Happy Father's Day!

I am Awesome!

But not as awesome as my hubby!

For his Father's Day gift this year I had a theme:

"We're proud of our daddy."

We hadn't done anything with Peter's Master's diploma, so I decided to frame it.

And Claire helped me with the second part. She found the box where Peter keeps all of his old ID tags from everything he's ever done. His mission tags were in there too. But not any more! Now one of them is in a 6" shadow box with this behind it:

It turned out just the way I wanted it to.
Perfect!
Claire doesn't know it yet, but she's proud of her daddy! And now we'll be showing it off on our wall.

Stranger Danger!

Claire has become very sensitive to strangers.

Yesterday while we (Claire and me) were at JoAnn's, a bunch of ladies came up to us and tried to play with her and tell her how cute she was. Not all at once, but just casually as we walked around the store.

Claire cried every time someone talked to her for more than 2 sentences.

There was one lady, however, that did not notice Claire, but Claire noticed her. She stared at this lady for a long time, and then I told Claire, "You have to wave to people so they'll know you're nice. And then they might wave back." So after a little thought and hesitation, she started waving excitedly. The lady walked away without noticing, but I was excited that Claire actually tried to wave to a stranger. Of course it was when no one but me was looking so maybe it doesn't actually count.

She's also started to take less interest in Peter. She still gets excited when he comes home, but instead of running/crawling to him, she shyly buries her head in my shoulder. If I pass her off to him, she'll give him a hug and a kiss and then reach back over to me. How tiring. And a little flattering.

So when you see Claire and she just stares at you with a slack jaw, you're doing well! And if she cries, don't be offended. It's really not anything about you except for the fact that you are not me!

Beach Day!

Claire and I went to the beach yesterday!

Funny story.

We carpooled with our friends and were trying to meet other people at the beach. But we went to the wrong beach. Oh well. So we walked up and down the shore and decided to just sit and eat lunch.

Once we found out where the rest of the group was, we trekked back to the car and over to another beach.

The waves were a bit bigger here and the beach was steeper.

Claire wasn't such a fan.

I put her down before the water came up, but as soon as it hit her toes she started crying and reaching to be picked up.

After that she was shaking and clamoring to be held close every time I came close to the water. I think the water might have been too cold for her to enjoy.

She did enjoy sitting next to me on our towel though. I don't think she particularly liked sand either. She got some on her hand once when she started to tip over and tried really hard to get it off and held her hand out to me to help her. (She has little baby hands that are soft and sticky by nature.)

So our first beach experience wasn't perfect, but we still had fun.

She Cleans Up!

Yesterday Claire disappeared while I was looking for clothes in her dresser.

I turned around and she was gone.

I wasn't too worried, because she goes where she wants.

I saw her shadow on the floor from the kitchen window. She was standing in front of the garbage can.

I quickly looked at the changing table and realized that she had taken her diaper, all on her own, to the garbage.

We usually do this together right after we change her, but I didn't this time because I was going to get her dressed first.

I wouldn't have expected her to throw it away. Really I would think she would plop down and start gnawing on it. Because that's her favorite thing to do.

I was standing by the dresser in the top right corner, and Claire was at the changing table on the left

She walked out and around the wall, into the kitchen and to the garbage.

And there's the latest diaper, right on top where she left it!

The Original Cherry Lip Gloss

After dinner Claire ate a few cherries. Mmmm!

She really liked them.

A clearer image of her cherry juice stained lips

We bought these berries at Costco today.

 There are a whole lot of them! And they all are REALLY good. And just happen to be organic.

And a few smiles before you go...

Sorry the pictures are kind of blurry. It was getting dark in my kitchen. But you get the general idea that she's adorable!

10 Months Ago Today

Little Claire Annette has reached ten months!
It's amazing how fast time goes by.

So, we won't waste time trying to catch up. We're just going to jump in right where we are, here at 10 months!

The biggest development in the last month?
She walks!
On Friday June 1st she decided that she wanted to walk more than crawl. So she got control of her excitement and kept on walking. When she fell down, she would stick her little bum in the air as she pushed back up to her feet to keep going. Her balance improves every day.

If you aren't looking at her, Claire will cock her head to the side and bend so that her face is right in front of yours like she's saying, "hey mom! What are you doing? You ok?" And when you notice that she's looking at you, she gets this HUGE grin on her face that just screams, "Hi mom! I'm so happy that you're looking at me!" a lot like this picture from 8 months.

She waves, claps, and gives high fives, hugs and kisses.
She also just started raising her hands high above her head so that we will exclaim that she is so big. Then she smiles and giggles.
She likes to have laughing rounds occasionally. If she hears you laugh, she'll start laughing too. It's so funny, and she'll keep laughing because you're laughing, but it's a very forced, fake laugh. A little gravel-ly, even, which seems odd for an infant to have a gravel-ly tone.

She begs to be picked up at pretty much every moment.

She has recently taken an interest in stacking things/putting things together properly. When she's done drinking from her bottle, she reaches and grunts for the cap so she can try to put it over the nipple. Her hand-eye coordination is definitely improving!
She similarly has started trying to stack her stacking cups rather than just knock them down.

