We had quite a few "firsts" over the past 2 weeks. I was putting laundry in the dryer and suddenly I hear "Ptht" "spit" "ptht". Oh, would you look at that. A wad of Ollie's canned food with a particle or two of dry kibble. Where Claire had found this treasure I haven't a clue. I do know she must have put the whole thing in her mouth because when I picked up the yummilicious treat to toss, the entire wad was wet. I'm grateful she found it grotesque and not delectable.
Hmmm... talking about wads of deliciousness. As part of Claire's evening ritual, I usually give her a bath before dinner. Probably not the smartest thing to do since Claire enjoys wearing her food a tad more than eating it and -- due to lack of foresight on mamma and dadda's part -- we taught her the same signal we give Ollie when there is no more food to share. We place our hands on our head and say "All done". I'm sure you've already guessed what happens when a baby gives our signal for "all done". Mmmmm-hmmmm! After Claire is all done, she is not only wearing her food, but using the yummy bits as mousse to help style her hair. So the other day I switched her dinner and bath time. All was going well until I saw Claire's face turn red. Nooooooo! She couldn't be... "CASEY! EMERGENCY!! E. MER. GEN. CY." All within that same instant, I managed to scoop Claire from the tub as two little poo's fell from her bottom. Yup. Poop in the tub. A first for all of us! Oooooo, but the fun didn't end there because we enjoy learning our lessons the hard way. That's right. During Claire's next bath night the same thing happened and this time my skills weren't as sharp, so Claire got to enjoy 2 baths that night. Talk about having the happiest kid on the block!
Switching gears for a bit. It's July 4 and we're at our friends' house for a BBQ. Another friend of ours shows up with his son, who is about 4 months older than Claire. As soon as Claire see's them, she walks right up to the little boy and gives him a big ol' hug. All of the adults melted. "Awwwww.. THAT'S SO CUUUUUUTE." As for the little boy, he clung to his daddy's leg all the while asking "Ummm... why is she hugging me? *pause* Anyone want to tell me who is this person?" When Claire ended the hug, she looked so content and just walked away. Mission accomplished. A little while later, Claire joined her new friend on the play set and immediately started to stroke his hair and touch his face (kind of like what she would do with Ollie, except a lot more gently). This time, the little boy appeared more prepared and begin to touch her hair. In order to make the boy a bit more at ease, his dad and I started naming "nose", "hair", "head", until Claire made it known she was ready to go down the slide. I don't know if we should be preparing ourselves now for what the future might hold in terms of Claire and boys. Although, I think Casey already has.
Of course, there have been other developments. The funniest one is Claire's way of saying "Cheese" to the camera. When she was younger she loved to stick out her tongue. Now she opens her mouth as wide as possible, think of a person going "ROAR", so that we can see into her mouth. It's fantastic. I'm curious to know how this "smile" is going to evolve as time passes. She is also extremely fascinated with pine cones, clover flowers and sticks. So much so, that her attention is easily diverted if her eye manages to spot even one of these objects. Our back porch houses a collection of all three because that's where mamma puts them after Claire's already taken them into the house and dropped them in some random location. Claire is also insistent upon pushing her umbrella stroller when we go for walks. This is fine, except for when she spies clover flowers. We are then stopping every inch to pick another one. I try to put them in the stroller for her to push, but that's not acceptable because she must hold all of them and also push the stroller at the same time -- a skill she hasn't yet mastered. As for the walk we took yesterday afternoon -- well, we're still walking. I figured it'll be a while before we get home so I'd blog from my iPhone.
