A Little Cow Girl

Last year's Halloween was spent visiting Claire in the hospital and wishing she could come home with us. (check out our little pumpkin last year) THIS year we got to go trick-or-treating! Well, kind of. I took Claire to the Mall of America to visit the ladies from my work and we spent some time walking around looking at all the other kids and cute costumes. We didn't actually get any candy because Claire's too little to have any and I certainly don't want it sitting around here tempting me. But it is amazing at how many parents were there with itty-bitty babies and still walking around collecting candy. We also trick-or-treated at the neighbors. Again no candy, I just wanted to show off my cute little cow! (What?! No sweets on Halloween?! Ok, ok, I did give Claire a couple nibbles off of a ghost cookie that my mom made)

The cutest cow you ever did see!

My boss Sue, with the little cow who decided jewelry boxes look like treats.

The cheesy smile!

I asked her to give the pumpkin a hug. I guess she decided that it also needed a kiss!

Weaning

We've hit the 12 month mark when babies can now drink cow's milk. And I have been asked several times in the last few weeks when I am going to wean Claire. Seems like there is a lot of women who are almost made to feel ashamed to be still nursing their one+ year olds. I actually get a little bit of this feeling from some playgroup moms. When in fact, it should be the other way around.

I guess pre-baby I had sort of given myself the deadline or goal of 12 months of breastfeeding, because that was what was recommended to do to give her the best possible start, and I would quit at 12 months because I could then start her on milk and avoid all the expensive formula. But breastfeeding has become more than just giving her good nutrition and more than just saving money by not buying formula. I know I've written about it before (here), but it is such a wonderful bonding experience. Maybe even more so now, than ever before. Claire is a busy girl...always off exploring and playing and doesn't want to stop what she's doing for a hug or cuddle. Nursing is our special time to cuddle and some days it's really the only time that I get to hold her close. I'm not ready to give that up. And why should I? In many other countries, mothers continue to breastfeed for many years. In fact the average worldwide is 4 years. No, I don't plan to continue until she's 4, that's pretty unaccepted here in the U.S. But breast milk doesn't "go bad" at a year, it continues to provide her with all the same benefits, nutrition and antibodies to help her fight off illnesses. (101 reasons) Cold and flu season is just starting, why wouldn't I want to continue to give her those extra antibodies? The last few weeks I have entertained the idea of giving her milk a couple of times a day and reducing the times I nurse her, but I just haven't felt the desire to that yet. I know that when I finally do decide to take that step to wean her, it will be an emotional time, it's sort of ending that last link to babyhood and admitting that she's growing up and doesn't need me in the same way anymore.

So back to the original question, when am I going to wean Claire? All I can say is...not yet.

Happy Halloween!

Aunt Kristin

With company visiting and party preparations, we forgot to post a birthday message on Saturday.

Happy Belated Birthday to my Aunt and Godmother, Kristin.

Maybe we can have a joint birthday party some year!

Love, Claire

12 month Well-Child

Claire had her 12 month checkup today. Despite all the cake she ate yesterday, (and how huge her appetite is on a normal day) she only weighs 20 pounds (35-40th percentile.) And despite how everyone keeps telling me how short she looks, she is in the 70th percentile for height at 29.5 inches. She's healthy as can be and her doctor was surprised at how "advanced" she is (his word, not mine) in reference to developmental charts. Poor Claire had to get 4 shots this time. I recently have been doing a lot of reading about all the issues surrounding immunizations, but we decided to go ahead with all the shots since she hasn't had a reaction thus far, but it does still makes me a little sick to my stomach thinking about all the possibilities that go along with vaccines. Of course she screamed bloody murder during and after the shots. But I think maybe it made her feel better to watch both mom and dad also get shots after her(flu shots.) Next well-child visit is 15 months.

Party Time!!

