had for her to unwrap.

In fact, I have this video in which I'm being super annoying trying to get Aubrey to give Clara her last gift instead of enjoying that Clara was dancing so cute to the music from the mushroom toy. *Sigh*

After presents we ate dinner. I then made Daniel take a photo of me with my lovey. I wasn't sure she was too happy about it, but we got this awesome shot!

I also made everyone wait while I took a smashcake-esque photo. But since Clara kept crawling toward the cake and trying to grab it--and because everyone was waiting for me, totally confused about what I was doing--I gave up after three photos. This was the best one I got.

Finally, it was time to see what Clara thought of cake! It was a marble cake I hadn't made before, and it was only okay. But hey, she didn't have anything to compare it to, so she doesn't know it wasn't great!

Obviously we sang first. I think Clara's reaction is so cute!

And then she did some tentative exploration of the cake.

At first she mostly just broke it up and licked her fingers a few times...

... until she finally figured it all out.

Then she started kind of playing with it as she ate it.

And finally, Daddy got her a spoon so she could eat it her preferred way, haha.

Weirdly, Clara didn't totally slime herself, so I didn't have to give her a bath. And since it was Daniel's turn to put her and Aubrey to bed, I decided to take a few minutes to read some books to her on the couch, just me and her. It was heaven.

My goodness, I so completely adore this girl. She is sunshine and puppies and rainbows and chocolate and everything good and wonderful. I sometimes often think we're crazy to have had another kid, but I can't imagine my life without this little girl.

*sniff*

Month 11

Clara Panera, why do you have to grow up? Only one more month until you're a whole year old! You're breaking my heart, sweet baby girl. Please stay little.

I know you won't; you can't. And I wouldn't really want you to. I'm actually so excited to watch you grow up. I only wish I had a way to go back in time, some day when the baby days seem so far gone, and see and experience you again as you are now. But since I can't, I'm writing it all down. Here it is:

• We discovered she loves spaghetti and meatballs, just like her siblings.
• She crawls around with things in her mouth, like a dog. Nerf gun bullets are a particular favorite, but I won't let her have them because the tips come off easily and could choke her.
• When her siblings go outside, she sits by the sliding glass door and watches them play. They are her favorite form of entertainment!

• When we give her a bottle, she snatches it out of our hands and shoves it hard into her mouth in a way that just makes me laugh. She takes her food very seriously!
• On the 4th of July, she discovered she likes graham crackers! She found one that Aubrey had dropped while we were making s'mores, and she picked it up and started gnawing on it. I expected her to not like it because of her issues with texture in foods, but she ate the whole thing!

• When she really likes the food she's eating and I try to give her her water cup, she instantly throws it and looks to me for more food.
• When Aubrey tries to comfort her with stuffed animals if she's sad, Clara always throws them on the ground too.
• This month she learned how to stand up while holding on to things. She can't pull herself up on her own, but she can hold herself up after we have helped her.

• We put shoes on her for the first time a couple weeks ago, and she was not a fan. At first she just picked up her foot in one hand and stared at it. Then she spent a long time angrily trying to rip the shoe off.
• She's very particular about how we feed her finger foods. If we have a puff or chunk of carrot or something for her to eat with her hands, she refuses to either let you put it in her mouth or hand it to her. She'll whine until you put the food on her tray so she can grab it herself.
• Changing her diaper is a royal pain in the butt. She absolutely does not want to sit still, and she often makes a game out of it. If you lay her down to change her, she crawls away and laughs...

• But sometimes it's not a game, and she tries her hardest to squirm away, getting increasingly mad when she's unsuccessful.

• If the whole family goes upstairs and leaves her downstairs, she'll crawl over to the stairs and try to crawl up them. But then she gets stuck with her hands resting on the second-to-last step and her feet still on the ground. She gets very upset by this and just scream cries until I help her sit down or pick her up.
• If we leave the pantry door open, she immediately crawls over, grabs a cooking wine bottle from the bottom shelf, and tips it back. She can never understand why nothing comes out. There have been many jokes made about her growing drinking problem...

