What makes her, her

It sounds so cliche but I really do feel like I was JUST writing Claire's two year update, where I wrote about how Claire is small, smart, shy and sweet.  And here we are at three years and I'd say I still use those words to describe her.  While I wish I could document every little thing about her, I begrudgingly accept that I can't.  So I will write about the basics but I also want to document a few things that make her, her. 

I think Claire's primary love language is Words of Affirmation.  I love this about her.  I think it's also my love language, however, the quiz I just took (in the link above) says that my love language is Acts of Service.  Maybe I have both.  Claire often offers an unsolicited "I love you" or "I love you so much Mommy" or "I love Daddy and Max too, Mommy".  It's adorable when she says, "You look beautiful today, Mommy" or "I really like your shirt, Mom".  When she wakes up in the middle of the night and I tuck her back in, she usually says, "Mom, I love you.  I love you so much. And I love Daddy and Max too".  Melts me.  

In the car, Claire regularly asks, "How do we get there?" She literally wants to know the play-by-play for how to get to our destination.  I used to think about it and respond with the appropriate, "first we take a left, and then right, and then straight, and then another right..." but now I just make it all up.  Josh says that's going to bite me someday.  I still don't understand why she asks this.  

When she's frustrated (especially when she can't open something, or get a shoe on, or a toy to work), she grunts and says "arrrggghhh!"  I admit she got this from me.  

Carefully watching Laurie

 Don't ask me why, but Claire seriously dislikes the word "cute".  Do NOT call her that- you can safely use the words "beautiful" or "pretty" instead.  The other morning I accidentally said that her jewelry was cute.  "Don't say that word, Mom! Don't say cute!" "Why don't you like the word 'cute', honey?", I asked.  "Mom, I just don't!"  On Saturday a man at the mattress store told her she was very cute.  She slowly walked over to my side, looked up, and whispered ever so gently, "Mommy, he said I was cute. No, I'm not".  

Claire doesn't believe in lounging in pajamas in the morning.  No, she insists on getting dressed IMMEDIATELY after waking in the morning, which is usually before 6:00AM.  "Let's put my clothes on!" is some of the first words out of her mouth in the morning.  She is the lightest sleeper and wakes before 6:00AM every day.  She's in bed between 7:30-8:00PM and usually asleep by 8:15 or so, which means she only gets 10 hours, at best, of sleep per night (she often wakes once or twice a night too).  She naps mid-day, but only for an hour or hour and a half (often woken by her brother).  If Max wakes from nap before her, I run like the wind to try to get him before she wakes up.   

I feel that she doesn't get enough sleep at night but the literature we received today said that three year olds should sleep an average of 12 hours per day, so she's close. 

Claire likes to pick out her own clothes in the morning and it's a painstaking process.  She still favors dresses, and likes pink and purple best. 

At two years old, Claire weighed 21 pounds and was 31 inches tall.  At three years, she weighs 25.2 pounds and is 34 1/4 inches tall (don't forget that 1/4!  Just like I don't forget to say I'm five feet, 1 AND A HALF inches!).  The documentation we received today says that toddlers usually gain 4-5 pounds and grow 3-4 inches between ages two and three, which she did... so I'm not sure how that works, because she's still quite the peanut.  She's in the 3-10% for height and "less than third" percentile for weight.  They transition from measuring their head, like they do babies, and measure their BMI...which is in the 25-50% for her.  

She wears mostly size 2T and size 6 shoe.  

Claire is shy and timid around people she doesn't know, or doesn't know well, but is getting better with age.  It is convenient sometimes, like when we were at the mattress store this weekend and both Claire and Max just stood there quietly, observing others, while we tried lots of different mattresses.  At home though?  Or around people she knows?  She's nuts!  I love how she's crazy, and fun, and silly, and playful.  I try to instill all of those qualities in her.  Not a day goes by that we're not having tickle attacks, or running around the house with piggy back rides shouting "Choo choo!!" or playing hide and seek.  We like to have fun here and not take ourselves too seriously. 

Cousin Brody is Claire's security blanket.  At her birthday party, she made him sit next to her while we sang "Happy Birthday".  She insisted we bring him to her three year well-visit today, so along he came!  It's sweet how much she loves and trusts him.  After they measured her height today (in the picture above), she ran over to Brody and gave him a big pound dog (aka knuckles).  The nurses thought it was a riot.  

