dear clara (10 months and 1 day)

Welcome to the double digits, my dear. You have now been a living, breathing, crying, laughing, babbling part of our lives for longer than you were living in our imaginations and hearts. (Oh yeah... and in my uterus too.)

This month we got your very first baby school report card- while we were holding out for valedictorian, it turns out they don't assign that in the Little Roos classroom at LMUCC. Instead, we learned things about your development like "child has a friendly personality and quickly warms up to new people" and "explores environment by reaching for objects and putting them in her mouth or banging them on the floor".


I'm not convinced that this is a document that we need to hang on to for your college applications, but it was nice to talk with your teachers more in depth and to get more assurance about what we already knew about your care there. Your teachers love you almost as much as we do, and I think the feeling is mutual, since every morning we walk into the classroom, you eagerly reach for Aura or Minerva or Laura or Ivy, and barely spare me a backwards glance when I leave for the day. Instead you take more of the "moooooom, I'm BUSY" approach when I try to kiss you goodbye.

Another thing I learned in the parent-teacher conference was that you really enjoy using the walker while out in the play yard. I suppose this shouldn't have really surprised me much, given that the day before you spent half an hour pushing a Pampers box around the living room.


But in my head I thought that walkers were for babies who, well... *walk*. So that day I rushed out to pick out a bright plastic doodad with wheels and a mysterious ladybug/mailman theme, much to your delight. You now push this with equal determination and glee around the living room. Although the glee is frequently interrupted by frustration as you bang the walker into something and squawk with disdain for the wall or table or person having the nerve to be in your path.


I promise I don't laugh when this happens... at least not very loud.

We have had a fabulous summer so far- filled with the finer things in life like pool parties.



And ice cream cones.


And 4th of July Barbeques with friends.


I'm sorry to say you didn't enjoy the July 4 festivities very much. Although it looks as if you're objecting to your daddy's efforts to feed you broccoli out of the bottom of a Tecate beer can, it turns out that your unpatriotic spirit could be blamed on a nasty ear infection and your two front teeth trying to bust through your gums, poor thing.

It's been incredible to watch you communicate with us, and mind-blowing how much you understand even though you don't have any words yet. You can shake your head "no", push away things you don't want (like tofu, carrots, and strawberry-flavored antibiotics), and reach for things you do want, like your two favorite things on the planet right now:

Monkey.


And the Teletubbies Sun.


Oh, how you loooooooooove this sun. Whenever she pops up to greet you in the morning while you're parked in front of the TV so we can get ourselves out the door to work, you squeal like you're a teenybopper seeing the Beatles or Justin Timberlake.

I think I know how you feel about the sun... you are the light in my life. And I don't even mind having to spend entire days with the Teletubbies theme song stuck in my head. I love you that much.

Mama