• She always points at things with her middle finger. She also sticks just that finger out and touches/taps things with it.
• The girl is unruffleable. There is a lot of screaming and yelling and loud noises in our house due to her older siblings. But she never flinches or even reacts. When we vacuum, she'll sit right on the floor, just a foot or two away from the vacuum, and be just fine.
• She has two favorite things in the house to destroy. The first is the Ziploc bag drawer...

• The second is Aubrey's paint bucket in her art desk.

• She doesn't like to be held too close, so oftentimes hugs aren't her favorite. She actually pushes her siblings away when they try to squeeze her. However, she still finds a way to show me affection. She leans her forehead against mine and just keeps it there. Sometimes she says, "Mmmm" when she does it. It melts my heart and makes me SO happy. There was the one time she ate my nose while doing it, but you know...
•  On the 4th of July, she did this weird series of hilarious facial expressions. She really is very expressive and funny... and ridiculously adorable.

• She often says, "Ah dah!" We're not yet sure if it means "all done" or "Dad" or nothing. We are sure that it's super cute though.
• One time Carter tried to move her while she was in her highchair and ended up knocking the whole thing over. Clara got a little pinch bruise on her ear and line bruises across her thighs from where the tray of her seat dug into them. For a few days after that happened, she would scream and cry if we moved her highchair while she was in it. It was sad.

Month 10

I'm sad to say I actually missed Clara's 10-month "birthday." My chiropractor asked me at an appointment how old she was, and I said, "She'll be 10 months old on the 21st... whenever that is." He responded, "So last Sunday?" That made me feel pretty dumb! In my defense, it was also Father's Day. So... yeah.

Anyway, here are some highlights about our sweet little bookend baby!

• She absolutely loves playing with my sunglasses. If I'm holding her and wearing my sunglasses, she will always take them off. When I put them back on, she immediately grabs them again. 
• She also always pulls off her bibs (if she can). She doesn't approve of them I guess!

• When we feed her, she often flaps her hands. This leads her to hit the spoon and spill food everywhere. She also likes to grab the spoon on its way to her mouth. So yeah, meal times are a messy affair. I'm learning she likes it when I make funny sounds as the spoon approaches her mouth...
• She doesn't like her food to have any chunks or texture. If it does, she spits it out. Did I mention meals are messy?

• She started crawling! She really gets around, and she's a curious one. Everything is a toy to her now, especially the contents of Aubrey's art desk. She also loves outlets, so we had to pull out our old outlet plug covers.

• She also loves opening our Ziploc bag drawer, haha.





• She hates diaper changes and getting dressed or undressed. She gets rigid and won't bend her arms to get shirts off. Then she spends her entire diaper change trying to roll over and get away. And she definitely does not take kindly to being held down to get it done.
• She had her first pool experience a couple of weeks ago. She liked it! She sat in the shallow part of the zero-depth entry pool and splashed around by kicking her feet. At some point she crawled out and just sat on the tile at the entrance, just out of the water. 

• She likes it when I put my forehead against hers. She leans into it and starts laughing. She also loves it when I lift her into the air and when I pretend to eat her neck. Her little laugh is the best sound in the whole world!
• Once at bedtime, as Aubrey and I were reading to her, she leaned in towards Aubrey and put her head on Aubrey's shoulder.  She kept it there for awhile, and it was clear it was a sign of affection. Awwwwwww.
• She does a little nose scrunching, eye squinting smile that just makes me laugh.

• If you try to take something from her, she death grips it and won't let go. If you succeed in getting it away from her, she gets maaaad. And when she gets mad, she starts scratching.
• Speaking of scratching, she loves grabbing people's faces. It's too bad her claws make it so painful, because it's actually really sweet and cute.
• She always falls asleep in the hiking backpack. I can't decide if it's more cute or more funny.

• She loves her water cup. If I give it to her during her meals, she will just drink it and refuse to eat. So I have to take it away (with no small difficulty). But whenever I do give it to her, she gets very excited. 
• She waves now! We often have to demonstrate and coax her into it, but she does it sometimes! The first time she did it was in California while we were at Maren's house, when she was saying goodnight to Maren.