Classes

We are keeping busy with classes this winter. Claire is currently taking two different music classes, an early childhood class, and an art class. Starting next month she'll also be adding a dance class, and a once a month animal workshop at the zoo.

Today was her first day of art. This class is right up my alley. Every class the kids learn about a different artist and then make several art projects inspired by that artist's style. Today was Picasso. This is Claire's rendition of Picasso's "Hand with Flowers."
She was talking all about Picasso when we got home, so I took the opportunity to pull out some of my art books to look through. She was very interested and kept asking, "Who made that?" She already has her opinions on art, as she was also commenting "That's beautiful!" or "I don't like that one." A trip to the MIA just might be in store for her soon.

17 weeks

I had an OB check-up this morning. Nothing too exciting to report. All is well. Despite the fact that I feel like I haven't gotten very big yet, my uterus is measuring right where it should be for 17 weeks. I've been feeling the little one wiggling around all the time now. They're still pretty soft movements, but I'm sure the karate punches and kicks will be coming soon enough. My energy level is generally good, but I'm still pretty exhausted by the end of the day. I still get the nausea pretty strong in the mornings, but as long as I eat every 2-3 hours it stays under control during the day. If I get busy and forget to snack, it does hit me full force. I'm still wearing my regular clothes, but I can definitely feel the hard lump in my belly, especially when I bend over.

My mom was able to come with me to one of my Dr. visits when I was pregnant with Claire, and I remembered how much she loved being able to hear the heartbeat. So here's baby #2's heartbeat at 17 weeks. For those of you who think it means something, it was 150 bpm - same as last time.

Next visit to the clinic is in just 2 weeks for the big ultrasound!

Chatty

Claire is a chatterbox, a blabbermouth, a jabberer. She talks all. the. time. From the moment her eyes pop open in the morning until she chats herself to sleep at night. It's non-stop. She doesn't have that little filter in her brain yet that keeps the thoughts in her head. Everything she's thinking comes running out. Therefore her conversations can be so random. She'll be talking about something she's doing right now, and then suddenly be talking about something she did 6 months ago. Sometimes it's hard to keep up.

She's also incredibly inquisitive. Which I know is a good thing, but sometimes it tests my patience. If we're in unfamiliar territory, or pretty much anywhere other than home, it's constant questions. From needing to know what every song is called on the radio in the car, to asking what every person's name is that we walk by in the store. She questions everything she doesn't know. And things that she already knows, she needs to know more about. For example, she knows it's a bird, but she wants to know what kind of bird.

I've given up watching cartoons with her. She's on her own. If I do, it's constant "What's that?" "What's this called?" "What's his name?" "What's he doing?" "What's going to happen next?" etc., etc. She never really watches the show because she's too busy asking questions.

And don't even think about ignoring her constant chattering. She will start with a "Are you listening to me?" or a "Can't you hear me?" and will change to the more demanding "Hey, listen to me!"

I know it's a good thing that she likes to talk so much, she speaks really well and has a great vocabulary for her age. But man, what I wouldn't give for a little quiet around here sometimes. Nate suggested earplugs. :)

Little Artist

We finally decided to try out one of Claire's Christmas presents, the easel and paint set. I originally wasn't quite sure what to do with it as it's a little too big for her. Standing on the floor she can only reach the bottom few inches of the easel. Today I pulled up the plastic picnic bench for her to stand on and she became the perfect height. How fun! She uses a similar paint set in her early childhood class, but they only give the kids one color. I was getting pretty bored with all these single color paintings they kept sending home with her. I decided to live on the wild side and let her have all the colors. And she was perfect about keeping the paint brush in the matching paint jar. I think Grandma K. gets Claire's first masterpiece!

Great way to end the day

I thought I would share one of our bedtime rituals with you because it's so sweet. It's a great way to end the day! What made it even sweeter tonight, was the fact that she was in bed and asleep before 9:00! She's been on this 10:00 bedtime ever since we got back from SD, and I've been desperately trying to get her to bed earlier.

(Sorry for the color, but I was putting her to bed so the lights were dimmed. As for the fingers in her ears--she must have had water in her ears from the bath she had just taken.)

