Photoshoot with the Daffodils

Our sunshine at 10 1/2 months.

What happens when?

Banging a pan, babbling, playing with a forbidden book....the best is at the end. :)

Our remote stopped working so Rich pried it apart only to discover slobber coating the inside circuitry. Ewww. He laid it out in front of the heater to dry overnight, and that fixed it.

Danger Girl

Claire likes to play on the edge. Here she is at a window that I'm sure is covered in lead paint. Every few days I find paint chips on the floor from a doorway or baseboard. I hope our next house is a new one so I don't have to worry about her finding paint chips before I do. It'd be great to have a house that would actually come clean when I clean it too! Is that really too much to ask? 10 1/2 months.

She's done it!

I'm spacey and left my camera at a friend's house. Guess what happened while it was gone. Claire learned to walk! Rich teased me that the moment is lost forever and we will never have it on film. :(

She's been walking with her push toy since Christmas. She took her first step back on Feb. 5th when she was 8-3/4 months old. I was surprised it still took her a while to walk more than a few steps in a row. At 10 months old she was taking 6-10 steps at a time. Now, less than a week later, she is walking well beyond that. All is good. She's a strong girl.

Video added later:

Look up Claire

How I love being face to face with little Claire!

Xylophone

Claire's great-grandpa Ace gave her a xylophone and she's learning to hit the keys, in addition to simply sucking on the mallet. I have a lot of fun plunking out songs as I sing to her, but she always tries to butt in on my songs! 9 months.

Photoshoot

Rich got home from work and it was still light outside with an overcast wet look.  Claire got tired pretty quickly and the last picture you can see how wide she likes to stand.  She loves her Daddy!!  9 months.

In the dining room....

....with a bread pan....caught in profile view.

We got us some culture

Two women in our ward gave us their tickets to see a theater production of "The Importance of Being Earnest".  We were surprised to learn that Oscar Wilde wrote the play in 1895, yet it's so clever and the dialogue/interactions seemed totally current.  I laughed at the women who had made up fake relationships and written all about them in their diaries and then referred to them as if they were true events.  We had a fun time - we took Claire with us and watched from one of the theater's "family rooms."  It's great that they want to encourage people to bring their children. 

Here Claire is learning that she has to actually move her feet in order to walk.  With her cherished books - of course she needs to take them all off the shelf or it's just not worth playing with them.  At least we don't have very many, right?  My Princess with the big tummy.  Getting a manicure from Daddy.  8.5 months.

I've GOT to get more sleep

I hit a wall and threw myself a full-on temper tantrum.  I was trying to get Claire down for her morning nap and she fussed/cried/refused to go to sleep for 3 hours!  I'd tried everything: rocking, singing, reading, laying her down over and over, letting her get up since she must not have been sleepy enough, nursing like 3 different times, hoping she would fall asleep at the breast.  No.  I lost it, put her in her crib roughly, slammed the door, stomped to the living room and screamed, "Why, why, why?" over and over again as I hit my fists against my legs.  Poor girl was scared and wailing more than before.  It gets worse.  In the thick of it the mailman walked up to the door to make his delivery.  Ugh.  After I calmed down I felt so ashamed for being angry.  Then embarassed that the mailman probably thinks I'm abusive.  I confessed the whole event to my sister and she assured me, "Oh, I'm sure he's heard that before".  

Conclusion: My ability to handle my day, and whether I'm a happy mom or not, is directly related to how much sleep I get.  Waking up every 2-3 hours at night is not working.  Staying up late to have "me time" is not helping the matter.  I desperately need more sleep!! 

Now I'm wondering if I want the events in this post to be public knowledge.  ???         

Fresh after a stroller walk

Claire looked so bright and happy after our walk today, cute as a kitten all bundled up with rosy cheeks.  8 months.

Field Trip: Snoqualmie Falls

For MLK Jr.'s birthday, we took an outing to Snoqualmie Falls.  It was fun for Rich to have the day off and for us to get out of the house.  The trail was too muddy from rain, so we only got to see the Falls from the lookout.  It was sunny, yeah!  I have to ask my sister if Claire's belly hanging out reminds her of anyone.  hehe.

