Clara is ONE!

Matt and I were laughing (in an ironic, not at all funny sort of way) yesterday that the post of the last blog post was about feeling better.  Poor Clara has had a really tough winter, and is just now recovering from being as sick as she ever has been.  Clara and I rang in daylight savings at the E.R., where she was recovering from a 105 fever.  One of the scariest nights of our lives.  Verdict: a virus, the third or fourth for her of the winter.  I took her into a local clinic to check her out again yesterday, and they also found an ear infection and some mild wheezing, so she is now on antibiotics and steroids to round out her tylenol and advil dosages.  Poor sick baby.  Poor sick ONE YEAR OLD baby.

Yes, Clara is one.  So hard to believe that a year has gone by already!  We were planning on celebrating Clara's birthday on the 10th, but ended up pushing it to the actual day to give her some more recovery time.  She wasn't 100 percent, but was feeling well enough to eat, play with her food, and smear ice cream and cake everywhere.

The pasta fit PERFECTLY on her finger.  Awesome. 

Here comes the cake! 

Prefers the ice cream, but will hold on to the cake too just in case

Yes, Grady is wearing a postage sticker.  Please don't judge. 

Can't smile, eating dessert

SO FULL

But let me back up.

Grady was very excited about Clara's birthday, and wanted to help in whatever ways he could.  He was an amazing sous chef, and helped whip up Clara's blueberry birthday cake.

He also helped open her presents.  In fact, he was a bit too helpful on that front....

Where's my present?

He started opening this one before she was even in the room.  Now I understand why he was so excited about her birthday!

We definitely have second child syndrome with Clara.  We bought her some blocks, but her other gift from us was a “retired” gift that used to be Grady’s. Grandma and Grandpa sent Clara a bucket and watering can (among other well-received gifts), and she has been enjoying putting the blocks into the bucket.  She’s actually really into all her gifts – perhaps because she now knows that toys come in forms other than cars? – and has been working hard at them. 

Grady also helped make Clara's birthday special by singing her the happy birthday song three times, each time with such enthusiasm and love.  She is a very well-loved girl, this one.

Birthday and sickness aside, we've had a fun few weeks.  Matt was in Delaware and Pennsylvania for much of last week to attend the service for his grandma and spend some time with his family.  Clara, Grady, and I held down the fort while Matt was gone.  When I asked Grady if he had any special requests, he decided he wanted to go to the playground; eat a big pancake at a diner; and hold my hand while going for a walk.  Done, done, and done.

Eating wood chips.  Can someone explain to me why she keeps getting sick?

Excited for the big pancake!

Clara ate all her egg and sausage, though she can't quite believe it!

Grady ate all his pancake and fruit.  They're like Jack Sprat and his wife, these two.

We've had a lot of fun playing around at home too.  Building forts, playing games, and getting into various predicaments.

No children were hurt in the taking of this photo

Peek-a-boo!

Goof

Just another day in the life of a 2 year old firefighter.

Here's a cute video of them having fun in the bath.

Clara's big milestone these past few weeks has been learning to drink by herself from a cup.  We are still having lots of spills, but she is making progress and is so proud of her accomplishment!

She is walking along furniture constantly now, and will walk from one piece to the next as long as one hand is always touching.  She is still at the stage where she will sit down and stand back up if she can't quite reach.

Grady's imagination is in overdrive.  He is always making up songs and jokes, and has started making up stories as well.  Today he told me he wanted to go to the library and get the book "Grumpy Bear's Bad Dream."  I asked if this was a book from school or a book that he made up, he said he made it up, and that it started "Grumpy Bear was trying to sleep."  Wow, I want to read that book!

He is reasoning and arguing a little too effectively now.  The other day I asked him if he wanted to start sleeping with his door open - because his door sticks and he can't open it himself, I worry that he is sometimes up in his room for a long time in the morning before I hear him and come get him.  He replied "No, because the cats can get in and sleep with me, and I don't want them to do that, so let's just wait a bit."  Okay.

We did finally get some news on the timeline for Grady's kidney procedures.  We are expecting a call to schedule a minor surgery in the next week or so.  That one should take place in the next month.  It's a day surgery, but still has a pretty lengthy recovery time where he's not supposed to jump, bike, or run.  (Good luck.)  The second, more invasive, procedure will likely be scheduled in the next 6 months.  That one will involve a 3 day hospital stay and another 4 week recovery time. Very scary, but we are taking it one day at a time, and are looking forward to having him off his antibiotic.

And on the personal news front, I can now publicly announce that my business partner and I sold our website, PDX Kids Calendar, to a local magazine called Metro Parent.  Although I had the option of staying on, I decided that for a host of reasons, my sanity in the forefront among them, I would resign.  I'm having fun with my extra time, am finishing up knitting projects, and getting started on my 150 New Yorker backlog.  My goodbye post is here.

Took five months, but it's done! 

And before closing, a little love note to our Clara Boo.  Clara is an energetic, loving, adventurous girl.  She will throw herself down a slide without a second thought, but she will also give you the best hug in the world. She is opinionated, knows exactly what she wants, and is pretty good at communicating that.  She is curious about the world around her, and wants to know what everything is and how everything works.  She is full of joy and giggles.  She's already making jokes and making us laugh. She loves her brother, but isn't a pushover. We've only had you for a year, but we cannot imagine our lives without you.  We love you Clara.

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!

Doctors, sickness, yuck

This has been a tough winter.  Clara has been sick off and on, mostly on, pretty much since starting daycare in November. The past few weeks were especially bad.  A cold she had for several days turned into a fever, which finally went away for all of a week before she got hit with another fever.  We were worried enough to bring her in to the doctor on Thursday, who could find nothing obviously wrong.  (The fever went down on Friday, and was gone today, thank goodness.)

