Elmo Elmo Elmo Elmo

Claire has chosen to ignore her abundant vocabulary in favor of pointing out her favorite fuzzy red Sesame Street character wherever she sees him (although, she never watches Sesame Street)... and many other things that barely resemble him. In support of this newfound fascination, Amanda ordered an appropriately sized and very simple Elmo doll for Claire to enjoy - and the last two days have been a hoot!

She carries him around all day long while going about her routine, and gives him regular hugs and kisses along the way. "Emmo emmo emmo..." she says when she wakes up from her nap - and continues to chant through the day.

Eating Cereal Video

A few things I like about this video:

1.  The way she puts her finger in the hole of the cheerios

2.  The way she examines when two are stuck together

3.  How she puts the cheerios back on the plate after spilling them (the new sippy cup is bigger and bulkier, so she's still getting used to it)

So Glad to Be Feeling Better!

Little Claire bounced back quickly and ended up having a fun week!

Here she is playing in the other pillowcase dress I made for her.

I wasn't able to capture it in a picture, but Claire eats her Cheerios by sticking her finger into the hole and picking them up one by one, stuck to the end of her finger.  It's pretty funny.

Angela and I took Claire and Hannah to the pool yesterday.  They kiddie pool was great for them and they seemed to have a fun time.  It was a little hard to get a picture of them together because Hannah can't stand up and Claire wouldn't sit down! 

She doesn't like letting me browse for books at the library, but she loves the little children's area.  She is constantly moving between the bookshelf with board books and the different chairs.

A new phase of picture taking!  Claire will now smile upon request--and what a cheesy grin it is!

This morning, Claire and I enjoyed playtime and lunch with Betsy and Anna Kate from MOPS.  Anna Kate is just a few weeks older than Claire.  They don't interact much, but enjoyed their parallel playtime!

Update and Videos

I took Claire to her pediatrician this morning and she was given the clear to return to normal activities.  All tests and cultures turned out negative.  The doctor thinks she just had a virus and that she probably has an immune system that reacts strongly.  While not a bad thing, it does make her white blood cell count high, so they run the extra tests as a precaution.  Thankfully, when she get a little older, they will just have us watch the fever and not go through all the tests.  Guess for now it's just better safe than sorry.  The doctor reviewed her medical history and said that she is healthy and there is no reason to believe there is a deeper problem.  She said it was just a little bad luck.

Here are some cute videos of Claire.  First, playing Patty Cake.  Notice her "rolling" her hands and the way she says "and me!"





Next, playing at the beach.  (Sorry about the noise of the wind!)



Walking with MM and Pops.  Notice how when she's finished walking, she just stops and there's no getting her to walk again!



And last, exploring one of the sculpture gardens.

More on Murrell's Inlet

Claire has lots of admirers at Garden City Baptist Church. She appears to be quite famous as she gets carried down the hallways and gathers compliments along the way. She thoroughly enjoyed the new library and picked out a new Matthew Van Fleet book "Heads" to take back to MM & Pops' house (her favorite book, Alphabet, is a must-have when she spots it on our dresser, and this one was no different throughout the week). Sadly, after taking good care of it for several days, Claire ripped off the head of a Tiger on page 12... oops. It did, however, teach her new words such as: "burp" and "achoo".

Some of the other new words learned on vacation include: Pops ("bak"), MM ("meme" or "nono"), knock knock ("nok nok"), blanket ("booket"), stick ("ick"), rock ("uck"), fork ("gook"), woof ("fffff"), snack ("ack"), and Elmo ("amo").

Elmo is becoming very recognizable and she can point him out in books and TV. Unfortunately, she does not like the Elmo-in-the-box toy nearly as much as her sock-monkey-in-the-b0x. After the third or fourth surprise, Claire would not go near the toy anymore but would moan and walk away if it was too close to her. She does not appear to be afraid of Elmo anywhere else, but she might be afraid of an advertisement for the Fudgery that features its founder in a costume.

As we said, Claire did not finish the trip well since a visit to the ER is never in anyone's vacation agenda. She was happy to have her own room with a door where she could relax and watch TV between nurse visits, but I fear that she's been scarred for life from her chest X-ray experience. Since Mommy is carrying baby brother, Daddy was alone with Claire when the nurses placed her in the x-ray immobilizer. If I had seen a picture of this device several weeks ago, I would have laughed. However, I now find myself appalled at that such an archaic mechanism is even remotely acceptable in the age of modern medicine... having looked down into the sobbing eyes of my little girl as she's trapped in the thing, begging for me to rescue her. If I am ever asked to place my child in such a device again, I intend to refuse.

Rough Weekend

Poor Claire has had a rough weekend.  Last Thursday she started running a fever while we were still in Murrells Inlet.  It stayed pretty low all day, so we were hoping it was just a reaction to her immunizations the previous week.  Unfortunately, she had a rough night Thursday and her fever hit 105.5 degrees Friday morning.  We talked to her pediatrician and then took Claire to the local Emergency Room at their recommendation.  The four hours we spent in the ER were rough.  Since her white blood count was elevated, they ran lots of tests to look for a source of infection.  All the tests came back negative, but the experience was very tough on Claire.  She cried hard when anyone came into the room.  She even refused to take a teddy bear that they offered her.  Poor sweet little Claire said "bye bye" to everyone as they left the room, no matter how much discomfort they had caused her.  They gave her a shot of antibiotics and told us we would need another after 24 hours.  We packed up and headed home that night.  Saturday and today have involved visits to the local pediatric urgent care office for more shots.  Thankfully she hasn't run a fever today.  We have a follow up visit with her pediatrician tomorrow and hopefully we'll get this behind us.  It's so hard seeing her suffer...

Murrells Inlet Visit

Claire had a great time visiting MM and Pops last week.  We visited the beach a few times.  Claire still prefers the sand over playing in the water.  She did enjoy picking up the seashells and moving them from her bucket to the cup to the sand and back again.

Claire enjoyed playing at the neighborhood playground.

Claire always loves reading books.  This particular book was from their church library.  In reading it, Claire learned how to say "ah-choo!" when the elephant sneezes.  It was so funny!

Claire enjoyed exploring MM's tupperware.

Here is Claire swinging and playing patty cake with MM.  She started saying "and me!" at the end of the poem.

Brookgreen Gardens

While visiting MM and Pops last weekend, we enjoyed a morning visiting Brookgreen Gardens.

Taking a stroll through the zoo

In the butterfly house

Exploring the sculpture gardens 

Claire has learned how to smell the flowers