Happy 10mo Birthday Claire!

We have many new developments this month:

1. Climbing - She is a huge climber and will climb up anything she can. She scales the gate we have blocking the stairs, every kid level thing she can (picnic table, princess table and chairs in kitchen), the slide in the backyard, any and all step stools. Even think about opening the dishwasher and she is right there ready to jump in. She is making me very nervous. K was never like this.

2. Communication - She started waving, clapping and signing this month. She is a pro at "all done" and even says "ahh dah" sometimes as she's doing the sign. I think this is a favorite because of her strange eating habits (see next item). I think we can claim some words this month, and like K, "Bud" is one of them. Every dog is a "bud" and she is always looking for him when I carry her around in the morning, kicking and saying his name over and over again. She also says some semblance of both "three" and "tres" when you count for her. I was home one day and heard Johanna up with her going "Uno, dos..." and C would consistently follow with "dre." Nanny and Pawpaw said she was doing the same thing for them in English when she stayed over there last weekend.

3. Eating - she has gotten better as far as volume goes, she eats a pretty normal amount. But, this is only if you offer her no less than 6 items at meal time. The girl wants variety. If you try and give her one fruit and one veggie, after about 4 bites you're getting "all done" signed frantically at you, with the welded-shut-jaw-head-bob-to-the-side patented move. So you have to have at least 3 finger foods on the tray and 3 varieties of nutrient-mush to sneak in as she allows. I'm hoping that pickiness as baby = easy eater at toddler, since K was the opposite as a baby and now is the pickiest eater ever. Still the only thing she consistently favors is meat. And now grapes, those she can throw down too. Everything else is hit or miss depending on the day.

4. Favorites - her absolute favorite thing in the world, ranking about even with watching/following/harassing K is street signs. She is OBSESSED. When we go for walks, she sees one about 30 feet away and starts kicking and screaming with excitement, and has even started pointing her hand at them. She freaking loves them. As we approach she just stares and stares, and actually gets a bit upset if you walk away too fast. She likes to look at it from the back as you walk away too. It is so strange. She also loves to crawl around the house chasing K while K runs away screaming. She thinks this is a riot. Typical baby in that she loves tearing paper, which has become a bone of contention as K has a bunch of paper books that have taken a beating. And again typical baby in that she is into EVERYTHING now, pulling open all cabinets and drawers and just being an overall nosy girl into everyone's stuff. As K told Julie this weekend "Claire eats my diapers." What she meant was she pulls her CLEAN night-time diapers out of her dresser and puts them in her mouth and spreads them all over the room. I suppose I should child-proof, but who has time with these kids underfoot all the time? ;-)

I'll leave you with some pics of our favorite bear. We are so lucky to have her in our lives. (Side note, it's so sad how I had to go through and take a bunch of pics today on her bday since I don't take them on a regular basis. With K I was wading through hundreds of photos trying to pick out just a few to post. I had so much time on my hands when it was just K and I didn't even know it!)