James is growing stronger everyday. He can hold his head up for long periods of time during "tummy time," and he sits up well in his Bumbo seat during meal time. He loves to make eye contact and smile with someone--especially Claire. He enjoys his playmat, watching me work in the kitchen from his bouncy seat, swinging, watching Claire, and riding in his carseat (as long as the car or stroller doesn't stop!). He's old enough to be left in the church childcare now, so I resumed my piano teaching one morning a week. He's finicky about his bottles and often puts up a fight before taking one. We have a little bath chair that lets him take a bath at the same time as Claire. He doesn't mind the bath so much, but doesn't like getting out of the water and getting dressed. He still has some fussy times during the day but is doing really well at night. He goes down around 7:30 pm and often sleeps past 3:30 am; after a feeding he'll go back down again until about 8:00 am. He's still sleeping swaddled in his rock-n-sleep (the latest attempt to move to the crib didn't last very long). He takes several naps during the day, including one fairly long one in the afternoons. He is wearing size 2 diapers and starting to outgrow some of his 3 month clothes. He eats every 2.5 to 3 hours during the day.
Claire still continues to impress people with her vast vocabulary and clear pronunciations. She talks in sentences and phrases. She transitions quickly from happy Claire to full-blown temper tantrums when she doesn't immediately get her way, but back again when she is obliged. She loves to play and does more and more pretend play everyday. She's particularly cute taking care of her baby dolls and stuffed animals. One of her Bible study teachers laughed at how she was rocking and taking care of a doll while simultaneously doing other things around the room--I guess she's been watching me multitask while caring for James! She enjoying going to the park and we've had some beautiful spring-like weather lately. She doesn't care too much for slides lately but loves swinging and exploring and playing in the sandbox. She has started to sing some songs but doesn't like to do it if we request it and she knows we're listening. I've heard her sing through "The Itsy Bitsy Spider" and "Baa Baa Black Sheep" almost perfectly. She also loves to listen to her Kindermusik CDs.
Claire really enjoys her Bible. She looks through it for her favorite stories--Adam and Eve, Noah, Baby Moses, Jonah, Zacchaeus ("key-us"), and her all-time favorite--Baby Jesus. She has gone from finishing sentences in her books to being able to say whole pages, but she would much rather have us read to her. Other favorite books right now include "Go, Dog, Go," "Shiny Dinah," and "I'm a Big Sister." We have started doing family devotions from a book after dinner each night. The devotions include a quick story, prayer, and song. She really enjoys the "de-oceans" book.
We all went out for breakfast last Saturday. Before we left the house, Matt asked Claire if she wanted to have pancakes for breakfast. Of course, she did and proceeded to say "pancakes! pancakes!" the whole way to the restaurant and until they were in front of her. She ate a the pancakes happily and almost finished the very generously sized serving. Today, Matt got up early and treated us all to homemade blueberry pancakes. Claire loved them. Later in the day, Matt caught Claire with her toy skillet and spatula "feeding" James. He asked her what James was eating and she said "pancakes and blueberries!"
We had a picnic lunch on our back porch last week. Claire doesn't often have the freedom to get up and walk around during a meal, so it ended up being a very long lunch as she was all over the porch and in and out of the house. She likes to list things, and when Matt asked what she had for her picnic lunch she said "chicken and blueberries and carrots and blueberries and oranges and blueberries and chicken and milk!" At one point when she headed inside she closed the door and said "Bye Bye Brooks! See you later!"
I took both Claire and James to the zoo for the first time and we had a wonderful day. The weather was mild and the zoo wasn't crowded. James slept well in the double stroller and Claire loved seeing the animals and talking about what she saw.
Only rarely has Claire ever gotten a chance to run around the house in just a diaper; usually it was just a few moments in the morning or bedtime routine. We started to notice that she behaves especially goofy without any shirt or pants on, and so the last few weeks we've allowed her to indulge for a few minutes prior to taking a bath. During this time, she manages to get us all giggling just by being silly. It's an excellent way to end the day.
Claire is wearing mostly 2T clothes and size 4 diapers, but I've ordered size 5 for the next big box. Her favorite foods are fruits, cheese, yogurt, and bread. She eats her veggies well and drinks about two cups of milk everyday. She naps from about 1:30 pm until 4:00 pm and goes to bed at 8:00 pm and sleeps until 7:30 am.
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