Claire's birthday party was a success! Lots of guests, lots of gifts, lots of orange frosting on Claire's face! We did an autumn/pumpkin theme with orange and brown decorations and lots of pumpkins. We first watched a DVD that I had put together of Claire's first year with pictures and video clips. I had a couple of little games-- guess how many cheerios in the jar, and I also had baby pictures from family members to try to figure out who they were. Then we opened presents. Claire got lots of marvelous toys, books, clothes, and savings bonds (she's a lucky and rich girl!) Then we had cake. I made a sort of 3-D pumpkin cake with orange frosting and another little one for Claire to have all to herself. And of course, she loved it! Overall I think everything went well and after the initial few minutes where she was a little overwhelmed with all the people, she was fine and had a good time. Unfortunately I was busy the whole time and wasn't behind the camera like usual, and the only pictures that ended up on my camera were of the gift opening. Those of you out there with some birthday pics, PLEASE, PLEASE share them with me!! So, hopefully I'll have more pictures to post later. Thanks to everyone for coming and for the wonderful gifts!

Before

After! Look at all her loot!

Claire's big day in pictures

In the morning we watched our celebrity baby on TV--our local morning TV show does a little spot on first birthdays. ( Check out her picture on their website. )

The Birthday girl trying out the birthday hat that I made for her.

After her morning nap, we surprised her with balloons, including a huge butterfly balloon that matches her bedroom.

She loves balloons!

We took her out to eat for lunch and ordered a kids meal for her for the first time (grilled cheese!) She ate the entire meal! When the server brought her a birthday balloon, she wouldn't let go of it. She held it with one hand and finished eating with her other hand.

After lunch, we went to the zoo. Lucky for us, we were right on time for feeding time at our beloved Coral Reef Aquarium. It was slow going through the zoo because the birthday girl insisted on walking the whole time instead of riding in the stroller. It was a very quiet day at the zoo, we practically had the whole place to ourselves.

In the evening, Grandma and Grandpa K. came over for dinner. Claire got to open some presents. She kind of figured out the ripping the paper, it was just one little strip at a time. Some of her favorite things she got...set of play car keys, big set of Disney character stuffed animals (she'll have to love Disney just like her mommy!) and a wooden animal puzzle. She had 2 favorite puzzle pieces that she carried around with her the rest of the night. Led to a few tears when we finally had to pry them out of her hands for bedtime.

I often got pumpkin pie instead of (or in addition to) birthday cake for my birthday, so I thought that would be a good idea for her birthday too since she also seems to love pumpkin. (She will get cake at her party this weekend) Here's Grandpa trying to show her how to blow out her candle.

Grandpa added a little whipped cream to her pie, which she loved! It took a while to even get through the whipped cream down to the pie.

She ate practically the entire piece of pie! And loved every bite of it!

I think she had a pretty good first birthday! And there's more fun to come at her party on Sunday afternoon!

First Birthday

WOW. I'm sitting here thinking back and realizing that right before my eyes my baby has gone from a 6 lb, 15 oz helpless swaddled bundle--to a feisty, independent and fun one year-old toddler.

Oh my gosh!! Wasn't I just in labor?? It's amazing how vivid my memories of being pregnant, being in the hospital and delivering Claire are -- it really does feel like just a week ago. But it's been a whole year and without question...the best year of my life. And despite how having a baby has completely turned our lives upside down, I can't imagine a second without her. What a year it's been.

Happy 1st Birthday Claire! I love you more than words can express!

The day before...

Some pregnancy books say that the mom-to-be often gets a burst of energy in the few days before the baby comes. Did any of you moms get this? I sure did. One year ago today I woke up with more energy than I'd had in weeks and put it to good use. I spent the day running all over town with errands and getting completely caught up on all my orders for work. This day was preceded by a few weeks of serious "nesting," where I had the intense urge to deep clean the entire house and re-organize all the drawers, cupboards, and closets. This evening, one year ago, after a very busy day, Nate suggested watching a movie and relaxing. I remember telling him that I had this weird feeling (intuition?) and thought we should do a quick straightening of the house and then just go to bed early. It wasn't a physical feeling, and it wasn't a "I think I'm going to have a baby tomorrow" feeling, just this kind of anxiousness. Nate laughed at my "feeling," but humored me none-the-less and we spent the last hour before bed straightening up. (and some 6 hours later, my water broke!)

One year ago today, I had never met Claire. I only knew her by her twists and turns, kicks and punches, and nightly hiccups. I had no idea how beautiful she was going to be or how sweet and adorable. And yet, I loved her. It's amazing how much you can love someone that you've never seen and know nothing about. I guess that's just part of the miracle.

