We're still here....

Really it's been forever since I posted. Things are going very well aside from the fact that we are in the terrible twos.
Claire is a happy, energetic, nonstop, independent little girl.
I can't believe that we are on the cusp of her 2nd birthday.

She wants to be so grown up already it seems.  She wants to do everything herself and has a temper to boot.  Really her temper rivals both her Daddy and I.  But we are working on it and usually by days end we are exhausted.

She is growing by leaps and bounds and her speech is really coming along.  It seems like she went to bed one night and we couldn't understand what she was trying to say...then she woke up and we could understand a lot more.  So flippin' cute... this little one...

I've changed jobs and am now working in the PICU. Working 5 days a week(gasp)...was making me feel like I wasn't seeing her a whole lot, then I was tired and I felt like the quality of our interactions wasn't there. Fortunately for me, I was able to change jobs and will be working 3 nights a week(once I'm off orientation)..that way I will be able to be with her every day and will only miss 3 dinners and bedtimes each week vs 5 all days. Jon will be changing his shift to days and now Jon and I will be able to see eachother more now....we'll see how that goes....haha!
With my new schedule I'll be able to keep up with the blog now....and will try..I may even post a second one today....

Conclusion....

So we've come to the conclusion that we suck as parents...
...and Claire must just laugh at us behind our backs...
Claire has been giving us a really hard time lately. Not wanting to sleep, or take a nap, or listen...AT ALL. Stubborn is an understatement. We've tried really hard to be patient and consistent. It just doesn't seem to be working. See that look on her face..we get that often. And we swear that there are times that in her own little toddler babble..she is cursing us.
Fast forward to today. The GI bug has run rampant in our house. We were both exhausted and needed some help. So we asked our Mom to watch Claire today so I could go back to work and Jon could catch up on some sleep.
Well when I got home Claire hadn't had a nap(despite getting up at 0530), yet Jon said he never heard my Mom or Claire all day. Claire was NOT whiney. Went down for a nap with narey a whine and my Mom said she was great all day. This has also happened when Jon's Mom watched her. "oh she was great, never cried, never fussed" We've heard this before. We're not sure what the heck we're doing wrong. She usually wakes up with us, does something wrong and is crying w/in 10 minutes. Seriously. So we've come to the conclusion that we pretty much must suck at being parents.

Our 1st Family Day

Can you believe that it's been a year since our little angel was placed into our arms...gosh the time has flown by. So in honor of our first Family day we headed again to the gulf coast, crystal clear water, sugar sanded beaches and a lazy river at our condo. We had a great time and Claire again was a trooper.






What a difference a year makes. I remember so vividly what it felt like to hold her for the first time. I also remember Jon and I going back to the hotel, looking at our new daughter and saying aloud "Now what?"....Now what, how naive we were. Now what...now we have a running, screaming laughing toddler that has so much energy sometime I wish she had a pause button.... For just ten seconds.... Claire has grown and changed so much this past year. The last couple of months has uncovered a little girl that so much wants to be grown. Her desire to be big has really thrown caution to the wind. She wants to try everything herself, climb all things, jump off any thing and argue in her own little jumble of words and nonwords. She has grown in her affections and has become quite cuddly here of late. She can be sweet and devious in the same minute. Is she starting to sound like someone you know?
Poor Jon doesn't stand a chance with the two of us.....Anyhow....enjoy the pictures....

WE SURVIVED THE FIRST YEAR!!!

A Big Girl bed...already?

Can you believe that this little monkey climbed out of her crib already? At 19 and 3/4 months she scaled that sucker. Jon put her down for a nap(which is not always a desire of Claire's), next thing he knew, he heard drawers being opened and closed..
Darn that kiddo...that meant conversion #1 happened a little earlier then we hoped. AND by the way little Miss Claire just thought it was the neatest thing not to have one whole side of her crib....that is until the lights went out...

The transition from crib to day bed has been okay at best. She was extremely stressed out about it at bedtime, thrashing about and such. It took a little over an hour the first night to get her to bed(which is not like her) . She refused to nap the first week. The problem is that Claire does not like to be rocked to sleep, she just likes to go to bed, no real fuss. She might cry for a few minutes but then goes off to sleep. If we stay in the room she thinks it's playtime, so we kinda have to just put her to bed and walk out. I stuck it out and kept putting her back in her bed. We did end up putting a toddler rail thingy on the bed to give her more security since she's still so young. Then we got a tap light for her room and tried to be consistent. Almost two weeks later she will take a nap and tonight it took her a total of 2 minutes to drift off. Love it. And I love that she can get up by herself go to our room and wake us up with Claire Bear kisses...

Where have we been?

Well....Claire has been catching up on the latest gossip..
Taking the time to help out her Mommy....
Trying on the latest fairy fashions....
Then taking a quick dip in the local pool.....

18 months....

Can you believe that this little angel is already 18 months old...seriously the time is just flying by as if it didn't matter anymore. I wish the wait had gone by this quickly.


At 18 months Claire is a jibbering and jabbering away. Not that we understand what she's trying to say. We understand a word here and there, but it's so cute to listen to her have a conversation with herself and laugh at what she's saying. She's 24 1/2 pounds and has grown 3 inches since her 1st birthday. She's in the 75th percentile....
I just can't believe how much she's grown..she runs around like an energizer bunny, doing exactly what she's not supposed to do. I'm so exhausted and deliriously happy at the same time it's dizzying. She's continuing with her post bath/milk snuggle which is really nice b/c Jon's not up yet, so we're not competing for her.
She's learned a few signs and will use them at times. I haven't been able to get her to learn any signs that are very helpful though.
She has this horrendous habit of putting her hand down her diaper. We tried ignoring it, so as not to "create" a reaction that she looks for...that didn't work. So we tried to reprimand her and tell her not to do it..that just made her do it more....we tried to ignore it again...until the other day when hand went down the diaper and came up with poop on it.....
Not cute!
So we thought that yes it's early, but maybe she's not too comfortable with stool in the diaper...so we bought a potty. The kind you put on the toilet. So we came home, propped her up on her new Dora toilet seat, gave her a magazine and sat on the floor in front of her. She sat there for a bit having fun...we were talking and laughing...then she did it. She pooped on the potty!! Yay!! We are under no delusion that this will happen again anytime soon. We're not going to push it, but we are randomly putting her on the Dora seat.
I can't believe she's talking, running, throwing tantrums, learning new skills, and pooping on a toilet...wasn't it just last week that I was waiting for that call!!??

The beach is officially open!!!

The weather is warm, the sun is out and that can only mean one thing for this family....It's beach weather. Okay so I know we've already been to the beach this season, but the beach is "officially" open. And the water wasn't too bad. Actually a lot warmer then I thought it would be. Not that Claire cared. Once her feet hit the sand, she ran to the water. Yup that's my girl...teeth chattering, but she didn't care....It's beach time!!