A Post from Mommy

For a little change of pace, Mommy is writing the blog today :)

Claire is getting so big - it's hard to believe that she's closer to three than two now! This age has been pretty rough for everyone, even Claire. She has all these emotions that she's not quite sure how to handle, so they tend to come out aggressively. That's not to say she's not the best kid in the world, because she is :) There's just a little bit of monster in there, too! It looks to me that she's had some molars cutting in recently, so that is surely part of her foul mood swings lately. It seems that she's just a little person with good days and bad days, just like everyone else LOL!

Claire has had a pretty busy summer, always on the go. She's been to the big fair and a number of small fairs, ridden plenty of new rides, and even had two pony rides. This year she didn't go to the beach or swimming as often as last year, but she did have the special treat of going fishing with Daddy and Grandpa K. Early this summer, I went back to work full-time and she has adjusted to that really well (it's me who has a hard time with it!). She goes to daycare two days a week and loves it there. We were really fortunate to find Lynn, our provider, especially after going through so many in the early summer months. It was hard for Claire with all the changes going on, but now she's back on schedule! She spends every Friday with Grandma K and never wants to come home afterwards :) All of the people in her building just adore Claire and she gets plenty of attention!

Her dialogue is pretty impressive, if I do say so myself... She holds entire conversations and often speaks well above her age range. Chris is often blown away by the things she knows and can explain to you. One of my favorite things that she says is her explanation of why it rains. She says that the clouds suck up water like a sponge and when they get full then it rains. She's a smart little cookie! She always asks what things are and how they work; she just craves knowledge. She's also taken to "reading" us books and singing songs, which is really fun. She can sing Twinkle, Twinkle, Row-Row-Row Your Boat, Mary Had a Little Lamb, You are my Sunshine, the Elmo Song, and Itsy Bitsy Spider without much if any help. Claire loves music and plays as much as she can. It's so funny when she takes out all the pots and pans and arranges them around her in a semi-circle and plays the "drums." She even uses the covers as "cymbals!"

We are working on learning her letters, but that's a long process :) She can count up to 14 unassisted, though she usually skips the number 3 (we don't know why LOL)! Claire really likes to watch "helping" shows like Dora, Diego, or Team Umizoomi, and all of those shows focus on counting and discovering new things. For those of you out of the toddler TV loop, Team Umizoomi is a team of tiny superheroes that solve problems with their "mighty math powers" and the show helps encourage kids in learning mathematics like counting, measuring, shapes and patterns. That's one of her favorites :) We also do a lot of puzzles and she's gotten pretty good at the large piece puzzles. I tried some small pieced ones and those are going to take some more time.

Claire spends a lot of time each day playing creatively and using her imagination. She loves to play pretend with her toys :) Just this morning she had a pile of babies lined up and was feeding them and talking for each of them at a tea party. She's so funny! She gives every toy its own personality and will play with them for hours like that. She also likes to use Playdough and build snowmen, make snakes, and towers. We like to paint and color, but as Claire is generally pretty naughty with markers and paint, we tend to stick to crayons! She's starting to get more into coloring and tries really hard to make each picture pretty :) We're working with her on drawing shapes and people, though they mostly look like squiggly lines and circles LOL... She's a trip!

Chris took Claire to pick out a kitten a few weeks ago and that's made things interesting. She wasn't very nice to the big cat and now she all but terrorizes the kitten... I don't quite understand why she does it, but it's probably just to get a reaction from both Elphie and us as parents. She's getting better about it but I imagine it's going to take more than just the few days we have had little Elphie... The kitten got wise to Claire's tactics, however, and tends to just avoid her. Smart cat LOL... We also tried to have some goldfish in Claire's room but they kept dying, so we've scrapped the idea until we get motivated enough to buy bottled water for the tank. Claire doesn't seem to miss them, so I think we're in clear!

Since we've been back in Wisconsin, Claire has yet to ask about any of those that we left behind in Minnesota, which is both good and a little sad! I really miss our friends up in Wadena and I'd like to go visit, but I'm nervous that Claire might start missing them, too. I know, it's silly! We'll have to start thinking about a trip up there; maybe take the train up for another new adventure :)

For now, that's the update on what Miss Claire has been up to these days! We'll try to do a better job of writing the blog, but life keeps us all pretty busy :)