Bubbles!!

Claire's grandparents gave her a "Bubble BBQ"...it's quite a hit with the little girl. We had to clean out CVS of small containers of bubble juice because apparently large containers are a seasonal thing at Target. In theory you can make your own...I have yet to channel Martha Stewart, though.

Excuse the slight fuzziness of the pictures - I don't know if its because it was getting dark or if our much-abused digital camera is finally close to biting the big one. I suspect the latter.

Claire the Congested Kitty Cat

Claire has a miserable cold this weekend (bonus: with a fever) but since Old Navy was selling costumes for $5 and she has a Halloween party at school next Friday, guess where we went? The idea of a duck, frog or bee went straight out the window thanks to the sale, of course. Claire could not have cared less. I thought the cat outfit was much better than poodle or bat.

So this is our miserably congested cat in her first try-on of the costume. She was watching a Backyardigans, so I could have put her in pretty much anything. She dealt with it for a little bit, but the thing is HOT, so once she started cooking it was time for the thing to go. Luckily it velcro's on/off like a little jacket, nothing over the head, so she can strip it off herself easily. The pants with the feet slowed her down a bit, which was funny. I had to help with that.

In addition to the Halloween party on Friday, her school moved their Halloween festival to Nov. 1 since it rained all day today, so she'll hopefully have two opportunities to wear this. Her daycare is affiliated with a local private school that also owns 3 daycares, so they are having a festival for all the schools. Might be fun if she can get and stay well for a week or so. "They" keep telling me her immune system will benefit from this. I hope so.

Pumpkins!

We made the trek up to Butler's Orchard in Maryland on Saturday. Ray's family used to go there when he was younger. They have a lot for kids to do - animals to see/feed, tunnels and slides and such. Claire had some fun - she liked the chickens and pig.

She liked picking out her pumpkin and insisted on carrying it all the way from the field to the checkout share. (Mommy's back almost gave out, but that's ok.)

September = shoes and school

September was busy, we just didn't realize it until, well, until October. The first week of September Claire started daycare/preschool. The first few weeks were rough. As in wailing crying when I dropped her off. Lovely. For whatever reason, this week she suddenly is ready to go and excited - to the point where she doesn't even look back when I take her to her classroom (so now its my turn to cry for a couple of weeks!). We're really excited she's enjoying it this much, though. Huge relief.



They have (so far) covered the letters A-D, colors, body parts - she knew the majors, but now add cheek, chin, etc, to that, and they just started the Five Senses. They have "show and share" - Claire took Theodore the Giraffe one day and showed everyone how he could fly. (what, your giraffe doesn't fly?)



At home Claire's been busy trying on shoes. Primarily Mama's shoes, but she'll try on shoes anywhere. If she spots shoes lying around someone else's house, she'll sit down, very purposely take off her shoes, and then try on said random pair of shoes. I haven't had any incident reports from school yet, but it will happen. And she is equal-opportunity on the shoe thing - note her attempt at wearing Ray's work shoes.


We haven't worked out what Claire will be for Halloween yet. We were thinking Bee, but I have yet to find a good (read: cheap) costume. Ducks are a big thing right now (well, with her) so we may look into that.

Stay tuned!

Virginia Beach!

After the race (see below) we took Claire down to the beach. Last year she wanted nothing to do with this place - the whole thing pretty much freaked her out. What a difference a year makes! She fell asleep on the way down there and was out cold when Ray carried her down to the sand. We laid out the sheet and put her on it, thinking if nothing else we'd just hang out and she'd get some much-needed sleep. Nope.

The moment Ray laid her down she woke up, fussing. Then sat up, looked around, saw the water and went, "Oh, wow!!" (or the 18-month-non-verbal equivalent thereof). Then she got mad at us because we had to hold her back to put her bathing suit on. She had a blast. She started off splashing, then ran in with Ray. Then ran back out.....but promptly turned around and headed back in....for about 45 minutes. Then we built a pretty sad excuse for a sand castle, but took no pictures because we were all too dirty by then to touch the camera. She loved it, though. And then slept very soundly that night. (sorry for the small pictures, you should be able to click on them to super-size).

Rock 'n Roll 1/2 Marathon - 2008

The main reason we go down to Va. Beach each Labor Day is so Ray can see his college friends and run the RNR 1/2 Marathon. Claire and I are the Springsteen Support Crew. This year they changed up the course a little bit, so its actually easier to see him several times. We managed to find a good corner to see him go by at 1.5 miles, then again at 11 miles. Then we crossed over a block and saw him just past the 12 and then we made it over to boardwalk and saw him right before 13-mile marker!

And of course there was some downtime in between. We found a restaurant (at 6:30 a.m.) to give me coffee and let us sit inside to have Claire's breakfast...she actually was happier then this picture shows, for being grabbed out of bed at 4:30 a.m. Then she ran a few laps up/down the block while we were waiting for Ray to come by, and tried to climb the light pole to see better. She did see him and wave when he went by at the 1.5 mile, but then cried because he didn't stop and stay with us! She saw him barely at 11, and then the last two times was so tired she was just too cross-eyed to care. She was a trooper, though.

The End of an Era :-(

Most of you have heard about the most wonderful sitter/nanny in the entire world: Suzy.
She started with us in January when I was studying for the bar, and then when Claire's daycare couldn't take her until September, she stayed on with us full-time. We were sooooo lucky to have her! Claire loves her and we never doubted for an instant that Suzy wasn't taking good care of her.
But, all good things come to an end, and Claire starts daycare September 3 - which is really good timing because she seems really ready to do this. Even though the first couple of weeks will be tough, I think she'll have a blast.
Oh, did I mention Suzy's really (really) tall? Yup, as in 6' 10".

Yay, communication!

Claire seems to have figured out that talking's not all that bad. Lately she's hit the long-awaited for "language explosion" - not just with words, though - phrases and sentences, which we're loving.

Lately we've had:
"That's a horse." - to Ray while watching Backyardigans
"Over there." - telling Ray where his shoes are.
"Down there." - telling me where her hair rubberband fell
"More water." - well, you can probably figure this one out
"No." - not thrilled with this one, but it was bound to happen.

And she's also less shy about making animal sounds - the other night Ray got a "moo" and a "buzz" and she's developed a respectable "woof."

There's a fountain at the Reston town center near Arlington. Kids aren't supposed to play in it, according to the sign, but they really shouldn't have made it so tempting. Claire and two older girls were chasing fountain spouts when we were out there last weekend. Claire got soaked, but loved it! (until she fell and skinned her knee, then we dried her off, changed her and had a good mexican lunch...a skinned knee tends to be our natural ending to most things).

Spaghetti night!

yum! Despite the mess, Claire's getting better at using her fork and spoon. She definitely prefers the spoon. She's developed a move we'll need to patent - as she puts the spoonful of food in her mouth, she uses the back of her other hand to make sure all the food actually gets into her mouth.

Another month of constant motion

July was BUSY. We went up to Shelter Island for July 4th, Claire played at the beach a bit. She is now the proud owner of big fat crayons and loooooves drawing with them. We went to a water park out in the 'burbs - she had a great time splashing around. .....and she kept growing. And growing....and growing! Her car is newly accessorized with a Springhill Motor Co. sticker, and Rosa decided to see what all the fuss is about with that Pooh chair.