Feeling better

We lost a family member this past week.  Matt's Grandmother, Grandma Wilkinson, passed away yesterday at the age of 103.  Although I only met her a few times, it was always such a pleasure to talk with her. She was sharp, bright, and witty, and I've been enjoying getting to know her better through Matt's stories of her these past few days.  She will be greatly missed.  

On the whole, we've been much healthier these past few weeks.  Fuzz ended up having to get six (six!) teeth pulled, but we've had no further sick days since the last post.  Now that Clara is relatively healthy (snot notwithstanding), she is all action, all the time.  A few weeks ago she decided to try out "proper" crawling on all fours.  

She kept at it for a few days before deciding she could get around much faster with her old army crawl.  She is really fast.  She can get in trouble in no time. 

Yesterday Clara stood on her own without support for the first time.  

She is already a total pro.  She hung out standing up for much of the day today, sometimes for close to a minute - stopping only when she gets distracted by something else.  Which, by the way, is usually much faster than one minute. Case in point. 

Clara also continues to show herself as a brave-verging-on-reckless little lady.  We went to the playground this past week.  I set her by the play structure.  She crawled all the way up to the top and threw herself down the slide without a second thought.  I mean literally - no thought at all, she saw the slide, she went down.  Here she is on go number two - the first one happened so fast I couldn't even get my phone out!  

She could have done it all day, and was quite upset when it was time to leave!

Today she went down sitting up!

She loves it so much we have had to improvise with our own personal slide at home. 

Some other fun playground shots -

He made it to the top!

Clara is understanding more, and able to communicate with us better as well too.  She will clap when asked (if she feels like it) and say "clap" - or vaguely clap.  And she's added a wave to "bye" - a very regal, wrist turning, finger flapping wave.   New words are "ball," "fuh" (fan), "hi," and "buh buh" (brother).We had one very sweet moment with the "buh buh."  Clara has a new car seat, which means we can't transport her to and from places in her car seat anymore.  So I've been leaving her in the car for a minute or two in the morning when I drop Grady off at daycare before going to her daycare to drop her off.  She's been fine when we get out of the car, seems fine in the car during drop off, but has been crying every time I come back in the car.  I wasn't sure why she was waiting until I came back before she started crying.  Then on Wednesday when I came back in the car Clara started saying "Buh buh!  Buh buh!"  She missed Grady!  

Grady is learning some new "words" too. 

I've been most impressed these past few weeks with his singing.  He's always loved singing, and, while I've always loved watching him sing, it's been especially fun as of late.   He just has fun with music - it's really lovely to watch.

I especially like hearing his revisions of songs - changing the words to suit his mood and his comedic tendencies. Yes, Grady continues to be our little comedian.  Cracking jokes, making faces, saying unexpected things, and cracking himself up just as often as us.

He's also very excited to be the "Ring Bear" in Uncle Cliff and Aunt Susana's wedding.  Only 2 1/2 months to go!