I feel like there's a giant countdown clock hanging over my head and ticking down the days left of summer break. Now that sleep training has gone so well (she's now sleeping 10-11 hours each night!) and we've REALLY settled into a strong routine, it's time to reshuffle our lives and head back to work. Sigh. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love my job. It's the best job in the world, actually, and I adore my coworker, Mrs. Miller, and all of my students. It's just that there's another part of myself now that is 100% fully devoted to Clare and I can't turn that part of me off...the part of me that desperately wants to be a stay-at-home mom. She will be staying at an in-home daycare with a wonderful person (who is actually the person we bought our house from) who loves and takes excellent care of children. I feel good about where she'll be staying and the fact that she'll only be there with one other baby...much better ratio than a standard daycare...but I'm still just sad that I can't be the one to stay home with her. Unfortunately it's just not possible for me to stay home and there weren't any part-time jobs available in the county that I was capable of taking on. So, my new mantra is 'It is what it is'. I can't change anything so I'm trying to look at the situation with a positive spin and remind myself that the teaching calendar is the next best thing to being able to stay at home if you have to work full-time.
Alright, enough venting...time for some Clare updates! She is now 5 months old and is doing SO much. Her laugh is infectious...although she makes you work for it! Andrew and I joke that she is a tough crowd sometimes with how selective she is with her laughter. For some reason, though, she thinks Aunt Libby is hilarious and always gives her best laughs in Libby's presence. She is not, however, selective with her smiles and she smiles ALL the time! It's the greatest feeling in the world to get her up in the morning or from her naps and find that sweet face peering through the slats of the crib smiling up at us. We fight over who gets to get her up each time! She is really into faces lately and likes to use both hands to explore people's faces when they hold her. She's also learned to imitate our kisses...we spend a great deal of time kissing her sweet face and now she will lean back in with a sloppy, open mouth and plant one right back on our cheeks making her best kissing noises! She likes to stand while holding onto our fingers and loves it when we 'dance' with her. She is so much fun and seems to be showcasing new facial expressions, babbles and talents each day.
She's also learned that she LOVES to suck on her fingers...she'll occasionally take the pacifier but she's definitely a finger sucker!
Our family friend, Tish Pack, painted this stool for Clare. Giraffes are her favorite! We've already put it in her bathroom and we absolutely adore it!
We celebrated her first 4th of July at home this year with my parents, Andrew's parents and Clare's Aunt Erin and cousins Hannah and Ian. Andrew grilled kabobs and we had a nice time visiting and spending the holiday together. That night we took the monitor out onto the back porch and listened to the fireworks while Clare slept. The fireworks, however, wore out their welcome later on that night...especially the ones being set off in the neighborhood that were loud enough to register on her sleep monitor. Luckily none of them woke her up...and I guess I don't really have a right to be angry since her bedtime is 7:00 and it's unrealistic to expect people to not shoot off fireworks...makes me feel old to even be complaining about it! :)
Recently, my friend, Katie invited us to a story time group at the DeKalb Public Library for 0-24 month olds. Clare and I joined Katie and her son, Riley, for a fun morning of playing games, reading stories and singing songs. Clare isn't yet old enough to play games but she was highly entertained by all the people watching and she did such a good job since that's the biggest group of kids she's ever been around! We had so much fun the first time that we went back this past week and met Katie and Riley again and our friends Kaye and her son, Logan and Lori and her son, Trey. Our friends are taking over this play group and I love it! I'm kicking myself for not taking any pictures last week but we plan on going these last 2 weeks of break so I'll have time to document our fun. Ladies, you have been warned! We also signed up for a reading program that required us to document reading up to 15 books to her and entitles her to a free ticket to the Children's Museum. So cool! We will be heading to the library for this group as often as we can when we're out of school.
Clare lounging on the beautiful quilt made by another family friend, Carol Kobayashi. This is where we do a lot of our reading and she practices rolling over!Stay tuned for next month when we start introducing solid foods...we'll get to see if she's as picky of an eater as her mother!
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