This blog has moved to mcgkids.blogspot.com to make room for our new family member! 

Please visit that site to hear the latest adventures of Claire and her baby sister!

More Name Ideas

Claire is as excited as ever about her upcoming little sister, due later this month! We still have not decided on a name for the new little one, and Claire is happy to help brainstorm names. Today over lunch at Artz Rib House with my parents, the conversation went tobaby names. When asked what she thought the baby should be named, Claire suggested "Basil" without hesitation. This was a new idea from her, and it got a chuckle for us all, which irked Claire a bit. Claire followed up with one of her consistent favorites, "Claire". She took care to explain, "There would be two Claires. Claire and Claire!" I asked her if I said, "Hey, Claire", who I would be talking to. She said, "Well, I would think both of us." This kid is hard to stump!

Asleep in the Hall

Claire has always resisted naps. When it is time for a nap at home, she normally stays in her bed but does everything she can to keep herself awake. We can here what is going on in there from the baby monitor we have installed. Claire has conversations with her stuffed animals, complete with distinct voices for herself and the animals. Sometimes the conversations are borrowed from favorite movies. She sings elaborate songs to herself, usually about the events of the day. Sometimes her room gets quiet for 10 to 15 minutes, and just when we think she has dozed off, she suddenly starts singing or yelling really loud, apparently to wake herself back up. We are told that at school she takes an hour or more to put herself to sleep, although she is very congenial about it. Now Claire is old enough to talk to us about it. She tells us that she does not want to go to sleep because she wants to keep playing. (I cannot blame her for this behavior since I do the same thing, only instead of talking or singing to myself, I fortunately entertain myself with the computer or an audio book.)

Today Claire was obviously exhausted when nap time came around. She spent about an hour talking and singing to herself before it got quiet in her room. After another 20 minutes, I went to see if she was in fact asleep. Sure enough, she was asleep -- in the hallway outside of her room! I went and got Kit to see this unexpected situation. Not wanting to disturb her sleep, we left her alone and went back upstairs to work on a few things to prepare for the new baby. When we came back downstairs a half hour later, Claire was back in her bed sound asleep. It is hard to imagine Claire picking herself up, walking back into her room, and putting herself to sleep. But I can only assume the stuffed animals did not carry her back to bed.

Little Sister, Coming Soon

Claire has been very excited about the upcoming new baby ever since we explained to her why Kit's tummy was getting bigger a couple of months ago. Claire has ranged from mild curiosity about the baby ("When will it come out and see us? How will it get out of there?") to impatience ("I want to open Mommy's tummy and see the baby now!"). She has tried to help name the baby, with "Ansista" being her most original and consistent choice. Claire speaks often about how she will help take care of the baby by feeding it and showing it how to do things like cook and jump.

We had some early incidents when Claire bumped up against Kit's tummy while playing, so we had to give Claire specific instructions to be very careful around the bump. Now Claire is extremely cautious and gentle around Kit, and last night she make her way up to Kit's tummy and kissed it ever so gently. Then she just kept kissing it. We said, "Okay, thanks, that's enough," but she said she wanted to kiss the baby ten times, and that she did. We asked Claire if she wanted to say anything to the baby, and she gently patted the bump and said, "What are you doin' in there?" with a little smile on her face.

I know the new baby will not always be easy on Claire. For one, Claire is going to have to learn to get along without quite as much dedicated attention. But so far, Claire is off to about as good of a start accepting her little sister as we could have hoped for. We are very proud of big sister Claire.

Kit and I are not doing as well. We have have been too busy and/or exhausted to prepare, and we are struggling just to get a crib set up, much less get any basic baby supplies in place. I also have a small pile of books to re-read about babies (we already forgot the details of what to do with babies) plus some new books on siblings. None of them have been cracked yet. We will find figure it out, but it may be more of an on-the-job training than we had hoped for. We are glad that Claire, at least, is ready for the new baby.

Panda on the Loose

The new school year started today for Claire. She has graduated to the next class, and is now officially a Panda. This is good since Claire is now with her own age group. She had spent the first few weeks in the Colts classroom with slightly older kids since they had a random spot open just to get her through the summer.

Claire may benefit from having more girls in her new classroom as compared to the Colts, where there were only three girls to about a dozen boys. However, she will leave behind some friends, including her very favorite twins, Alex and Leo, who she seems to follow around and literally pull their arms towards her to make them play with her.

Claire's new teacher writes a little summary of all the kids' days, which is helpful. Apparently today Claire ate "some" of her lunch (just the muffin and bluberries), but she was too busy talking to do much eating. (One of her Colts teachers had also remarked that she "treats lunch time as sort of a social hour.") Claire's new teacher circled "cheerful", "silly", and "talkative" to describe Claire's mood today. I am glad Claire had a good day, especially since she is a little sick. If I were to fill out the same form for tonight, I would have circled "cuddly" and "frustrated".

Flippin' Out at Flipnotics

How did we end up with the wild kid at storytime? Claire is the blur in the brown dress trying to get a mosh pit going.



Hats off to Laura Freeman for her inspired performance at Flipnotics. She really knew how to get the kids -- or at least Claire -- going.

Finally, a Real Kid Bed

Kit and I had been shopping around for a crib for the upcoming new baby. While looking at various baby furniture stores, we saw lots of cute little toddler beds. We had no practical reason to move Claire out of her current bed, which is her original crib converted into a toddle bed. The problem is, we really liked the purpose-built toddler beds in the stores, and we thought Claire deserved a real bed. We also thought somehow we should get Claire a new bed since the baby was getting a new crib. Plus the beds were on sale for a great price. We probably came up with a few more justifications to pile on top of those. You can see where this is going...

Ladies and gentlemen, here is Claire's new big-girl bed!



Disassembling Claire's old bed made us surprisingly nostalgic. We thought maybe her crib would see new life with the second baby, but logistics in the new house are forcing us to get a mini-crib for the new baby. So the bed that Claire learned to sleep in (or perhaps more accurately learned not to sleep in) may be going to a needy kid at the nearby Goodwill store soon. So long, old convertible crib. You served Claire well through three years and three cities.



For the record, Claire and her new teddy bear, Corduroy, fell asleep fast and sound the first night in their new bed.