Claire at nearly 17 months

Life with Claire continues to be a hoot. She is a major mimic these days. For a while, she was saying practically everything we asked her to repeat but now she's being more selective. At last count, she says approximately 50 words but honestly, not many come out clearly. However, they do come out consistently, so over time we've been able to gather what she is saying by the context.

Her favourite words (i.e. most used words) these days are "upsadaisy", "up" and "this". Regarding the latter, it comes out sounding like 'dis'. She tends to point and say, 'dis', meaning either, "What's this?" or "I want this". The problem is that there are often several things in the line of sight so when we question what exactly she wants, asking her to use the actual word to describe what she wants, she replies with "dat" (that). No help at all but very funny.

She still loves her stuffed animals and her babies (dolls). We finally got her a stroller for her dolls and she loves to push it around. She also likes to sit in the stroller for short spells, which I know probably isn't safe but we watch her very closely. She hasn't had much patience for books lately; she wants us to read them to her but she turns the page incredibly fast and takes pleasure in saying "all dee" (all done) just seconds later. Claire's been enjoying the tea set I had as a kid, as well as a little table and chair set I bought at IKEA. Unfortunately, the chairs are too tall for her to get on herself (even if she tries to crawl up) so we may chop the legs down on the table and on one of the chairs. It doesn't seem fair that her own table and chair set is too big for her!

We're finding Claire to be incredibly responsive these days, answering yes or no to our questions, following through on our questions or suggestions, etc. Some friends and acquaintances have remarked on it as well. Not to say that she doesn't have her own mind or ideas about what to do; it just seems that she listens very attentively and will act accordingly if she's in the mood.

Having been a walker for two and a half months now, Claire no longer walks like Frankenstein's monster. She now walks with her arms at her sides unless she is on unstable ground. She does a funny little run now too. She likes to hop like a rabbit or a frog but doesn't actually jump off the ground despite her best efforts. Last week, she finally mastered going down the stairs in a backwards crawl (having mastered going up the stairs months ago!) but just this weekend, she decided to try going down facing forward, with wild abandon, on her bum. Yikes!

I've noticed that lately when Claire warms up to people, she really warms up to them. Wants to hold their hand, wants them to hold her, to play with her. Wants them over Mama - wahhhh!! Mama is old hat in a big way when new, fun people are around. At first I felt a little rejected but now I'm enjoying it for what it is - a little break for me in a fairly clingy stage she is going through.

Claire now has 12 teeth. This last round of teething was the worst, with a bottom lateral incisor and canine coming in (at least that's what my chart says they are called.) With all of her first-year molars now in, I worry less about Claire choking on her food but I do tend to still cut her food into tiny pieces. She is a pretty good eater but she usually picks at her food slowly, at least at first. Once she gets going, though, she really eats. She uses her spoon and fork a bit, but seems to prefer her hands when she really gets into it. I always put her food in a bowl but she invariably dumps the food on her tray within minutes and eats it from there. I'll keep working on civilized table behaviour, but I'm not hung up on it messy though it is. Right now she really loves grilled ham and cheese sandwiches, chicken cacciatore, honeydew melon, broccoli, and pears.

Claire weighs approximately 17 lbs and is 27 3/4 inches tall. With these measurements, Claire continues to be the littlest peanut in our travel group. I can't wait to meaure her height when she is two and do the estimate of how tall she'll be as an adult. I wonder if she'll make 5 feet? I'm only curious for curiousity's sake; I know she'll be as tall as she is meant to be and that will be perfect.

I've posted a photo of Claire that I took a couple of weeks ago. I think Daddy's sweater looks like a cape on her, so I call her Harriet Potter in this pic. I was reminded of it by a picture of Maeve on her blog waiting for the train to Hogwarts.

Well, this has turned out to be a fairly long post so I better sign off for now. Zai jian!