Movement

As I was sitting down to rest after a busy morning, I felt that wonderful little twitch in my lower tummy. There is no doubt what that feeling was. Even though it's been almost 3 years since I first felt that little twitch with Claire, it still seems so familiar. My baby's wiggling around!

Picture Perfect

When we got home from church this morning, Claire out of the blue said "Mommy, take my picture please." So I did.

A little bit of silliness

For many months anything that had a scent, good or bad, was "stinky." Claire has now expanded on that. Now if something has an unpleasant smell - "Smells like poop." Anything that has a pleasant smell - "Smells like chocolate."

She has been in this phase for the last few weeks of re-naming people. I have been Lulee, Sally, Susie, Claire, Nathan, and the one that lasted the longest...Wendy. I was Wendy for almost 2 weeks. She often goes by Nathan, Betsy, Sally, and lately Drinker. (Ask her why she's Drinker and she'll tell you it's because she drinks pool water! Crazy kid.) And she will get upset if you don't play along with her little game.

Memory

Claire's memory has always been amazing. One way this becomes especially apparent to us is regarding books. Even before she was walking, she knew the name of a lot of her favorite books and would grab which ever one you asked for. Then it moved on to knowing the names of all of her books, then to being able to finish the sentences in the stories while we were reading them, then to randomly quoting from books at anytime. And let me explain that this kid is not lacking of books. The other day I counted close to 200 books in her bedroom alone. She also has a large basket of books in the living room and another bookshelf in the playroom. While some of these are the short board books, she has moved on and much prefers longer story books, so that's what we have the most of. You can grab anyone of these books and she will tell you the title, the names of the characters and a rundown of the plot and possibly even direct quotes from that book. The other morning Nate and I decided to play a little game with her. We randomly pulled a book (and didn't let her see it), opened it up to any page and read a sentence. Then asked her what book it was from. One after another, after another, she got right. They could be the simplest sentences without any mention of characters and she'd still know which book it came from. We were kind of laughing at first, but then it was like whoa, this is almost scary. She seems to be able to do this with almost any of the 200+ books that she has.

And her memory for places she's been or things she done, well that could be a whole other post. She remembers, to the tiniest detail, things from well over 6, even 8 months ago.

And it's because of this memory that she has always been able to learn things so easily and quickly. Just makes me wonder, what should I teach her next?

Everyday Moments

You may have noticed my title change. I originally wanted to go with something catchy or clever (and thanks for all your ideas!) for a title. But as I was scrapbooking today and feeling quite sentimental, I came across this quote and just fell in love with it. It may not say anything about being a mom or having 2 kids, but I think it's a perfect fit for me and for this blog.
(And for the time being, I'm keeping the blog site address the same so there is no confusion...and after all it still is Claire's family.)

Claire and Baby

People have asked me how Claire handled Mommy being sick for so long. Well, she was wonderful. I honestly couldn't ask for a better behaved two year old. She's always been a good kid, she knows the boundaries, knows what she can and cannot play with. I was able to spend many days (weeks!) zoned out on the couch and she would contently play by herself. Even if she wasn't in the same room as me I knew she wasn't getting into trouble. I actually only fell asleep on her once, and the worst that she could come up with to do while I was sleeping was to cover me in ladybug stickers! I have felt like a total slacker mom, but I hope to get back in the groove now that things are starting to look up for me.

Although I know she doesn't fully understand what it means, she knows there's a baby in Mommy's tummy. She's taken to pulling up my shirt and saying "Hi baby! I'm your big sister Claire!" (And apparently my belly button is a direct line to the baby, as she always speaks directly into my belly button!) She's also convinced that it's a baby girl. When I try to tell her that it might be a baby boy, she just says matter of factly, "No, it's a baby girl." (About 5 more weeks and we'll find out if she's right!) She seems very excited about the new baby, but I know the reality won't set in (for any of us!) until we actually bring the baby home.

