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.

Gatlinburg

We took advantage of a few open days in Jeff's schedule for a last minute family getaway to Gatlinburg.  We left the evening on March 13th and came back up on the 15th.  We thought we'd be good on the drive up: we'd stop and get dinner about half way through for a break and then Claire would drift off to sleep around bedtime.  Well, she did eventually fall asleep.  But only for about 45 minutes.  She woke up around 9 and cried and cried.  We discovered that she would calm down if one of us held her hand.  So Jeff and I took turns wrenching our arm into the back seat to hold her little hand for 45 minutes or so.

We had booked a king suite at the Sleep Inn because it was supposed to have a bedroom and a separate sitting room.  The hope was to put some separation between us and Claire for sleeping since we all sleep better that way and we could still talk or watch TV after she went to bed.  This was not what we got.  Apparently those rooms were all full.  So our king suite was an in-room (literally) hot tub, next to a king bed, next to a sofa.  The front desk was not terribly accommodation so Jeff paid a little more for two adjoining rooms, which was what we had tried to avoid in the first place.  It just seems so indulgent to have a room just for a one year old. 

Our first day there we explored the town of Gatlinburg.  We enjoyed the aquarium, and the little shops, and the aerial tram up the mountain.  Jeff enjoyed the Ripley's Believe or Not museums.  I was thrilled that Claire napped in her strolled!  We weren't sure if she would since she hasn't done it since she was 6 months old.

Looking down at the town of Gatlinburg

Checking out the fishies!

Just chillin out on the glass

Look at those teeth!

Jellyfish

Saying hi to the diver feeding the rays 

 In the evening we went to a dinner show in Pigeon Forge.  Jeff vetoed the ones featuring horses.  Apparently he has bad memories of a visit when he was younger to the Dixie Stampede show and not being able to breathe much due to his allergies to horses.  I know, what a lame excuse!  :)  So we chose a lumberjack show. I was nervous about how Claire would do, but she did okay until near the end.  She started getting restless and it was near bedtime so we had to get up and walk a little bit.  She did enjoy the food.  Especially the baked beans.  And since the high chair / counter top setup put her mouth right at counter top height she could suck them right off the edge!

Ready for food

Watching the show

Lumberjacks!  Yo ho!

The next day we explored a little of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

Lunch time!  Claire just wants to play in the rocks!

We drove to Cade's Cove.  It's a green valley nestled in the mountains, first settled in the early 1800s.  An 11 mile loop road features multiple historic buildings.  So we saw some old houses, churches, and a working mill.  It was nice to drive a little bit, stop to check out a building, and then drive a little more to cool off.  Claire didn't seem to thoroughly enjoy it though.  Probably too much car time for her.

We left the park by way of a primitive road.  Which is just code for dirt/gravel road in rough shape, drive at your own risk.  I was sitting in back with Claire trying to keep her happy on the car ride home.  Jeff was up front having the time of his life, driving through puddles, powering up hills, and hugging curves.  That road let us out on the "tail of the dragon" road so I was feeling a little green by the time we were out of the mountains.  

Cade's cove

Wildlife

Heading to a historic home with Claire on my back

I wanna walk MYSELF!

Pretty!

Grist mill.  Who wants corn meal?

I'm free!

All in all a very good family trip!