20 Months

January was a long month. We've spent the last two weeks passing a nasty virus around our house. Clare, thankfully, seems to have recovered (knock on wood!), but I am still in the middle of it. I haven't been able to taste anything for a week now, which is strange to say the least. (However, that didn't stop me from consuming a quarter tray of taco dip during the Super Bowl. Sad, I know.)
I will say this though: Clare, despite being extremely congested for a week or so, did NOT get an ear infection. Ear tubes ftw!!

Clare's nap schedule has changed - she has basically given up her afternoon nap, and her morning nap is much later than it used to be. I'll admit it - I miss her taking two naps a day. Some days she really seems to need a second nap. (I need it, too. When else am I supposed to catch up on everything on my DVR?) And she'll go down okay, but it never fails. Ten minutes in she is screaming at the top of her lungs, demanding release from her prison.

She has many new words to add to the list, including Big Bird, Grover and Abby. (Anyone see a theme?) Also: tini. For martini. Yeah. Ben is happy because she says hockey, and uses it mostly correctly. (She thinks golf is hockey, too.) She calls my mom Jo, which is pretty cute. (It is also her name, so it's not like it is a fun nickname or anything. It is just cute when Clare says it.) Her other new words are: juice, pop, garbage, puppy, ice, snow, ouch, box, potty, wow, whoa, and mote (remote).

She is also the new Mistress of Stall. Every night before she goes to bed, she is suddenly hungry, demanding food. At first, I thought it was because when she was sick she ate very little and was making up for lost time. Now, though, I think she is just trying to delay the inevitable. She'll use a similar tactic before nap time, too, demanding more and more milk, even though she is struggling to keep her eyes open.

I feel like I should have more to say, but my head is just way too congested. When you're sick, do you ever feel like you can't remember what it's like to be healthy? That is how I feel right now. What is it like to taste food? I can barely remember, and I've only been sick for a week.  And I don't even have any cute pictures of Clare to post at the end here; I barely took any this month. Okay, I'll stop whining now. One thing I am really happy about: it is light when I leave work again! This makes me indescribably happy.