14 weeks

Things are starting to look up. I feel like the fog of fatigue is finally lifting. I'm not napping nearly as often and actually have enough energy to get a few things done during the day. I'm grateful for this because my house really needs some help. While the nausea is still pretty constant, it's not as strong. And the best yet...I haven't thrown up in almost 2 weeks! (Ok, that's not entirely true, as I ruined my streak this morning because I was running late for my early morning appointment and didn't have time for a proper breakfast, but let's not count that.) I can eat anything (almost) without fear of it coming back up. You have no idea how nice that is. I can deal with the nausea as long as I'm able to eat. Although I have yet to gain any weight, baby seems to be growing, or at least my belly is. I'm still comfortable in my jeans, but I'm on the last notch in my belt. I'm hoping for at least another month before I have to switch to the dreaded maternity pants.

I had my second appointment this morning. Everything is going well. My blood pressure is good, my weight gain is non-existent but that will be sure to change now that I'm feeling better. Baby's heartbeat was fast and strong. We talked about labor and delivery and the doctor said more often than not, history repeats itself. Meaning he's predicting that my water will break without contractions and they will have to induce again. Which I'm not happy about, but on the positive side since Claire came 10 days early he's predicting this baby will also come a little early.

First Haircut

Claire's hair had grown so long in the back. It's very thin and because it's still coming in, it was all different lengths. Straight from washing it looked good, but the next day it started to look pretty straggly. Nate had been subtly dropping hints that she needed a haircut. I was not having it. I wanted her hair long. But finally after a couple weeks of thinking about it, I finally realized he was right. Her hair just didn't look good unless it was in a ponytail or pigtails. So tonight I broke down and cut her hair. (I was not about to pay salon prices for the amount of hair she has.) I strapped her into her booster seat so she couldn't run away, turned on the TV and gave her candy and we were all set to go. It was painless for both of us.

Before wet

After wet
Before dry

After dry

On my gosh, it looks so much better! It actually has body and without that extra length, there's more curls. I won't be able to do ponytails for awhile, but I think I'll still be able to manage small pigtails. I also trimmed her bangs. I didn't get a before picture, but if you've ever spent anytime with her, you know her hair was always in her eyes. It isn't a dramatic difference in front, but it will help keep the hair out of her eyes.

Blog Title

I'm going to be needing a new title for my blog one of these days, because unfortunately for Claire, life won't be all about her anymore...any suggestions?

The last 12 days...

We just got back tonight and are ready to get back into our routine here at home. Here are some moments from our holidays that I haven't blogged about yet.

-Claire loved Christmas Eve candlelight service at church. Except Miss Fire Safety felt she needed to blow out everyone's candles as soon as they got lit. It was just her and I, so I had my hands full trying to keep her away from everyone's candles, while trying to hold on to mine.

-Claire was so excited to see that Santa had come and filled up her stocking on Christmas Day. She absolutely loved the Tinkerbell doll he gave her and even said "Santa did good!" The rest of the gift opening was done one-handed as she wouldn't dare put Tinkerbell down.

-Nate was able to come home for part of the day on Christmas, and we were also joined by his family at our house for dinner. Per Claire's request we had a birthday cake for Jesus and sang Happy Birthday to Him. (on a side note, Claire asked for chocolate cake and it didn't occur to me until the next day that I made Devil's Food cake...maybe not entirely appropriate for Jesus' birthday cake!)

-We had a couple of long road trips out to South Dakota and back. We broke both trips in half and spent the night in hotels. Claire and Daddy got some great swimming pool time.

-While on the road, we were entertained by Claire's imagination and her crazy stories. She is a non-stop talker and it's so fun to hear what she comes up with. At one point, we had quite a discussion about the Beatles and who our favorite Beatle is. Claire decided Paul was her favorite because "He's beautiful."

-We got lots more Christmas presents out in SD and Claire was excited to see that Santa had also visited and filled her stocking at Grandma and Grandpa's house. We got to see lots of family and Claire got to play with her cousins. She also seems to have developed a new favorite relative, her Aunt Calista.

-Nate and I got some good 'just the two of us' time. Gosh, it would be nice to have such convenient babysitters all the time. We even managed a double-date with my brother and sister-in-law without any kids.

This is what happened one of the nights Nate and I went out. Claire apparently had a pretty good time helping Grandma and Great-Grandma make cookies (or just play in the flour!)