Party Planning

I apologize, I have no pictures. Having some issues with the camera/computer connection. Anyway we've been busy getting ready for Claire's birthday and party. Since I had been planning on Nate being home this week and now he's not, I'm kind of on my own for birthday preparations. A good thing with this age is that I can take Claire with me to buy her birthday gifts and it's not like I have to worry about ruining the surprise. In fact, not only did she come shopping with me for her gifts, she also helped me wrap them! (and by help I mean rip the paper and play with the tape) Even as I'm busy planning her FIRST birthday, I'm still in shock that she is already turning ONE!

Random stories

Claire both amazes and amuses me on a daily basis. For example, last night I had some laundry gathered up in the basket and Claire came over and pulled out a couple socks. I told her that the socks needed to go in the basket. At which point, she sat down and pulled her own socks off her feet and put them in the basket! Her comprehension amazes me! On to the amusing part...ever since she was itty-bitty a sure fire way to get her to laugh is to ask her if her feet are stinky, then sniff them and make the wrinkled nose "sticky face." Anyway, so I grabbed her socks that she had just pulled off and I asked if they were stinky since they came off her stinky feet. I sniffed the socks and made the "stinky face." I handed the socks back to her and asked her if she thought they were stinky. She held them up to her nose for a couple seconds, then did the "stinky face!" The rest of the evening, every time she grabbed a new toy or something I would ask her if it was stinky, and she would hold it up to her nose for a few seconds and then make the "stinky face." The girl CRACKS ME UP! I was telling Nate about it this morning, and so he asked her if her lion (that she was playing with at the time) was stinky. She held it up to her nose for a few seconds, but then she just smiled with no stinky face. I guess all the stink from yesterday must have gone away. She's just too cute!

Claire calls our cats by their names, "Rah" and "Ex", Rylie and Rex, or just "ditty"(kitty), but lately she also sometimes calls them "Bah." She started doing this several weeks ago, and I remember telling Nate that is sounded like she was trying to say Bad. Then I became aware of how often a day I yell "Bad Kitty"at one or both of the cats. And I noticed that she only calls them "Bah" instead of their names, when they jump up on the counter or do other things their not supposed to be doing. Again, amazing (and amusing!)

Nate was supposed to be on vacation this week and found out the day before his vacation was to start, that the company was short-handed and canceled everyone's vacation for the rest of the year. Needless to say, we weren't really happy about that. To make matters worse, Claire has been having pretty strong separation anxiety issues lately when one of us leaves the room even for a couple seconds. Well this morning she was having fun playing with daddy but then he had to get ready to leave for work, and she started crying when he left the room to pack his suitcase and started screaming even more when he went outside to take his bag to the car. I know it's hard for him to leave for work on any given day, but to have to leave when he should have been on vacation, and to have Claire in hysterics about him leaving, must have been awful. But he will be back for her birthday.

Miss Firefighter

This was the very first outfit we bought for Claire when I was pregnant, even before we knew she was a girl. Nate didn't care that it was such a large size, it had a dalmatian on it so he had to have it. And now that it finally fits her, I think she looks pretty cute (even if it's more of a boy outfit.)

The countdown begins...one week until Claire's birthday!!

Crazy Bath Hair

She really does have hair. Sometimes it's hard to tell if she has hair from the pictures if you haven't seen her in person in a while. It's pretty fine and has a little bit of curl in the back. It's a dark honey blondish color...definitely darker than Nathan's hair as a baby and even darker than mine was too.

She thought the camera should take swim with her.

This is a nice action shot of her splashing!

Here she's playing rock, paper, scissors with her rubber duck! An easy way to win is to do a different sign with each hand!

Birthday Time!

(Claire...4 weeks old)

Happy Birthday Great-Grandma "Gramsy"!

Can't wait to see you on my birthday! Love, Claire

(yep, that's me...4 months old)

Happy Birthday Grandma!! I love you! Love, Nikki

Stop and Smell the Roses

This is a rose that Nate gave me on our anniversary. I can't believe how big it's gotten, it's almost as big as Claire's head! Although now that I let her play with it, it's missing a few leaves, half it's stem, and a bunch of petals.

If you're happy and you know it...

Clap your hands!

