One Year!

Claire is one whole year old! I am in a state if disbelief but am loving it. She is a character and it is so much fun to watch her and play with her.

She is just over 19 lbs and has 7 teeth. Her skills to date:
Crawling
Walking upright... on her knees
Standing up without pulling up
Taking a few steps now and then
Signing words including Daddy, dog, more, milk, ball, "all done" and my personal favorite: sleep!
Speaking with words: dada, mama, woof, kitty, agua, dog and a variety of indiscernible sounds that surely mean something, we just don't yet know what.

Happy Birthday Claire!

Big Girl in the Grocery Cart

Once she woke up from her nap in the Ergo, Claire was treated to her first ride in a shopping cart. She was thrilled! You might notice I had finished with the grocery section and was on to wine/beer at Trader Joe's.

11 Months

Eleven months old and staring down her first birthday, Claire continues to explore the world. She has yet to take her first steps, but will stand a moment without holding on - until she realizes it, panics and grabs on. She crawls, cruises and walks upright on her knees. She has 5 teeth, crazy hair and is 18.5 pounds. I call her my little hillbilly on account of her hair and "summer teeth*".



*Summer teeth: some are there, some aren't.

Christmas Video

I am backdating this entry to January because I am so very behind on posting content from this winter. So, here's a video I forgot I had uploaded of Claire playing with her Christmas gifts from Mana & Papa. Watching this video now (posting on June 9, 2011), I realize how much Claire has grown in the last 5 months. It's fun to watch!

Model Baby

I promise I will not become a stage mom, but I must admit I had Claire model some baby clothes in the name of her cuteness. A local baby clothing and blanket company was looking for babies to model for its Fall 2011 catalog so I suggested Claire.

We spent half an our one afternoon at the photo shoot, dressing up in a few different outfits. Claire's payment was an adorable outfit and another lovey to add to her collection.


They let me join her for a souvenir (not the catalog!)
Some more babies (and Claire) can be seen on their blog as well.

Vocabulary

Claire's vocabulary has expanded. The day after she exclaimed "Kitty" she started saying "agua." Now she will say "hi" and "dada," which is accompanied by a forehead tap - the sign for Dad.

Claire will occasionally wave hi or bye and her signing collection also includes the first half of "dog" - a thigh slap.

I love it!

Kitty!

Announcing Claire's official first word: "kitty".

At home and at day care, Claire is exposed to her feline friends with adults saying and signing "kitty". For the past couple of days, Claire has been mimicking us and says "kitty" back to us.

Yay, Claire!

10 Months

The elephant appears again and again we had some trouble capturing a still shot. Here's the bug at 10 months!

Excellent posture, as you can see!

Making her escape

Family Photos

I finally cashed in Matt's 3rd anniversary gift to me: professional photos. Our wedding photographer was a mousy amateur and we never did any engagement pictures. And, naturally, we wanted to get some great shots with Claire and the photogenic Sunapee. So, we set up a session with a local photographer who recently memorialized our friends' wedding.

Sunday morning we met up with the photographers, conveniently named Matt and Suzanne, brought Becca & Kevin to help schlep stuff and wrangle the dog and frolicked in the grass. Claire and the dog did great. Claire's hair was sticking up the whole time, but isn't that more fun?

Here's a preview of the session.

Peekaboo Claire

I took this video of Claire playing peekaboo with me behind the coffee table. I'm so very behind in posting, so I hope to catch up slowly!

9 Months

As expected, Claire is at an in-between stage for taking her monthly portrait. She is too old and mobile to get a good still shot, but too young to understand "stay still!" So, here is her 9 month elephant portrait in a series.

This is all I could get of her sitting still. This was immediately followed by...

I thought I'd try a standing shot.

The elephant didn't fare very well.

At her 9 month doctor appointment on 11/3, Claire weighed in at 16.5 lbs, 27". She has 3 teeth - I'm not sure why only one top tooth has appeared but hopefully the second will follow soon.

Little Houdini

Claire worked her magic again to wiggle out of her sleeve after (during?) her nap. Now she has more incentive - to chew on said sleeve!

Happy Halloween!

The babies dressed in their costumes for an extended Halloween party today. We brought out Claire's back up costume (dinosaur) which is a tad snug (it's a 6mo size hand-me-down but too cute to leave it in the closet). It was nice of Nas to lend his antenna to entertain Claire!

Playgroup Halloween Party

On Sunday, our February Baby Playgroup had a Halloween party. All the babies came in costume to play while the adults chatted and discussed how adorable all the costumed babies were.

Claire, dressed as an elephant, was joined by Curran (the party's petite hostess) the dinosaur.
Here we have, l to r, Claire the Elephant, Hailey the Cow, Jackson the Shark, Pumpkin Auggie and Dinosaur Curran.
As the afternoon went on, some more friends arrived as others departed. The later line up included, l to r, Dylan the Bear, Monkey Erica, Curran the Dinosaur, Dragon Dylan, Hailey the Cow, Tessa sporting Asian Silk and Kitty Cat Claire (the elephant ensemble was toasty, so Claire showed off her all black cat outfit).

Sunday Morning Chat

Claire video chats with Mana and Papa

Baby's First Curly Fry

Matt's Arby's lunch was not safe from tiny hands. She had her first taste of curly fry.

Preparing for Bath-time

Claire checks out the water before getting in

Eight Months

The lighting is strange in Claire's room in the morning, so the strange glow is from the iPhone flash. Below is another photo from the same "photo shoot" as it's getting harder to have Claire stay in one place. She wants to move!

She's always on the run, unless strapped into a seat of some kind. The purpose of the crawling is usually to get to higher ground, i.e. climb to a stand. She is not a fan of diaper or clothing changes - again because those activities take away from exploring.

Beach naps, with varying success

In NH, we tried a few methods to accomplish naps at Colby Point. My mom had a pack & play and a tent for the task. Neither does much in the way of soundproofing, oddly enough.

Day one, take one: no luck.

Day one, take two: short term success.

Day two: lots of crying, from afar.

We changed tacks and had most naps at the Farm.

Cousins

Jack and Aileen had a great time playing with Claire. They were very helpful at bath time and helped me pick out clothes for her. The favorite activities included holding her (many games of pass the baby) and watching her sit in the pink chair (bumbo), at Jack's request. They were bummed to learn how much babies sleep during the day!