15 Months

I asked Clare to sit by T-Rex so I could take her picture. She listened, sort of.

We waited until Daddy got home to help. Would it kill you to smile, girl?

Oh, there's a smile! Yay! Now let's try to snap a few quick photos before she...

Crap.

Yesterday, Clare hit me in the face with her sippy cup and then laughed about it. I grabbed both of her hands and said in the sternest voice I could, “No! No hitting in the face.” She laughed again. She didn’t seem the least worried or put off by my scolding her. Is she too young to understand? Or does she just not care? She wasn’t hitting because she was mad or because she wanted to hurt me. I know that. To her it is all a game. At what age can you discipline a toddler? And what do you do to make them understand that what they are doing is unacceptable? You can’t reason with them. I know she understands much of what I say, because she’ll listen when I tell her to put something away or go get her shoes. Any advice on this subject would be much appreciated.

Anyway! 15 months! Here we are. Clare has added a few new words to her vocabulary, including shoes, keys, and cheese. Cheese has become the word she uses for all food. She actually doesn’t want to eat cheese much at all lately. She will eat tomatoes though. And eggs. And bread, especially spread with pumpkin butter. She’s really a pretty good eater, she just needs some convincing sometimes. She inhaled the watermelon at a recent picnic, and last night she gobbled down carrot sticks (and drooled carrot juice all over her shirt). She had her first brat on Labor Day, and seemed to like it. They revoke your Wisconsin citizenship if you don’t like them, so it is a good thing she did.  (Kidding! They let you stay if you show an I.D. to prove you are from Wisconsin. Or is that just so you can vote? It is so hard to keep track of which terrible idea is being put into law these days. There are so many! And while I am mentioned politics in this really long aside, this is pretty funny if you haven’t seen it yet: www.paulryantimecalculator.com.)

Clare got a set of bouncy balls from a friend of her grandma’s, and she has been enjoying throwing, bouncing, and catching those. She actually has a pretty good arm on her. She even played with the bigger kids (Adam, Ben and Mason) last weekend, and was not at all intimidated. She is a bit shy to warm up to strange adults, though, or even adults she knows well, like her grandparents. She is usually fine after about 15 minutes.

Clare had her first day in the Babbling Blue Room at daycare on Tuesday. As I left, she was busy making a call on one of the toy phones in the room. She was more than ready to transition. I think she’ll have lots of fun playing with the older kids and I think it will be good for her not to be the biggest kid in the room for a while.  Oh, and thanks to Uncle Andrew she now has her own cell phone (minus the battery). Lucky girl.

I’ve been taking Clare to the library once a week. She runs around, pulls books off shelves, and plays with the toys the library has on hand for little tykes just her size. It is a great free place to go. I loved going to the library when I was a kid, and I hope Clare loves it, too. She already loves reading books, and will sit in her chair with a book on her lap, reading aloud to herself. (Not really reading, obviously, but talking in her little Clare language.)

Clare has started giving hugs and kisses upon request. Her kisses are big and slobbery, and mostly consist of licking my face. It is just so sweet, I don’t care how much saliva is involved.

I am really enjoying my work/home balance right now. I am sure I’ve mentioned this before, but working three days a week is just about right. I get my adult interaction and time away from Clare, but I also get two days home with her – days that I really, really treasure. I am pretty spoiled.