14 months

14 month cutie!

This month much is the same as the last month.  Feeding and sleeping habits are still the same.  Here are some of the newest developments:

End of the car misery?
I noticed after we returned from our trip to Sedona that Claire was doing better in the car.  And I was hoping that maybe we'd just gotten through a bad phase of being unhappy in the car and things would be much better.  Alas, that is not the case.  Things are better, but she can still get quite unhappy at times.  At least it's not all the time anymore I guess.

Teeth!
6 bottom teeth and 2 top teeth are completely through.  Another big top one is coming through on her left side.  The ones on top that should be next to her 2 front teeth haven't made an appearance.  So I guess we're doing things a little different than the normal order.  (According to Aunt Jamie, who is staying with us while she does a pediatric rotation in her physical assistant training)

New cousin!
My brother and SIL had their baby girl on April 28th.  So Claire has a new little cousin.  She's not very impressed.  And very jealous when mommy or daddy hold baby Audrey.

I'm not so sure about this!

Pointing!
Finally the child has learned to point!  I read somewhere that this is typically mastered around 9 months.  So we're only 5 months behind schedule.  Ha!

Talking on the phone-
This is hilarious!  Claire has begun pretending to talk on the phone.  She'll take a phone, smartphone, or even a credit card, hold it up to her ear and babble away.  

Hair!
Claire finally has just enough hair to clip a bow into.  She won't leave it there very long though.

First bow!

Forget the bow!  I want to go outside!

Tub time
We got through the weird bath issues she developed last month.  She was resisting baths anywhere besides our house.  And sometimes she was a little hesitant at home too.  Jeff found out that she did better if you put her in the tub first and then started the water.  We forgot our little tub at Grammi's house so Claire had her first bath in the big girl tub this month. We've since go back to the little tub she since she likes to stand up and run around in the big tub.

And finally a few extra pictures from this month

En garde!  I will get you with my carrot sword!

Stylin' in my Sperry shoes like Aunt Jamie

Easter 2012

Easter was a multi-day affair around these parts.

First we had the neighborhood Easter egg hunt on March 24th.  My mom came up the night before so Jeff and I could go out and celebrate his birthday.  We decided to see Hunger Games.  Saturday, Jeff slept in while Grammi and I took Claire to the egg hunt.  For the littlest kids, they just dumped eggs on the field.  Claire's first instincts were to pick up one egg and hold on to it.  Or to take out the eggs that we put in the basket.  But after a little demonstration, she really got the idea!

Easter bunny

I'll get your nose!

Waiting with Grammi

Claire, you put them in, not take them out!

I got this!

Outta my way!

Riding the train

Petting zoo

Whoa!

Claire is unsure

Bunnies seem safer

Showing her how to be gentle

Ooh soft!

My mom made me do it!

Easter weekend itself (Apr 6-8) was very busy.  On Friday we went up to the cabin in Ellijay.  We helped my parents and my dad's cousin Danie plant over a hundred plants.

Saturday morning we left Ellijay and headed 2 hours east for another mountain cabin near Helen, GA.  Jeff's Aunt Candy and Uncle Joe were in town from Chicago and renting the cabin for their family.  So we headed over for a day with all the Schulze family members.  Good food, good company, and a little Easter egg hunt for the girls (Claire and her cousins) made for a great day.  We headed back home that night.

Food prep

The C-K's: Claire, Kiersten, Candy, and Kerrington

The gang

Egg hunt

An egg in the trailer hitch?  Silly Easter bunny!

Look what I got!

Claire and Aunt Karen

Sunday morning Claire got her Easter basket, we went to church, and then headed to LeeAnn's house for brunch.  We hung out there for a while til Claire's naptime.  We loaded her in the car for the ride back up to Ellijay for Easter dinner with my family.  We spent the night and headed back home on Monday.

An Easter basket for me?

Hmm, let's see....

Yay Easter!

Lots of driving with a kid who wasn't doing well in the car.  Crazy!  But it was worth it.  We got a good amount of time with both sides of the family and make it truly a weekend of celebration.

13 months

Finally starting to get used to saying I have a 1 year old!

13 months old: March 24th-April 24th

Feeding: We settled into an eating schedule.  Three meals a day, an afternoon snack, and 3 cups of milk.  For breakfast she usually gets half a container of baby yogurt, some fruit and some sort of grain like Cheerios, mini waffles, pancakes, or oatmeal.   She gets milk when she gets up in the morning, before her nap and before bed.

Sleeping: Staying the course here - awake between 7 and 8, nap around 1:30 for an hour or 2, then bedtime at 8.  She sleeps through the night unless teeth are bothering her.  Which happened a lot.  Her left bicuspid caused a lot of distress as it inched it's way through.  Another bottom tooth also came through.  The right bicuspid also started peeking through.

Language: She doesn't say much of the words you might expect--mama, dada, and hi are pretty infrequent. Uh oh, thank you (dah doo), and all done are popular. She started saying night night (nah nah). 

She is starting to do rudimentary motions to multiple songs.  In addition to Itsy Bitsy Spider we now have Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and Pat a Cake.  For Twinkle Twinkle she holds her hands up and opens and closes them.  This is an imitation of what we do at Gymboree,  She also says something that approximates twinkle, some sort of 2 syllable utterance (weeg ul?).  For pat-a-cake, she rolls her hand and some says roll (wo).  She learned that while Jeff and I were on an anniversary trip in Sedona. 

It was also really interesting to see her development with animal sounds.  Before we left for our trip she would imitate moo (boo), meow (bwow), and ruff ruff.  I'd say "What does the cay say?  Meow!" and she'd imitate me.  When we got back she started doing them in response to the question.  Such as "Claire, what does the cow say?" and she would say "booo!"

And the other big issue we were dealing with was misery in the car.  More than 5-10 minutes and she'd be whining and crying.  One time she worked herself up so much on the ride home, it took 15 minutes and a cup of milk to calm her down once we got home.  Food helped keep her happy so she got lots of snack in the car.  Cranking some toddler tunes also helped a little bit.   Having someone sit back with her helped too.