After we change her diaper she excitedly holds the dirty one as we carry her to the garbage where she reluctantly releases the soiled diaper in exchange for excited cheers and a high five.

She loves the swings at the park and is slowly warming up to the slide.

You can see her top teeth in this one

She LOVES music and bounces and raises one of her arms above her head any time that she is enjoying the tunes.

She doesn't say anything when you ask her, but she does whisper the words "dada" when Peter comes home as she waves "hello," "mama" when I'm ignoring her and she's crying to be picked up, and I SWEAR she copied me and said "vegetable" the other day when I was pulling out a jar of Beechnut's Mixed Vegetables puree--one of the ONLY vegetables I can get her to eat. She even said it one more time for Peter to hear. Two witnesses!

She's gotten a lot more picky about eating. Besides the pureed mixed vegetables, she also likes bananas and raspberries. 

She has two teeth on the bottom and still only 3 on top. I've been saying it for some time now that the last tooth to the left of her middle teeth was breaking through, but alas, it still has not come through. I can now feel the tip of it pushing out, but who knows when it will actually break all the way through the gums. It's no matter though. Claire still has an adorable smile that is now toothy with little toddler teeth.

She's only recently started using her teeth as tools. Although she's had at least four teeth for well over a month now, Claire has needed a good deal of encouragement to use them to bite her food. Obviously this lesson was not restricted to food only, but has also crossed to toys, clothing, body parts, and anything that goes into her mouth.

Speaking of things that go into Claire's mouth, she's become ridiculously obsessed with shoving her fingers down her throat so that she gags, and sometimes throws up. Most of the time I try to just pull her hand out of her throat and redirect her attention, but sometimes I am caught off-guard and shout "no" while pulling her hand out. This usually evokes raised eyebrows and a high-pitched "huh" with a shoulder shrug from Claire. She obviously does not associate my alarm and direct and decisive "no" with inappropriate and unacceptable behavior that is not to be repeated yet. Oh well. Maybe one day she'll get it.

So I know that's a lot, but she's just learning so much and is such a busy and active girl. People were asking me what we do at home to get her so "advanced." I kind of laughed because really I just let her have alone play time and together play time. Playing by herself doesn't always last very long, but usually long enough for me to step out of the mommy scene and into the few emails I've received and blogs I read. So basically a max of 10 minutes!

We sure do love our little Claire Annette!

Claire at 9 months!

Backtracking just a little bit.
So we missed 8 months.

And now we've also missed a 9 month update.

So very quickly, here are some pictures and a brief glimpse at months 8 and 9.

At the beginning of 8 months, Claire was just starting to stand on her own. She would pull up on something and stand alone for up to 10 seconds. It was so exciting and terrifying at the same time because she relied heavily on the stability of furniture to get her up and keep her there.

She had just barely started to crawl by 8 months too. She was very unsteady.

We started giving her more solid bits of food to eat. She was always really interested in what I was eating than what I was feeding her (still true). She only had two little teeth on the bottom to chew with, so she still ate mostly pureed foods. But because of her interest in our food, she started rejecting foods that she had previously enjoyed. This was SERIOUSLY no help in trying to figure out what this girl wants.

She learned to bite and clap when we started giving her Cheerios to help her develop her pincer grasp.

We got her a lift-the-flap Easter egg book. She LOVES that book. I don't know that she realizes that we're looking for the Easter eggs, but she likes to lift the flaps.

Around this time she became more helpful in the kitchen--not. She started by pulling out all of the mixing bowls, which I conveniently (and purposefully placed) right where she could get to them. That way she has something that she's allowed to play with in the kitchen. She then discovered the dishwasher, fridge, and how to open cupboards. Joy.

She also discovered her love for the bathroom and toilet paper! And what did I do? I ran to get the camera and let her have at it!

Now to 9 months:

She took her first four steps without support on May 10th while Peter was visiting with my parents in Houston on a business trip. Peter and I happened to be video chatting via Skype so he and my family saw the whole thing! So that would have been just after I posted a 9 month update--if I had been on top of things.

We had a doctor's appointment.
On May 4th, 2012 Claire was:
28 in tall--60%
20 lbs 10 oz--85%

At 9 months Claire was an expert crawler and was getting better at standing on her own.
She would take steps between the couch, coffee table, and her musical table all the time.

She also discovered what fun it was to sit on the couch.

She started taking slightly longer naps, but she also started waking up at night. Always a give and take right?

She loves attention and loves routines.
Every time that we get her out of her crib, we first pull back the curtains and open her blinds. Then we look at each other through the slats in her crib and play peek-a-boo with her blanket. She also likes to throw her teddy bear over the railing and have me give it back to her. In the mornings when if I'm still tired when she wakes up (between 5:30 and 6:00), I bring Claire to bed with me where the three of us snuggle and tickle and Claire generally climbs all over until we're ready to get up.

And now I feel a little guilty because I can't remember anything else that might have been significant at 9 months and I also didn't take very many pictures! Oh well. I've been pretty diligent up until now. She's still going to love it! haha.