Growing a Little Schulze

Our happy, smiley girl is 7 months old! (Feb 26th- March 25th)

She continues with the rapid motor development! She started pulling to stand around March 12th or 13th. She loves to stand at the activity cube or at the little piano type toy we have. On March 15th she let go of the activity cube and stood on her own for a few seconds. Whoa! Fortunately she hasn't done it much since. She also developed the hand shaking/waving type movement that allows her to shake a rattle or wave hello. She loves "waving" but it isn't really done with much intention yet. Since she likes to hold her hand up, we give her little high fives. She loves that too and gives us a big grin! She got to sit in a shopping cart for the first time too!

She had her first stomach bug on March 10th. She threw up 3 times over the course of an afternoon and couldn't keep anything down for a while. Poor second child, she has her first stomach bug at 7 months and Claire is 3 before her first. Ellie also had another bad cold this month.

Ellie's first tooth popped through this month! I felt a little corner of her tooth on her bottom left on March 20th. We had a rough few nights before hand thanks to the teething pain.

And finally, she had her first long separation from Mommy when I went to Boston for 5 days to be with my friend Sally and her new baby. Ellie was with Grandma for two and with Daddy for a few. She did great!

Passed out

Crawling into small spaces is fun!

See?

Pulling up on the gate

Her favorite place to stand at the beginning

Getting ready for bed....

....and she's out!

Hi!!!!!

Hi Mama! Whatcha eating??

Another favorite standing spot

First time sitting in a grocery cart (with mommy present at least)

Ellie hamming it up, oblivious to the hat Claire put on her

October 2013-February 2013
Wow! Claire really grew up these last few months of being 2. Definitely a full-fledged little girl now!

Cognitive skills:
Her matching and sorting skills really developed these past few months. She can do simple memory type games and can sort by simple categories like color or shape. Her counting skills progressed as well. First it was 1-12 then at Thanksgiving she did 1-20 with a few misses in the teens. Then she sort of fell apart and is very inconsistent with rote counting. At her 3 year appointment, they checked her 1:1 correspondence counting which I thought she couldn't do. But then the next day she correctly counted 6 ducks on a page in her book! She's still very inconsistent with that skill as well but she's starting to get the concept.

She's also a much better colorer! She pays some attention to the lines and drawing on the page rather scribbling over the whole thing.

Health -
She had her first ear infection on December 6th. She was very brave at the doctor. She went right to the NP, hopped up on the table and tolerated the exam with no problem. She also loves taking medicine so having an ear infection had its reward for her.

She had her first dentist visit in October. It started off well but quickly went downhill. She went back by herself and let them brush her teeth. After that she started screaming. Jeff had to hold her so they could scrape and polish a few teeth and let the dentist look. She had no cavities, but does have crowding. She inherited my small jaw I guess.

Physical growth:

She grew from 34.5 inches at age 2 to 37 inches at age 3.
Her weight went from 25 lbs to 31.

Language:
This is going to be a random but somewhat chronological list of cute and funny stuff Claire said or did in her last months of being 2.

She started asking where we are going and where things were. Like, "where is school? Where is Grammi's house?" I wasn't sure what she wanted me to say. So I just started telling her the town. Which led to a funny exchange one day:
Claire: "Mama, where's school?"
Me: "School is in Kennesaw, Claire."
Claire: "Tennis saw? Not sure that means, mama."

Before bed she has to ask "What we do in the morning, mama?" and must get a satisfactory answer before you can leave her room.

On Halloween we were riding in the car and she told me "Don't wake me up. I want to sleep in the car!" Yeah right, I thought. And I think she just wanted to pretend to sleep. But she did actually fall asleep that day! I think it was the same car ride where I caught her drawing pictures on the window with her spit. I asked the very intelligent parenting question of "What are you doing????" and she matter-of-factly says "I do spits!"

This may have been a 2.5 year old thing that I forgot to mention before, but she experimented a bit with what she called me. Mama is typical. She added in "mama-lee" and just plain "Ma."