The next day, Friday, was a scheduled VCUG and ultrasound for Grady to check on his kidneys, which was an all-morning affair and pretty brutal at times.  Unofficial reports are no change - meaning still very high degree of reflux.  We meet with the urologist in the beginning of March.  

And then today was another trip back to the emergency room because Grady couldn't or wouldn't pee for close to 24 hours after his VCUG.  (The VCUG involves a catheter, which we think was causing some residual irritation.)  In any event, 45 minutes or so after arriving at the ER, Grady successfully peed on his own, making it a very expensive trip to the bathroom.  

We came home to find Fuzzy in some discomfort - we think a bad tooth.  We are hoping she stays well enough to make it to the vet on Monday during regular hours.  Poor Fuzzy. 

And poor Bessy for that matter. 

It's been quite a week, to say the least. 

Despite the sickness, hospitals, and worries, we have managed to have some bright spots. Mostly we have been in awe of Clara's amazing ability to create an absolute mess. 

Exhibit A: Feeding herself with a spoon

It doesn't even matter at this point

What have I done.

Exhibit B: Painting

Much more sophisticated technique than Clara's belly painting

And paint eating

Clara is also now able to walk with the help of a walker.  She loves it - and is so pleased with herself for walking! 

Another first for Clara was her first ride in the shopping cart!  So proud! 

And a clip of her saying her first word - Done.

Grady has been a really good sport with all the extra attention Clara has been getting because of her sickness.  Sometimes he gets jealous, which usually manifests itself in subtle ways - vigorously running a monster truck over Clara's hands, asking politely if Clara can stay downstairs while he and I go upstairs, screaming at her when she gets within a 10 yard radius that he needs space.  Matt and I are making an extra effort to give him some special one-on-one time now that Clara is on the mend.  Today he and I went for frozen yogurt and to the playground, just the two of us.  Next week he and Matt will see Monster Trucks together.  

I was so proud of Grady these past two days at the hospital too.  He was so articulate and sweet to the doctors and nurses.  And despite being a really scary and slightly painful couple of days, he dealt with it so well.  He is getting to be a really big boy.  I'm already getting nostalgic for my little boy.  

And for the most part he is such a good big brother.  He was pretty excited to have Clara experience his sandbox for the first time today.  Clara, in turn, was pretty excited to eat the sand.  Shoveling a handful in her mouth.  Pausing thoughtfully.  Shoveling in another handful. 

He also invents some pretty cool peek-a-boo games for Clara.

And is willing to share Daddy from time to time.

Yeah, those two are going to be thick as thieves soon enough. 

Fingers crossed for a healthy and happy post the next time. 

Breather

These past two weeks have flown by.  It's been nice to be in a bit of a routine - no travels, no holidays, no parties - just normal life.  It's been a  lot of fun.

We did take one special outing to go rollerskating on New Year's.  It was a first for Grady (and Clara, though she just stayed in the stroller), and Matt and I hadn't roller skated in decades.  Grady was excited to get the skates on - they just clipped over his shoes.

Not sure why his head looks so disproportionately big in the photo....

Grady made it about half a lap around before deciding it wasn't for him.  But not bad for a first outing!

The blind leading the blind

Grady doing a victory lap, sans skates

Mostly, though, we've been spending a lot of time playing at home.  Grady is, it seems somewhat suddenly, very interested in independent play.  He has intricate stories involving his favorite toys and their adventures that go on for the better part of an hour.  They are often repetitive (Mater taking numerous trips to a "jumping program" for instance), but they keep him entertained.

He's also been very busy working on his expressions.  He's got some good ones!

"Okay mommy, that's enough faces."

We've also all been enjoying (okay, mostly me and Matt at the moment) playing our new PIANO!  Thank you Grandpa and Nana!  It's been a lot of fun brushing up on our old lessons.  And I think we have a mini Mozart in Clara - look at that form!

We've all but completely cut out Grady's nap at this point.  About once a week he desperately needs one and he'll nap for hours, but then good luck getting him to fall asleep before 10 o'clock.  He's still in that in-between phase though where he's really ready for bed by 6 when he doesn't nap, so the evenings can be challenging.  

I'm going to hate myself in the morning for writing this, but Clara seems to have finally turned a corner with sleeping as well.  Pretty much every night for the past week she has woken up once in the night and then put herself back to sleep before getting up at 4 to eat, and then falling back asleep for a few more hours.  So just one trip out of bed for me.  Much better than having to get up at 12, 4, and 6.  I actually feel like my brain is starting to come back a bit - I even remembered something the other day!  It was crazy!

Clara has also begun saying some words.  She is the proud speaker of "all done" - "ah dunnn."  And she is almost definitely saying "daddy," "bye" (with wave), "cat" (more like a throat clearing, but it's consistently associated with cat), "up," and possibly "down" though that's less certain.

Her favorite things right now continue to be eating, pulling up, and Grady.  Here, she combined all three.

  She's mastered the one-handed stand and is starting to walk sideways while holding on.

She's also really interested in putting things in and out of boxes right now.  Since Clara's interested in that, of course Grady is too.

Grady dominating the putting sticks in boxes game

 

The kids also had fun rolling around on this big pillow I made over the weekend.  Moments like this are when I'm so happy we had these two so close together.

Clara had her nine month check up last week (at 10 months) and all looked great.  She is hitting all the marks for development, and came in at 30 inches (97%) and 22 pounds, 7 ounces (93%).  She's starting to look pretty grown up!