Car-Crazy Claire

Claire is trying out pushing everything in her car. She likes to put all sorts of stuff in it and push it around. She gets upset if it will not stay on the seat. She also loves to get in cars at other kids' houses. She can't get enough of cars! Make sure your sound is on, too:

18 MONTHS OLD!

WOW! Today is Claire's official 18-month birthday! We had her well-baby check-up in the morning with Dr. W. Not that I love her, but I like having a Mom vs. a Dad as her Dr. PLUS she lets me hold her while she examines her which most male docs don't allow. So Claire said a ton of words in the office including a 2-word combination. She says these parts of the body: head, eye, elbow (today was the first for that!), and knee. She can identify TONS of stuff too. Today's word that amazed me was definitely elbow. She is quickly learning lots of food words. At Holly's bridal shower she was standing near the table, cramming those chalky Valentine hearts with sayings on them into her mouth. Why did I ever think she wouldn't eat? Today she was a piggy! I knew she had been having a growth spurt though the past few weeks since X-mas and I was right. She grew 3/4 inch taller. So she is now almost 34 inches tall and at the 97th percentile on height. She only gained 1 ounce in 6 weeks, but it's still a gain! So she is 24.2 lbs which is at the 50th percentile. Who really cares about their head circumference anyways...lol...she grew a bit around her head too. She was also scribbling in the white paper in the doctor's office when she came in. She held up the crayon container and said "bowl" which impressed the doctor since it does sort of look like a bowl.

I also requested Claire be tested for the Prothrombin Gene Mutation that my brother Rich, my mom, and my Uncle John have. So we headed over to the lab right after the appointment to get that taken care of. Since they were already going to stick her, I had them draw her for iron, Vitamin D, and Calcium too. I had myself tested on all that last week and haven't heard back yet...must be normals? I got my stitches out from my mole removals (nasty, I know.) But hey, good news, no cancer! Yay! Claire's blood draw was very traumatic and she cried and screamed and got very red. At least they had me hold her body. But the lady thought she could hold and draw at the same time. Well Claire jerked, of course, and then we had to do the other arm. And of course she jerked again even though she had called another lady over to hold her arm. Apparently she wasn't holding it very tight. So the 3rd vial of 3 wasn't all the way full, but they spun it to see if it was enough and it was. I wasn't going to let them stick her again! But I really want peace of mind. Either knowing she has it or not. So if she does we can prepare for it accordingly. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperprothrombinemia Basically it's the opposite of hemophilia where you bleed without clotting. The prothrombin disorder causes you to clot excessively, which you don't want either. Rich, correct me if I'm wrong here.

So I left early Friday morning for a long fun-filled weekend in Valpo and just got home yesterday from the festivities. We had Holly's bridal shower and bachelorette party. Good grief, I have almost 400 pictures from 1 week. WOW. I have some sorting and posting to do!!!

ALSO...if you've been following the First Steps...we switched therapists after meeting with the one only twice. The NEW one was supposed to come today, but got stuck in traffic. Sure. Overall, I'm not so impressed with them. But I also don't think she needs it. For lunch she ate 1/2 an applesauce, about 2 oz of home-made chicken rice "baby food", 1 1/2 ice pops (the pedialyte things), and almost a whole candy cane. I was a little wary of the candy cane but I wanted to see how she would do with it. SHE LOVED IT. And she can ask for her favorite food ever "pop" which are the ice pops. And she can say "candy" now too. Other words she loves to say "choo" for "achoo" and "neeze" for sneeze. Apparently we sneeze a ton! :) She can also say "bath, cloth, crotch, door, potty, highchair, chair." Forgive me if I said some of these before. She is getting more and more fun everyday. OH! And she also said "DADDY HOME!" for the first time today! IT WAS SOOO CUTE!

Mama, Baby, Up!

Today Claire said her first three-word phrase: "Mama, Baby, UP!" I was carrying her, and she saw her baby doll. She wanted me to pick it up and give it to her. Every day since about Christmas she has said something that has amazed me. She is saying all kinds of 2-word phrases. The funniest one has to be "Dada pee!" Josh comes home from work and goes into the bathroom. She hits the door while he's in there and says "Dada pee!" She is saying "UP" all the time for if I'm not holding her comfortably and wants me to adjust her, if she wants to get UP in the morning, and for when she wants out of her high-chair/carseat/etc. She has really figured out all sorts of useful ways to use this "UP" word! I have more words to post, so look for that soon.

We have Miss Fishy-face!

Well, Claire has added a few new signs to her vocab. In the past month she's started to do cookie and butterfly as well as again and tree. She has started to say "neigh" for a horse. And she has discerned the fishy lips from kissing! I'd like to take the credit for this by reading her http://www.amazon.com/Alligator-Alphabet-Stella-Blackstone/dp/1841484946/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1227725234&sr=1-1 at least 42 times on the way to and from WI recently. It may have been more than 42. I decided not to count. If I started to read something else, she'd get mad! I now have this book memorized. Ask me to recite it if you would like a performance. It has a page that says "T is for Trout...etc" SO I think by this book as well as seeing them at the library and doctors offices recently somewhere it clicked. But what's cool is that I actually got her doing it in the highchair where she INITIATED it, and we hadn't read any fish books that morning! So she gets it and isn't just imitating this one anymore like I thought she had been doing the past couple weeks.

She can also say "cheese" as you see below. She also has started to say pretty, kitty, tree, and door. She will sometimes say "thank you" when you hand her something.

She really liked the tuna noodle dish! Maybe that's because I tried to eat tuna once a week while preggers?