Potty Training

While Melissa was away at the MDA Conference in Las Vegas, Claire decided that she was going to start using the potty full time. With Dave's help Claire became very confident in her ability to wear underoos and go potty on her duck potty. Unfortunately this new desire to use the potty did not extend to school and therefore we were in limbo with the potty. It seemed that the problem at school was with the potty so we set out the following weekend to expose Claire to other potties so that she could become more comfortable with non-duck potties. We bucked the traditional wisdom of staying home and headed out on the town. Claire did awesome using the potty at tumbling, at the historical museum, and the SMA Gala that we attended. She was very proud of her new skill and would announce that she "went pee" loudly and proudly to anyone who would listen. We ran into some problems the next day when the car ride to the zoo was just a little to long, but overall it was a pretty successful weekend with only two accidents. This method proved successful as Claire began to be more comfortable with the potties at school and we are moving closer to having a full potty trained little girl. Now the challenge is being able to quickly locate the nearest bathroom at every request to use the potty, which is more frequently than we ever anticipated.
Update- As of the end of March Claire was completely potty trained- quite excited for our big girl!

Claire singing Baa Baa Black Sheep

Claire at 26 months

We have been falling behind in our post about the happenings of Claire (and her parents). It has been a busy few months for us as we learn to keep pace with a two year old. Claire is such a joy and it is fascinating to watch her learn new things minute by minute. As this doubles as our baby book for Claire we wanted to take time to note what Claire is doing at age two.

At her two year checkup (12/2011): Claire weighed in at 21 lbs 15 oz (2.59% of the CDC charts), height was 2 feet 10 inches (55.19% on the CDC charts), and her head was at 19.02 inches (71.82% on the CDC charts)

• Claire talks in full sentences now and we are working on using all of our nice words to express our needs instead of demanding that something is done. It is great to hear things like " I love you", but not so great to hear things like "I no love you, I love Sparky". As with any two year old Claire has said some funny things that make you pause and wonder where she heard that from, one of our favorites was "That's what I'm talking about",


• Claire can identify all of her capital letters and can sing her ABC's


• Claire can count to 10


• Claire knows her colors, and loves the color purple and insist on wearing it head to toe


• Claire is learning her shapes


• Claire loves to sing and can belt it out, among her favorites are: "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star", "Baa Baa Black Sheep", "Wheels on the Bus", "Itsy Bitsy Spider", "Bumblebee" and her songs from school and tumbling.


• Claire continues to love books and has memorized some of the books so that she can "read" them with us. Her favorite book right now is Johnny Lion and his Rubber Boots- which happened to be a childhood favorite of her Daddy. It is such a treat to have her jump in on parts while you are reading or to have her read it to you from her bed.

• Claire pulled out her stridor bike this weekend and was riding it all over the house, the few inches she grew this year gave her the height to ride it on her own. We can't wait to take her to the park for some bike riding this summer


• Claire continues to enjoy her art, she likes to use stickers, color, paint, and recently has begun to enjoy the use of scissors and loves to cut things


• Claire loves to help us in the kitchen and cook. She has the recipe for scrambled eggs with cheese down and enjoys walking us through what to do. She is always up for cooking us something in her play kitchen.


• Claire loves to play teacher and we are often asked to get on the carpet so we can do music class, or go through the picture cards. It is an interesting way to find out how school went that day as she recreates things that happened that day.


• Claire is learning to dress and undress herself. So far socks, shoes, and pants have been achieved. It is fun to watch how proud she is when she can get dressed or undressed without her mommy and daddy.


• Claire and Sparky continue to get on really well. Claire adores him and loves to give him hugs, throw his ball and fill up his food dish. Sparky may not have this same strong desire to be hugged all the time, but he tolerates it well.


• Claire continues to enjoy tumbling class on Saturdays and is getting more confident with her skills.

• Claire enjoys going to the Wings over the Rockies Airplane Museum, the Zoo, the Science Museum, and to various musical events.

• We finally caved and let Claire watch a little bit of TV and she enjoys Superwhy and Wild Animal Baby Adventures. Her favorite (and only movie) is Toy Story.

• We are currently breaking 5 teeth through so our grand total of teeth is at 14 teeth

• Over the year we moved through the young toddler and early preschool preschool 1 rooms at Primrose and we start in the early preschool 2 this week!

Happy Holidays

Claire's 3rd Christmas was lots of fun as she is starting to understand that the those gifts under the tree are for her and that Santa (whom she recognizes in pictures) brought her some of them.

Opening her stocking

Enjoying the easel that Santa brought her

Cuddling with Sparky

We celebrated New Years up in the Mountains, enjoying some time outdoors, exploring the chocolate village at Keystone and taking in some of the celebrations at Copper Mountain.

Sledding on the limited snow that was in the mountains

Claire's Tumbles Into Two

For Claire's 2nd Birthday we had a tumbling party at the local recreation center where Claire takes her weekly tumbling class. We were fortunate that Miss Sarah, her tumbling teacher, was able to host her party. Mrs. Sarah did a great job incorporating some of Claire's favorite activities including Ring Around the Rosie, Wheels on the Bus, the Parachute, Open Play Time and Music Time! Thanks to all our friends and family who made it a great celebration and brought toys to donate to Toys for Tots!

The kids playing with the parachute

Claire showing off her bar skills

Music time

Claire and her 100% edible tumbling room cake

Claire Turns Two

Happy 2nd Birthday to Claire!

Claire at age 2

Claire at age 1

Claire at 3 days old

Maine Trip -December 2011

In December we took a quick trip back to Maine to see Melissa's family. While we were there we..

Hung out with Papa and made many trips to see the cows, pigs, and sheep of Deb Tone Farm

Hung out with the cousins and met their hamsters

Enjoyed a scenic drive along the coast and went to the beach

Celebrated Claire and Grandpa Tom's Birthdays

Hung out with the Borish family!