tidbits

We are enjoying our time in Oklahoma.
Emily is up to 7.5 lbs. She is smiling a lot lately and laughed for the first time. She is a joy.
Claire enjoys pretend play more and more. Yesterday she was playing with a kitty shaped sugar and creamer and had lots of fun wrapping them in a blanket putting them to bed and talking to them and about them. "I have to wrap him up. Kitty is cold..."
Claire has gotten quite good at opening packages and even opened a few that weren't for her!

We are looking forward to seeing Claire interact with all her cousins on Sunday at the big family gathering.

Holiday vid

We received a little video camera for Christmas, so here is a short clip.



I've edited the rambling interview down to 30 seconds.

=== transcript ===

Dad: Is Claire wearing a Tam o'shanter?
Claire: (mumbling) ... Tam o'shanter
Claire: It's a new day. (reaches for hymnal) Our Father, who art in heaven... Ransomed captive Israel.
Dad: What song is that from?
Claire: Mommy remembers.

Recipe

Claire is getting over her cold. She seems to be feeling fine now...just a little residual nose drip.
We are working daily to teach her to sit on a chair and play or read quietly. This child of mine talks constantly. I do catch her playing silently on her own sometimes though. She will sometimes sit quietly for 2-4 mins during these quiet times. It seems like she did better with the first couple than she did today. I am trying to remember to do it at 10:00am each day, but I've been forgetting.

Emily is still very sweet and cute and cuddly and loves to nurse. Ya! She is up to 7 lbs 2 oz. She doesn't mind tummy time for a little while each day. Claire likes to lay down with her. I think she likes to watch Claire. I took a bunch of photos of them today.

Recipe ideas:
easy vegetarian dinner
2 cups mixed greens finely chopped (I used spinach, beet greens and Swiss chard.)
2T olive oil
one tomato diced
1 can black beans drained
1/2 c chutney or other sweet relish/sauce
hand full of raisins

Cook top 5 ingredients 7 mins. Add last two and heat thoroughly. Serve over cooked millet, soba noodles or rice.

Toddler tiny bites
Break Ryvita crackers into bite sized pieces and spread with refried beans or pumpkin puree. top with ground meat or leftover cooked veggies.

I tell Claire they are fancy hors d'oeuvres and she eats them all up.

I've been sneaking pureed spinach into her hamburgers and pumpkin or sweet potato into her refried beans.

Claire and I made some cinnamon dough ornaments today. We have a very small live tree this year. It doesn't have any decorations on it yet. We have been enjoying evening prayers and hymns with our advent wreath. Claire loves the candles. When we blow them out she asks to do it again. We have incorporated singing the Doxology into this time since she is so drawn to it.

Wed. news

We took Emily to the cardiologist today. He said she looks great and he doubts the VSD will ever give her any trouble. He suspects it will close on its own.

I took the car to PepBoys to have the battery replaced today. The car has had to be jumped twice lately. The girls and I took a walk to Ragazzi Room, which has sadly gone downhill after a change of ownership.

We left the house at 8:10 and returned at 2:10. I'm not used to being out that long. it was taxing even though everyone was well behaved (Except for the car).

Claire has come down with a cold. I didn't realize it until we were on the road this morning. She is mellower than usual and doesn't have much of an appetite and is stuffy nosed and sneezing. Hopefully she will get over it quickly. Please pray that Emily will remain healthy.

My shoulder and hip joints have been hurting recently.

I finished reading the Love and Logic Magic book. It has many really good ideas but leaves a lot of the details to applying their principles up to the parents. I suppose this is good since every family is unique. On the other hand I am clueless as to how to apply some of them with Claire.

briefs

Emily has grown out of her smallest pj's. I have set aside two pairs for the dollies.

Thanks Katie for a nice visit today. Claire adores baby Luke.

I worked on having Claire sit quietly in a chair today.

I'm frustrated by not having had the time to finish reading the Love and Logic book. I have many questions and am not sure how to proceed.

Irony

oh the irony... after Mark posted last night Claire woke up crying several times. It was because she had an allergic reaction to some peanut butter on a butter knife she encountered when I turned my back. As a result her mouth was hurting her and she didn't eat any dinner. Her skin on her hands and face and neck was bumpy and itchy. I was and am very sad that this happened. Please pray that she will grow out of her allergies. It is becoming more difficult to protect her from being exposed to all of the things she is allergic to.

I enjoyed taking Emily to the Advent tea at church Sat. It was beautiful and relaxing and everything was tasty. I enjoyed chatting with the women and getting to know Anne Reynolds a bit. Emily's Godmother, Khouria Joy, got to hold her for a good long while so it was extra relaxing for me. Emily spent the remaining time in the sling looking around, nursing or sleeping.

Emily is up to 6 lbs 13 oz. She is a pleasure to be with. She generally only cries when she's hungry or too tired. There have only been a couple of times when I couldn't console her right away. She is making steady eye contact now and tracking with her eyes. She has been grasping things with her hands whenever they are at the right place at the right time. She hold on to a lock of my hair a lot. She's started batting at toys.

Claire is enjoying the choices we give her as a result of reading the Love and Logic book. She also enjoys it when I notice aloud things that she enjoys. "I noticed that you like to eat crackers. I noticed that you like to read books with Mommy. I noticed that you like to play with the neighbor kids." My goal for this week is to institute quiet chair time which I've been meaning to do since just before Thanksgiving but haven't remembered to do. Claire needs to learn how to sit quietly when she's asked to so that she can be quiet during church. We've been practicing whispering and I praise her whenever she does it.

good sleeps all around

Every morning first question I ask Claire is, "Did you have 'good sleeps?'" And the last few weeks have been pretty good. Actually great compared to the past struggles with sleep she's had. Her new achievement is consistently sleeping 10 hours a night, from about 8 PM to 6 AM. I think the wet diaper has a lot to do with this, since sometimes when she wakes up a little earlier, I'll change her and she might "sleep in" to 6:45 or even 7.

Next milestone, for even better sleeps, will be when Emily stops "snorting" and "bleating like a lamb" during the night.

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other news details

Emily is up to around 6 lbs 10 oz. these days. We've been weighing her several times a day on an accurate scale that we are renting from the same shop that rents the breastmilk pump. Progress is great considering that she was well below 5 pounds when she came home on October 22nd.

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Video of Emily

Emily is so sweet. She loves to be held.
I caught her in enjoying some time sitting in the boppy pillow.

New photos on Flickr.