Little Bear - 19 months

I haven't written anything down about Claire in too long. She 19 months now, attending nursery and changing by the day. I thought I'd take this morning to post a few pictures of her and document what she is up to, and of course, the little sugar is right here by my side, hanging on me, climbing up my leg and trying to push buttons on the keyboard... time for a "yo" and a "baba". :) 

There. That should last 20 minutes.... here I go: Claire is speaking tons of words: mom!, dada, ASH, hot, wow!, GO!, Apple, goggie, birdie, cow, moo!, cat, show, bye-bye, book, shoe, where go?, oh no!, fish, ... lots. But she is in the habit of going "uh! uh!" to anything she wants so I am trying to help her speak more.

She also does animal sounds, points to all the parts of her body, "eye" is the cutest, and sings ABCs and E-I-E-I-O! She is adorable when she does. She also loves to play ring around the rosies and duck-duck-goose! So cute.

She loves to swim, jump on the trampoline, stand up on chairs, climb onto tables, push buttons on remotes, play with my ipad, read books, cuddle with blankie and drink her bottles (yes, she still takes a bottle). She also sucks her two fingers while rubbing the corner of her blankie across the tip of her nose.

She's in the season of experimenting with "NO!", and says that often, even when she means yes. She's also experimenting with hitting us once in a while or even pinching or pulling hair when she is mad and does it with a sheepish look on her face, already knowing it is naughty. When she has tantrums I have a mini tantrum right back - showing her my grumpy face, then saying "Where is your happy face?!" and show her mine. That usually brings her smile back.

We've started using time-out. It's incredible how kids' instinctively know what time out is. She was banging beaters against the wall the other night and I kept asking her to stop. By the time I got over to her I saw she had chipped off a bunch of paint and made dings in the wall. I wasn't happy - so that was her first time-out. I marched her into the corner and had her stand there. She wailed and all the family gathered around, everyone else to tell me how heartless I was being, but she got my message. And I've been using time-out ever since - only two or three times though.

She is precious beyond words to us. A joy, a gift, a treasure to our family. We all care for her and adore her. I can tell she isn't our baby baby anymore, but we are excited about her development and milestones. She is a good girl. We love you Claire!!