Moving on

It's fall in Portland.  That means crisp apples and mornings, shorter days, and GERMS.  Lots of germs.  Luckily we made it through all our guests before the first wave hit us, but hit us it did.  Grady got it first, with a random morning throw up before feeling pretty much fine.  (Good news is he no longer seems to remember the Thomas throwing up incident.) Clara got it a few days later and got it a bit worse- three throw ups over 24 hours.  And then I got it, and was knocked out.  Unfortunately Matt was away for business when I got sick.  Fortunately for Grady, that meant he got to watch his first movie - Cars. It was a bit hit- so much so that he had a minor meltdown the next morning when I told him he didn't get to watch it again. I'm noticing this tv thing can be both a force of good and evil.... Anyway, we are all healthy now.

So the biggest news over here is that Clara is mobile.  A few hours after Uncle Cliff and Susana left us, she did her first sustained, purposeful scoot forward.

She was content to do these little movements for a while, but then woke up yesterday from her nap and decided she was ready to MOVE.  She easily covered a few yards before I thought to take a video.  Her technique for long distances is to throw herself forward and roll, and then do a small scoot.  It works for her!  She was getting tired out by this point, but you can see the technique.

We're still experimenting with different foods for Clara.  Partly to expose her to different tastes, and partly because it makes for some hilarious photos. 

Where's my cracker?

No seriously.  Where's my cracker. 

In my opinion, Clara just gets cuter and sweeter every day.  Yes, she can't sit still.  Yes, she makes noises like dinosaurs being led to slaughter when she's excited.  Yes, she still wakes up too many times every night. But just look at her!  What's not to love!

Looking French

Grady continues to talk up a storm.  We have started having to take turns at dinner so that Matt and I get a chance to catch up for a moment or two.  After about 30 seconds, he is ready for his turn, at which point he gets so excited to talk he comes out with "Ah buh buh RACE CAR ah buh buh TREE."  He's doing lots of make believe right now - usually involving favorite characters from his books - Uncle Wiggily is involved in most.  He's also getting curious about reading/letters.  He can recite a dozen or so of his books from heart, turning the pages at the appropriate places.  He is starting to work out which letters make which noises, with some degree of success.  "Tuh tuh Truck starts with T.   So does tuh tuh school bus."

He's really into experimenting with his body, especially with finding the limits of what's safe while climbing.

We had two big adventures since the last post.  I had to go to a local street fair for PKC, and the whole family came along.  It coincided with an open day at a historic firehouse.  Grady got to see the fire truck,

and then got to go for a "ride" in a firetruck.  The truck was parked inside, but they streamed a video so that when you looked out through the front windows, it looked like you were driving down the street.  Grady thought that was pretty amazing!

This was followed by a romp through a bouncy house.  What fun!

The other big adventure was Grady's first running race.  The few times I've raced this year, Grady really wanted to race with me, so we decided to sign him up for his first fun run.  When I first told him that we signed him up, Grady said, with a look of awe on his face, "I'm going to run a race.  I'm going to run fast.  I'm going to get sweaty!"

Pre-race excitement

Well, the excitement toned down exponentially by the time we got to the start line.

The course was meant to be a 1K - from the start line to a casting pond a few yards away, around the pond, and then back to the finish.  Grady was not thrilled about this, but did make it a little ways down the pond before turning around and heading back to the finish.

Despite the incomplete, Grady was still allowed a ribbon, and he refused to take his number off for the rest of the morning.

After Grady's race, I ran a 5K.  Grady was the worst. cheerleader. ever.  "Mommy, stop running!  Go home, mommy!"  Despite the lackluster cheering, I made my goal of running at under a 7:30 pace (22:40).

Grady and Clara are doing more giggling together and more butting of heads as Clara becomes more mobile and more able to push back.

She LOVES Grady though - oh man, the world revolves around him.  Grady thinks she's pretty great most of the time too, unless she's playing with whatever toy he wants (which happens to be whatever toy she has).  Here's a bit of sweet playing though - it's hard to tell from the video, but the game is that Grady would run toward Clara and then give her a hug.