Play Time

Last night, Claira was in great spirits. She has finally come around back to being her old self after being sick, and was playing and laughing and having a good old time. She even slept ALL NIGHT LONG!!!

Greg likes to pretend to be asleep whenever she & I come home to him, and he'll pretend to be snoring and she loves to "wake" him up. While she was playing and walking around near the couch, I started to play pillow fight with her. After a few minutes, she put her head down on the couch pillow and pretended to "snore" while she was looking up at me smiling. It was a riot! She kept making that little "shhhewww" sound and grinned at me.

Later, she found her deflated punch balloon. Uncle Kevin brought it over to her from Kyle's birthday party that she missed because she was sick. She was playing with it, and stuck one end in her mouth and crawled over to me and sat back on her feet and looked up at me and kinda yelled "mmmmm" at me until I looked at her. I took it out of her mouth and threw it into the middle of the floor. So she turned around and crawled over to it, lowered herself to pick it up with her mouth and brought it back to me. She was playing "fetch" and after a couple of times, Greg got into it and she's pick it up and bring it to us. She'd sit back on her little feet and wait for us to throw it out again. I started petting her hair and telling her what a good puppy she was and barked "woof woof" at her. She "barked" back a little high pitched "woof woof" and proceeded to get the balloon again and bring it back to me.

Greg & I were in hysterics. We could not get over that - What a funny little thing she is.

She has started responding to questions with a head nod / "yes" or a shake / "no" which has been a lot of fun, too. She actually responds to "Do you want mommy to make you a bottle so you can go night-night?" with a yes and a head nod on a regular basis - and she means it. We enjoy this new level of communication with her. She certainly has a mind of her own and for the most part, does not just answer "yes" or "no" randomly.

She even took her few, first, faltering steps last night from daddy to me. WHAT FUN!!! She is growing so fast and I just enjoy each new stage (okay - not every stage: The whole pitching a fit while I change her clothes is not enjoyable) and really love being able to watch her become this real, little person. Kinda like the little boy and his Velveteen Rabbit, maybe???