Again with my irregular, random baby updates.
Let’s see. First, Clair has two new little friends out there in teh world, Laila and Maddie, the daughters of Ravyn and Dorota who just came into this world this week!
Aside from pulling out her own hair, she has learned a few other tricks. She can (mostly) feed herself with a spoon. She is even getting the hang of handling a meal requiring her to use a spoon and her hands. Previously, she would poke her spoon at everything on the plate to her great displeasure. My Aunt Louise sent her a nice bowel and plate for Christmas, and she seems to eat better since having a fancy place setting - who could have guessed?
She eats pretty well. Mostly, we just give her the same things that we are eating unless our schedules are off. She doesn’t have any favorites, per se, but she have a nice broad palette. She devoured some smoked salmon pasta with cream sauce and peas the other night, but I claim that was because I am such an awesome cook! She is also a big fan of beef. Bananas were a favorite at Oma and Opas, but as soon as we got home, she wants nothing to do with them. I think she eats differently at daycare too, which makes it hard for us to figure out what to pack for breakfast.
She is continuing to find more words and communicate better. Upon receiving a cool gift in the mail from Grandma and Grandpa, she started saying ‘wow’ and ‘fish’ (you can see why). She is proficient with the word ‘nein’ (’no’ in German). She understands a lot of things we say like ‘bring X to daddy’ or ‘do you want to brush your teeth?’ She seems to use the word ‘Dum’ like Homer Simpson uses ‘doh!’ If she falls or drops something, she says that. I think she may have started saying ‘poop’ today (she was singing along to the ‘poop’ song today - don’t ask). She has some sign language that she has invented as well, but she mostly has verbal ways of communicating things. This may be a result of the example of her loquacious parents.
She is crazy active. I was telling Sarah, the other day, that is it cool that Clair is now a little person, but she is a really annoying little person (and I mean that with all of the love of a mother). She is full of energy, but luckily, she is not yet terribly destructive (at least, not intentionally). She has a little ‘naughty corner’ in the living room, and she gets the idea that when she goes too far, she has to sit there and calm down. The days of having an easy time at a cafe with her are over for the moment. She is sometimes really awesome for about 10 minutes as she drinks her frothed milk and munches on a goody, and then she needs to explore the room. If I try to stop her, a lot of loud ‘nein, nein, nein’ starts happening. I need to just start ordering an espresso and heading out. At the moment, most of my cafe experiences happen on Thursdays and Fridays while she is in daycare. I suspect if we want things to go well at a cafe, we need to bring her there hungry so she focuses on eating the whole time.
The next thing I want to figure out is what the heck to do with her! She is here with me three days a week, and she needs to do more than just hang out with me. I need to get the details on what to do with a toddler during the cold, dreary months here in Regensburg. Luckily, we have a lot of friends with little guys. Maybe we can do some activities more often. I just need to know what we can do! Any Regensburg moms out there have ideas of where I can take Clair?