Brrr!

Today isn't just cold, it's hunker-down-and-don't-even-leave-the-house cold.  Unfortunately for Claire and I, today is a work day.  My pickup was started LONG before we had to leave the house, and Claire was as bundled as she could be and still fit in her car seat.  This morning at 9am (when I took her to day care) the temp was -12, with a wind chill of -39.  And that my friends, is cold!  I hope it is much warmer where ever you are!

Feeling Much Better

Claire's third round of antibiotics finally did the trick and I have my crazy, smiling girl back again!  I think all that down time when she was sick gave her an amazing energy boost.  She seems to be transitioning to one nap, and there are days that one nap is only an hour long.  Most of the time she does ok with this, but sometimes she is CRABBY by dinner time.  Her milk consumption is still way down still too.  I'm not sure if there is still from being a little congested, or if she just doesn't need as much milk with all the food she eats.

We are going to the ENT in a couple of days just to get her checked out, but until then, this is Claire's new favorite face to make.  Part silliness, part smile!

Fighting Germs

For the past couple of weeks Claire has been fighting a battle with germs, and with a score of germs 2, antibiotics 0, the germs have been winning.  Claire has a sinus infection that just won't go away.  We just started round 3 of antibiotics, and she is finally feeling better.  To rule out any weird stuff we are going to the ENT next week.

I'm way behind on blog writing and blog reading, but today I'm glad to have something other than a sick baby to tend to!

The Twins

One of our heifers decided to give Claire an awesome first birthday present.  She's now well on her way to a herd of her own!

ONEderful Updates!

It was just about a month ago that I last posted about Claire's accomplishments, and I already have so many new updates to share for her ONE year birthday.

12 month stats: 17 lbs and 27 inches.  Both right about 50th percentile on her chart.

Teeth:  Holy cow is pretty much what sums up this update.  One month ago Claire's first tooth was just making its appearance, and now I can see SIX teeth. 
1: bottom left center
2: upper left molar
3: upper right molar (this one still isn't all the way in and seems to bother her the most)
4: bottom right center
5: upper right second tooth
6: upper right center (the last 2 were just discovered in the past week (5) and yesterday (6), so they aren't through yet either)

Feeding:  Claire has been completely off purees for about 4 months now.  She just hated them so we moved to table food.  She is a great eater and will try almost anything.  Sweet potato and yogurt top the list of favorites, but I will feed her pretty much anything off our plate, as long as it isn't too spicy.

She self feeds things like puffs very well, but has a little trouble with food if it is much smaller (like corn) or too soft (like sweet potato or green beans), because then it's fun to squish it, rather than eat it.

She has been drinking out of her straw for a little over a month and does well with it.  Except that she gives us a very strange look when we give her milk, instead of the water she is used to, with the straw.  I am planning to start the transition from the bottle to the cup this week.  I still have about 3 months worth of breast milk in the freezer, so we won't transition to cows milk for a while still.

Gross Motor:  We have a crawler!!  A full on hands and knees crawler!  Which means I need to officially baby proof.  Around Christmas, Claire would crawl forward a time or two, then drop to her belly and army crawl/stretch to get what she wanted.  About a week after that she started crawling on hands and knees when she wanted something specific.  In just the last few days she's figured out that she can crawl just to crawl.  She will usually start out with a destination in mind, but I love to see her get distracted and discover new things.  She's also figured out she can crawl after us, and has made it from the living room to the kitchen.

Claire is also pulling to stand from the ground.  She can do it on the ottoman with the lip to hang onto, or in her crib.  She hasn't figured out how to reposition her feet once she pulls up, so she winds up in some pretty precarious positions if you aren't watching closely.  We have another PT session with Pat Winders tomorrow, and I'm excited to have her answer some questions.

Speech and Signing:  Claire does a lot of babbling and is using more and more consonant sounds.  We get a lot of ma, ba, da and la sounds.  She has used dada for Darren a few times when he walks into a room, but it's not consistent yet.  I think she also has her first sign.  We use milk, all done, more, mama, dada and few other with her constantly.  Recently, there have a few times we've asked her if she's all done, and have gotten a very emphatic hand shaking in return!

Fun Stuff:  Claire is the master of peekaboo and patty cake.  If she even hears the words patty cake the clapping starts.  It makes me laugh though, because the won't clap through the whole song.  She seems to stop and wait for help with the 'patting and rolling'.  The 'throw it in the oven' part is a little hit and miss too.  Sometimes she'll do it on her own, and sometimes she won't.  Her ring stacker and toys where she can push the buttons are hits these days too.

The Birthday Cake

was a hit!  You know how some kids won't touch their cake?  That wasn't Claire!  She jumped right in with both hands.  When it was over and done with, I was surprised with how little mess there was...I think more of the cupcake made it IN her rather than ON her.

Claire has a thing for my camera strap, so this blurry, lunging baby is in a lot of my pictures.

We had a little drama near the end of the cupcake experience.  Claire managed to get about half the cupcake in her mouth at once, and she protested once we removed the huge bite...

I'm thinking that the fact it was past her bedtime could have contributed some!