I'm Working On It!

I know, I know ... it's been weeks since I last posted! And, yes, I'm talking more about Claire's blog than mine since hers is the one with pictures. I guess things have just been busy around here. My company's also being impacted by all the mess going on with the economy. When no one spends money, no one needs goods shipped. So there's that. We've had a couple of holiday parties, accidently missed a couple of parties (I swear, we've been busy), and been lucky enough to see some long-missed friends.

Then, Claire was sick a couple of weeks ago. When I took her into the doctor, he prescribed her breathing treatments which meant that we had to somehow get a fiesty 10 month old to sit still and breathe in Albuterol from a nebulizer three times a day. Needless to say, Claire got to watch a lot of TV that week. She's much better now and switched over to the liquid Albuterol.

*** I have a story here that I should probably insert, but I'll write about it another time. But you can ask me about it ... just use the keyword "nosebleed". [shudder] ***

As for Claire, she's growing more every day. She's babbling a ton, and I SWEAR that she said "duck" and used it correctly at least once. She knows commands like "up" - which is very useful when washing her hair! - and is taking baths is the grown-up tub now. She has fun activities like the blinking game where you can take turns blinking back and forth with her for minutes at a time. One of my favorite things is that she waves "Hi" and "Bye-bye" and will do it anytime she hears either even if on TV or from a toy!

I can see her imagination starting to blossom as I watch her playing by herself and talking to the objects around her. She likes to take two similar objects in each hand and knock them against each other, and one very useful interest right now is her liking to put things into containers ... helps with the picking up at night. :) She's starting to recognize the similarities between people. Not sure how to explain that, but an example is if I have something in my hair, she'll touch her own head to find an equivalent item. Or she'll touch my nose and then touch her own.

Her eating habits are crazy as usual. She somehow learned that when she's done or doesn't want something, she just tosses it over the side of her tray so that she no longer has to deal with it. This week, she's also decided that behind her ear is a good place for things she doesn't want (I have no idea why). Unfortunately, she's also become a pickier eater recently ... she knows what she likes, and she knows what she doesn't like. It has been fun, however, testing out her tastebuds with all sorts of foods. She's also pretty sure that she's going to feed herself instead of you feeding her most of the time, so we go through lots of bibs and usually head straight to the bathtub after a meal.

No, she's still not walking on her own yet, but I'm okay with that. I am in no need to have a show-off baby ... a happy, healthy one is good enough for me! Mostly she holds our fingers, furniture surfs, or pushes items around the room to get around. She definitely knows where she wants to go though, so there's no much question that she's the one driving you from place to place!

I figure there's no huge need to get Claire a lot of gifts for Christmas this year, but I am thinking about giving her some bags with tissue paper to open since she's enjoying that immensely right now. I'm hoping to institute a 2 gift rule for her ... one from us and one from Santa. We'll see how that goes.

James and I are staying in Dallas instead of going anywhere these next couple of weeks. I'm out of vacation days after using them up during my maternity leave, and we already went to Aspen this year for my parents' family vacation. My whole family is coming up over New Years and to celebrate my dad's birthday, so I'll get to see everyone then. I thought his parents would come up for Christmas since I'm sure they'll be busy once Baby James (George's baby) is due soon, but it looks like it's just us three for Christmas. We've decided that we're going to start a few Christmas traditions on our own, so it'll be hot pot, a holiday-themed movie, and gift opening on Christmas Eve, then a big country breakfast and Santa's gift on Christmas Day. Not a bad plan, if you ask me.

Okay, so there's the big update. And while I was typing this update, I was also working on sorting all the pictures and videos from this month, so look for those on Claire's site shortly!