8 months old

8 months old and playing with mommy's make-up.  A few days later she needed concealor for her bruised forehead.  Her first bruise came at 6 months when she was leaning on a stool getting ready to suck on the edge of it.  Her feet slipped out from under her and she ended up falling with her mouth open against the sharp edge.  She had a purple line from her lips across her cheek.  Ouch.  

So, Rich is playing bass guitar in a band called The Commonauts.  The lead singer was part of this band back in his younger days, and after a hiatus from the music scene he got together a group of guys from church and formed the band.  Rich is thrilled and I'm so glad that he has something that he can do, just for him.  Woooooo.  

I had a fun week: took a walk every day (library, beach, friend's houses), shopped at Anthropologie, went to a RS activity, learned to play gin rummy, and Rich & I started Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University.  All good, right?  Almost.  I didn't get enough sleep and I was in a lot of pain, still not feeling healed from Claire's birth.  So, I had a meltdown trying to get ready for church Sunday morning.  Ahhh.  A good, long cry on the phone with my sister helped me recoup.

Foaming at the mouth

How does she produce so much slobber?

Crib time

Claire doesn't always wake up happy from her nap and today was.  She got tired of me taking pictures and she likely thought she'd be stuck in the crib all day.  Not so happy. 

Playing with Art Cards

I finally figured out how to trim this video after sitting at the computer for the last 2 hours.  All I can say is @*%^#!$.  Where was Rich, you ask?  Sleeping on the couch, not getting that I REALLY wanted to get this done tonight (that's tonight for the last month or so) in order to move on with the blog.  I just hope I remember how I actually did it for next time.  

And, Exhale..........

And, Smile.

Fun in the highchair

Yum, something green and something yellow.  Showing off her gums and her food.  8 months.

Spa Day

To experience a fresh start to the new year I got together with my lunch group and after enjoying our usual lunch of yummy food and great conversation I dropped Claire off at Rich's work and met up with some of my lunch group friends at a women-only spa.  Christine, Tascha, Karen, and Kara were there.  It was perfect and I think we'll need to have a repeat soon.  There weren't many other women there, so we pretty much got to gab privately in the hottub.  There was also a dry sauna and a lavendar steam room.  I love lavendar.  After I couldn't take any more heat I shocked my body under the cold-splash pull.  It was easy to pull, but apparantly not as easy to turn off.  Brrrr.  It was different to be hanging out with my friends while we were all topless and some bottomless, even though we're dancers and we've all changed in front of each other.  Being comfortable enough to be nekked around each other added to how nurturing the day felt.  It was really so nice & relaxing.  My favorite quote from spa day was uttered by Karen as she first stepped into the hottub.  She smiled and said, "WOW...............2009 is awesome."   You probably had to be there to think it was as funny as we all did.  Yes, 2009 is awesome.

This week I also got together with Christine to get make-overs at the Clinique counter.  Back when my friend did my hair & make-up for the Messiah choir concert, I realized that my foundation was from back when I was in college.  Hello, 7 years old.  So, time for some make-up.  I didn't end up getting foundation, but I got some much needed concealer for these tired eyes.  I also bought some purple eyeshadow, plum eyeliner, and nude lipgloss.  Wow, something different than brown eyeshadow.  It's about time.  While there Christine and I decided to buy one of the promotional goodie bags and split the contents between us.  I guess we miscommunicated who was going to buy the bag and who was going to pay the other person.  We sat down at the mall play area to divide the goods and we were confused that we had 2 goodie bags.  We felt silly returning one of them 15 minutes after we bought it, but oh well.  Yay for new make-up.  Now, I need to actually wear it!!  It will be a challenge when every other day I'm hoping to get out of my lounge clothes by noon (or at all).  As I write this post just before bedtime, I'm still in today's lounge clothes.  Why is taking care of a baby so hard?