She also figured out that she could use her newly developed verbal prowess to order us around even better.
-If I told her not to do something, she would angrily say "Mama, don't tell words!!" (Her version of "don't tell me what to do").
-She was sitting in my lap one day as I was putting her shoes on. I shifted my legs and she felt off balance. She said "I falling!! Mama, you be careful with me!"
-One day she yelled at Jeff to make a lap so she could sit in it. She wanted him to cross his legs like I was while holding Ellie.
-She was trying to get me to tickle her. She frantically tells me "Hands like that! Spread! SPREAD! (fingers)" Then she lays across my lap and says "Now do it! Do it!"

Some classic phrases from this time period:
Nuffing (nothing)
I scared! (I don't want to or I don't like it)
I so cited! (excited)
I don't feel! (don't feel good)
I DO want to ____. (As in, Claire do you want raisins? I DO want raisins!)
Look at me got! (Look at what I've got!)
What you said? (What did you say?)

She has enough verbal mastery to tell us things about school.
-After school car one day:
"Mama, I go to school and come back to see YOU."
Or as I'm loading her into the car she says unprompted: "I go to school. It was fun. I had a good day." (Can you tell what questions we usually ask her? :)

-My favorite: "Mama! I do so much fings today!"

-One weekend she got to bring the class bear home. She was thrilled and the whole car ride was about the bear.

"I taking the bear mama. That's my bear. I taking it mama."
"I taking bear home for sleeping. No I not. He's an animal. I put him in my playroom."
And then she told me the bear "cracked out." I was perplexed. So I repeated it back to her. She says, "yeah, the bear cracked out. Of the egg!"

At the library with Mr. Bear

Bedtime with Mr. Bear

We've had some very sweet moments.......
On Valentine's day, I had gotten Ellie into bed and was downstairs with Claire. She asked to snuggle and gave hugs and kisses unsolicited. She tells me "I like you mama, I love when you wake me up."

Then a few weeks later we were out to dinner. She was sitting next to me on the bench. She gave me a hug and said "I always be your friend mama."

And some funny ones....
-Something's missing......From my heiney (She meant underwear)

-Talking about petting zoo at Lights of Life:
Did you pet the bunnies? Yes. Did you pet the chickens? No. Why not? They eat people!

-She's eating dinner, including yogurt:
Claire (yelling): YOGURT! Yogurt!
Me: What? What's wrong? Tell me with your words (thinking maybe she spilled on her dress)
Her (calmly): Nuffing. I just eating.

-(with Jeff's old stethoscope)
I'm Dr Soltz!
Keep this in your tummy so it feels better (stethoscope under shirt)

-We try introducing "I spy" in the car.
She says: "I spy little eye" or "I spy with my eye a little something"

Then she tells the answer! "I spy little eye, something green. [brief pause] The trees are green!"

-One morning I ask: "Want to play with toys Claire?"
Claire: I want to play toys with Ellie!
Me: Ok! What about me?
Claire: No I not playing with you today mama.

-Not sure how Jeff kept it together with this one....
Claire is playing with a Smurf figurine in Jeff's car. Handy Smurf, who has a hammer in his hand. Claire also has a stuffed Daisy Duck. She tells Jeff she has a "banger Smurf." And "he keeps banging Daisy."

-One evening she is coloring. She asks for the "short pencils". So I get out the colored pencils. Then she decides they aren't sharp enough. She tells me I need to pinch them. I'm confused and say "What?" "You need to pinch them mama. With your pincher." I realize she means the sharpener and get it out. She tells me, "Ranch it mama, ranch it!" I crack up as I realize that she's telling me to turn it in the sharpener. Not sure where she got all those terms from but it was pretty hilarious.

-For a short period, when we put her to bed for naptime or bedtime, she tells us "Thanks for coming!"

Other random funnies:
Publix=pub a lix

New car seat has a "hupcolder"
Toothpick = qtip

Mickey mouse theme song (Hot dog, hot dog, hot diggity dog) = Hot dog, didditty dog

Annoyances:
"ee not, ee not, ing" - sung over and over
It's ok mama! (That bad thing I did is fine)
Want to "share" - meaning: I know this belongs to someone else but I want to use it. ("share" Ellie's books)