We enjoyed Grandma's company for a week and were sad to drop her off at the airport on Tuesday morning. She gave me a much-needed break to do some weeding in the garden and window-washing, but more importantly, Grandma's company kept Claire stimulated! It was interesting to see how Grandma would sometimes initiate a different type of play with Claire and her toys than I do; I now have more tricks up my sleeve.
On Tuesday afternoon, we visited Claire's pediatrician and the occupational therapist. Claire is growing in height, weight and head size at a good, normal pace, but the pediatrician, like me, hoped that Claire would be fatter! She is underweight for her height so we were advised to still feed her primarily her formula and rice cereal and then if we can get any food into her beyond the recommended amounts of formula and cereal, we should try fattening snacks such as Pediasure, full-fat yogurt or toast with butter and jam. Honestly, I don't know how I'm going to get her to eat all her formula and cereal plus other stuff! I can see her taking the other stuff (because it's different and probably yummier) but the formula and cereal are supposed to be the priority. Just to help out a little, the pediatrician is referring us to a dietician. It'll be interesting to see what he or she recommends.
Claire is a mover and a shaker big-time, so I think she simply burns all the energy she consumes. She's still close to walking (I always think it's only days away!), crawls everywhere, and does the stairs like nobody's business. She's still big into her yoga move, downward dog, as well. Here's a little clip of her practising her balancing the other night. She doesn't practice this much during the day - she just really shows off when Daddy gets home!
Photo Sharing - Upload Video - Video Sharing - Share PhotosThe doctor, having told me in our last appointment that speech is usually delayed, was surprised to hear from me how many words Claire now says. I estimate that she uses the following words correctly / appropriately about 75% of the time or more: Mama, Dadda, puppy, kitty, baby, up and hat. Hat is her newest word and it sounds so cute when she says it because it comes out sounding a little French - more like "at". She almost always puts something on her head when she says it.
The pediatrician recalled that in our first meeting, I questioned whether Claire is truly as old as we were told. At that time, she thought she probably was, based on her alertness, etc. but now she is quite confident of it given Claire's developmental progress. I was very relieved to hear that her birth date is probably accurate or at least close, as it is one less mystery to Claire's past. In all, the pediatrician was very happy with Claire's progress and even commented a couple of times that Claire is "quite engaging". Yeah, we think so too!
On Wednesday, we attended Claire's last Kindermusik class in the Village series. We start a new class in a different, closer location next week. It was really interesting to see Claire open up over the seven weeks of class. In this last class, Claire was the most interested in the other babies that I'd ever seen her and if another mom had an interesting toy, Claire was not shy about crawling up to her and trying to get it. So much for the statement I'd made to the doctor a day earlier about her experiencing some stranger shyness! However, perhaps she recognized that our Kindermusik participants are no longer strangers - I'm not sure. Here are a couple of photos from Kindermusik.
Today we're going to play indoors and perhaps go walking at the mall because it's raining again. The forecast for the entire long weekend calls for rain. Ugh! Later today, we're going to see Rod, Marianne and their dog, Ryder. We can't wait to see them again!
Tonight Paul is participating in the Canadian Cancer Society's Relay for Life, an overnight walk, with some of his colleagues and friends. Claire and I joined him for a couple of hours. The weather was great to start out with but soon turned windy and cold. Luckily, I had packed a very special, very warm sweater for Claire to wear. In one of my earliest posts, I posted a picture of this sweater from our good friend Christa. At long last, here is Claire actually wearing the sweater! 
After last week's rain, we've really enjoyed the sunshine this week. We just came back from the park, where Claire enjoyed riding the horsie, swinging and playing in the sand with the sand toys I finally bought her.
left front top tooth, and I think I can see the white of her other front tooth through the gums so it must not be far behind. It's hard to imagine Claire with a more toothy smile but I bet it will be super-cute!
Just when we thought it may never happen, Claire cut her first tooth since we received her! She now has a grand total of three teeth. It's on the top, just to the side of the front teeth. It appeared today and is still just a glimpse of a tooth but we're relieved.