Ask Claire to clap, she will clap. Ask her to play patty-cake, she will clap. Give her any words of praise (like "Good job!" or just "Yay!"), she will clap. If you clap your own hands, she will clap. When you say "The end" after reading a good book, she will clap. Ask her if her dinner(lunch, breakfast) is good, she will clap. She is crazy for clapping!

In music class with each 2-3 minute song we do a new activity or play a different instrument. As soon as the music ends after the song, she will clap. Her teacher Jennifer has since learned about Claire's enthusiasm for clapping and while the other kids will get words of encouragement or praise from Jennifer during a song, Claire gets ignored. This came after many "Good job Claire" while Claire was hitting her rhythm sticks, or shaking her maracas and it would result in Claire having to throw them down on the ground so she could clap for herself. Claire now only gets her praise after the song is over as not to disrupt her instrument playing. Of course all the other kids in class also know how to clap, but they are just a little more reserved in their applause giving than Claire. Here she is walking across the floor applauding herself because I told her she was doing such a great job walking.

Walking through the leaves

We enjoyed a beautiful fall day outside today. Claire is loving all the leaves that are everywhere. And after a walking hiatus the past two weeks, where she really wasn't interested in walking at all, she's finally back at it. In fact today she insisted on walking part way on our walk, rather than ride in the stroller. She's pretty much been toddling all over the house the last few days. She kinda reminds us of Godzilla with her stiff-legged, back and forth gate. But it's pretty darn cute and she's getting really good at it.

Five years ago...

I married my best friend. It's been an incredible 5 years full of travel, adventure and starting our own family. I couldn't ask for a better partner through this journey of life. I'm thankful for him everyday and I can't wait to find out what the next few years and even decades have in store for us.

I Love You Nathan....Happy Anniversary!

Little Miss Cruella DeVil

A Running Fool

Nathan completed his 3rd marathon yesterday at the Twin Cities Marathon. He said it was pretty miserable because of the heat, but he still finished and we are so proud of him! According to the newspaper this morning this was the warmest marathon day in the race's 26 years. It was 74 degrees with 87 percent humidity when the race started at 8AM and the temp got up to 84 degrees by late morning! At one point they were even considering calling it off. (the Chicago Marathon, also yesterday, was called off 3 hours into it because of heat) After the marathon Nate suggested that since next year's race is going to be on (or very near) our wedding anniversary that we should run it together! Ha!! I guess his exhaustion didn't take away his sense of humor!

Friends at last

After seeing him 7 days in a row, Claire finally got used to Mike. On that last night, I might even say they became friends. I think what did it was when he gave her his cell phone to play with. The girl loves cell phones! But Mike and Katie are headed back to NY, and we will probably be back to square one when we see them next, which probably won't be for a couple of months. And next time we see them they will have a little one of their own!

Pumpkin Party

Having people around this week to entertain Claire gave me a little bit of free time. I got Claire's birthday party invitations made (a week ahead of schedule!) They are all a little different as I just used scrap pieces of paper. I decided to skip the cartoon characters and themes like that for when she's older and will want to pick her own party theme. I love pumpkins and since the first birthday party seems to be more for the parents anyway, we decided on a kind of pumpkin patch theme. The invites were really simple and I think they turned out pretty cute.

Friend or Foe?

We have company this week--one of Claire's favorite people and one of her least favorite people. Our friends Mike and Katie are staying with us this week. Claire loves Katie and always has, but not quite the same story with Mike. A lot of you have heard about our ongoing struggles with Mike over the last few months, but for those of you who don't know...well, Claire is completely terrified of him! It started right around 6-7 months old when her stranger anxiety started kicking in, except he's not a stranger. We have always spent quite a bit of time with them, but Claire just doesn't get over being scared of him. And it's not just a little scared face, it's full-blown screaming with tears pouring down her cheeks! It's almost like looking at him causes her physical pain. We've tried every trick in the book to get her over this, but nothing seems to work. It's just crazy. And this happens every time she sees him. She's gotten scared of other people before, but not to this extent and not with someone she sees regularly. So needless to say, it's been interesting having them here this week. Well at least Claire's having a blast spending time with Katie. I'm hoping having Mike staying in our house will lead to some sort of progress with Claire. We'll have to wait and see.

Lil' Pumpkin