Clara - again

Before I get into another lengthy post about Clara, I did a crafty thing this week. Jeremy's sister asked me to make some I Spy bags for her. I thought they turned out great!Why do most of the pictures I take are of Clara? I really hope my readers don't get too bored with all the Clara stories and pictures. I know I'm one of those annoying moms that tell everyone how cute their child is. But she really is my pride and joy. She can be the biggest challenge and my biggest source of pleasure all at once! She is growing up way too fast and I keep trying to find ways to slow her down. Any suggestions?

Clara sure does love her daddy.Clara will turn ANYTHING into a desk so she can "go to school."Clara being "Super Bunny."To go with that super bunny, Clara LOVES to jump.Getting Clara to bed is always a production. One night she decided to not put her arms in her sleeves and ran around like this for a little bit.

• Clara ran and beat me to my chair when a client came over for me to tutor. She then said, "I'm going to help this boy with his math!" She looked at his book and said, "This 1 equals this 3."

• Clara usually says the exact same prayer every time she prays. She always says, "Dear Heavenly Father, thank-you that I can go to sleep, in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen." So at dinner, when she was asked to say the prayer, I tried to help her say a prayer that had to do with the food. In the middle of the prayer, Clara said, "Hey, it's not your turn to say the prayer, it's my turn!"

• I caught Clara jumping on her bed. So I told her that she couldn't jump on the bed because the bed could break. Clara's response: "But Mommy, little girls like to break beds."

• Clara had a cup of juice out and I wanted her to put it in the fridge so the juice wouldn't go bad. She was in the middle of doing something and didn't really want to put it away. Clara then said, "I have an idea. I will put the juice right here (in the middle of the floor) and then I can put it in the fridge when I'm done. Is that a good idea?"

• Jeremy has a touch screen phone, I do not. Clara loves to play with both of our phones. Clara brought mine to me one day and informed me it was broken. I quickly tried to figure out what she had done to break it. To my surprise, my phone was working just fine. When I told Clara that it was working, she said, "No it's not, see." She then swiped her finger over the screen and said, "See, it's broken. Let's get Daddy's phone, it will work."

• Clara and I were hopping around the room pretending to be bunnies when she said, "That's great hopping, Mom. Good job!"

• Clara slammed her finger in a door this week. She was crying a lot and I was giving her finger kisses trying to make it feel better. At one point I said, "I'm so sorry that your finger is hurt." Her reply was, "It's not your fault, it's my fault."

• I caught Clara picking her nose. I told her to stop and explained she should use a tissue. Her response, "I'm just trying to get the boogers out."

St. Patrick's Day

I was in charge of teaching Clara's preschool this week. I threw a St. Patrick's Day party and Clara has pretended to be a leprechaun ever since. She is now obsessed with finding pots of gold and rainbows.I showed Clara the program Paint. Clara is now in heaven and spend hours a day "coloring on the computer."This is one of her works that I was very impressed with. She remembered the colors of the rainbow in the right order and was able to color it herself!I often sneak into Clara's room at night just to check on her. I'm not sure why I do it. I don't do it every night, but most. I love to give her forhead kisses as she sleeps. I know, I'm crazy.

• Clara ran up to me and said, "Mommy, I want you to see this teddy bear." She then held her teddy bear up high. Not knowing exactly what to say, I responded: "That looks like a very soft teddy bear." Clara: "Thank-you!"

All About Clara

It's been a week - and this up and coming week is even better. But the great thing about my picture blog is that I take A LOT of pictures, so I still have things to post from this week that didn't make it on my picture blog. It just so happens that they all have Clara in them....

Clara came up to me and insisted that she wear a bib while she paints so that she "doesn't get all messy."I found Clara like this one day after she had been quiet for a little too long.The first thing Clara does every morning is ask me to wrap her up in a blanket. I love how snugly warm she looks.We have a tree out front that Clara always tries to climb. Look at that face of satisfaction and bliss when I finally let her climb it.Clara says the Pledge of Allegiance every Tuesday and Thursday in her preschool class. I love that she can now say it all by herself. (And yes, she can say it all by herself. For some reason she decides to get shy when I pull out the camera.)

Funny stories for this week:

• Clara and I love to take walks. One day we walked by a bus stop and Clara really wanted to go sit on the bench. I let her for a little while, but I was afraid of a bus coming and thinking we wanted to get on. So I told her it was time to keep walking so that a bus wouldn't stop for us. That was a huge mistake. Clara LOVES busses and when she found out that a bus would stop for us if she sat there, it was really hard to get her off that bench. I started explaining to her that we needed money to ride the bus and I didn't bring any money with us that day. After pondering all of this she held out an empty hand and said, "I brought pretend money." I then said "Great, we can pretend to ride the bus." "No, I want to ride the real bus." "Sorry honey, the bus driver won't take pretend money." Clara very sadly got off the bench and walked next to me.

• On that same walk, Clara was running far ahead of me. I explained to her that since we were walking on a busy road, she needed to stay close by. With all those cars, she could easily get hurt. Clara then said, "But if we get hurt, we can pray and Jesus will help us."
  

• Clara almost always draws a picture during church. She uses it as a "map" as we walk home. She looks at her map, finds where we are at on it, figures out which direction we need to go next and then proudly announces "This way!" I then have to follow her in that direction. It makes me laugh.

p.s. Happy Pi day to all!!!!

Friends!

My favorite part about this week is having my friend Danielle come visit me. I met this girl my freshman year of college and became fast friends with her. We always lived by each other until she got married. Soon after her wedding, she moved back east (where both her and her husband are from.) I haven't seen her in 7 years, so she's never met Jeremy (or Clara.) She came out to visit her sister who is now attending school in Utah. Danielle and Erin (her sister) came over for dinner last night. They could only stay for 2.5 hours and the time flew by. It was so hard to see Danielle go, knowing it could very well be another 7 years before I see her again. She is one of my most favorite people in the entire world. We chatted and giggled like we were still 18 and in our first year of college. Well, I guess the things we giggled about changed. We giggled over kid stories and husbands rather than crushes and crazy roommates. Oh Danielle, thanks so much for taking the time to see me on your VERY brief stay here. And thanks Erin for being willing to stay as long as you did! It made my entire week!Clara no longer sleeps very well. Once she falls asleep, she sleeps great. But she's been falling asleep around 11:30 or midnight and then waking up at 7:30. I've even tried to not give her a nap during they day in hopes she'll fall asleep sooner at night, but the only thing that has done is create a VERY cranky Clara (not one that will go to sleep.) So I was very grateful yesterday morning when she wanted to "sleep" on the couch at 10 am. She ended up actually falling asleep! She slept for about two hours and was the best she's been for our 1 pm church!

• I need to be better about recording Clara's funny moments when she says them. I keep forgetting what she says. So it's just one for this week. (The only one I remembered.) Clara loves to "read" the hymn book during church. Yesterday she was "reading" hymn #276, whose title starts with a C. Clara said in a very low grouchy voice: "Number 6 is a bad guy. Number 7 is a bad guy." She then changed pitches to a sweet high pitch and said, "And number two is a princess. And C is a prince and you will marry the 2." She then carried on an entire conversation with those numbers and letter. Oh what an imagination, I love it.