Claire likes to sing a lot. She likes to make up her own songs.  Speaking of her love language, I often hear her singing while playing independently, "I love my Mommy.  My mommy is so beautiful and I do love her".  Another time her song was, "I love...when my mommy...kisses me on the forehead".  She loves when I sing the song "Hush little baby".  She likes to sing it too, but her version goes, "Hush little baby don't you cry, Mama's gonna spy you a rocking mike".  Cute funny.  You can watch an adorable (short) video of this here. 

Testing her vision at her well visit today. And those shoes? LOVE. 

Claire LOVES jelly beans.  She gets three jelly beans after dinner and I think it's the best part of her day.  On Saturday evening, Grandpa Brad tried giving her a jelly bean before dinner.  She declined and said, "No, I have to eat dinner first".  I bought a few bags after Easter when they were on clearance but they won't last us all year when she eats three per day!  Ruh-roh! 

So, a pretty random update, if you made it through it all!  I want to write and write and write so I remember all that my princess is at three years old, but it's just not possible.  I am glad though to document and remember these few precious things that make her unique.  She is a gift, such a gift. 

Sacrificial love

I've had a lot on my mind and heart lately, it seems.  

Claire has been challenging.  I've heard that three year olds are more challenging than two year olds...and with Claire's third birthday a week away, I'd have to say a resounding....AGREED!

When I say she has been challenging, I mean.... "I often don't know what to do with her and she drives me insanely crazy and I sometimes feel like a failure of a parent and I just wish she would always be the kind and sweet and obeying girl that I know she can be and am I doing everything WRONG?!?!"

The trouble is.... I see a lot of myself in her.  In her good and in her bad.

And can I fault her for that?  This girl could move mountains. She is passionate and empathetic and stubborn and strong-willed and hilarious and did I mention she's incredibly smart?

Those qualities manifest themselves in many ways.  During the first week of the "OPERATION", I told her she had to take a nap so we could go to the park with Katie and Parker and have french fries and a shake.  Surely, she would sleep at least a short while in the next three hours, right?!  Wrong.  She cried for over three hours and then the entire way to the park she continually asked, "But why are we going to the park, Mom?  I didn't take a nap.  So why are we going?  You said that I had to take a nap to go to the park, but I didn't.  So why are we going to the park?"

I didn't talk with her the entire drive and inwardly cursed myself for threatening something for which I wasn't willing to follow through.  

Daily, I pray for patience.  I pray that Jesus would give me the grace necessary to extend to Claire.  I pray that she would see glimpses of His compassion, and patience, and gentleness, and unconditional love through my interactions with her. 

And daily I fail.  And when I do, I ask for forgiveness...and for wisdom to get it right (or at least, better) the next time. 

Claire is my heart.  She's my happy, my frustrations, my elation, my joy, my belly laugh, my anger, my wondering if I'll ever get to sleep past 5:45AM consistently again.  (Did I mention that she has an internal clock that wakes up between 5:00-5:30AM EVERY SINGLE DAY?).  

The other morning before work, I sat wearily on the bathroom floor, holding my baby girl.  I told her, "Claire...someday you will sleep in.  You may be in high school, but you will sleep in.  Someday."  

She responded, "Mom, you're teasing me".

One of my pastors once said that he has told his sons, "I love you because I  love you".  I get that now.  

When I need to be reminded of sacrificial love, I look to my own mother. 

My mom.  My amazing blessing, my best friend, my confidant, my cheerleader, my shoulder to cry on.  My person who I talk to at least once, if not twice or thrice, a day. 

Right now I have terrible pains in my neck.  It hurts to move my head and I'm popping like 12 ibuprofen a day.  I told her this morning and she immediately said, "You need to get in to see Andy (our amazing miracle worker of a chiropractor).  I know that he is booked this week and early next week but I have an appointment next Tuesday afternoon (she has chronic issues with her wrist) and you can take it from me".  

I almost cried (and you know I'm not a crier).  Sacrificial love.
Putting me above herself, without any hesitation.
  

That's who I want to be for Claire. When she's 30 years old 27 years from now, I want her to say that I offered her a life of sacrificial love.  I want her to say that she admires her Mom who gave her boundaries and taught her perspective, who shared openly and daily about the Jesus who died for her, who taught her that she can do and be anything, and who was, is, and always will be her safe person. 

I want to be for Claire what my Mom is for me.  Sacrificially loving.  

Easter weekend

Now that I enjoy practicing using my camera on manual mode, I take way too many pictures.  Like, over 200 pictures from this weekend.  What happens is they all sit on my computer, taking up space in iPhoto. And I have to somehow choose about eight of them to go in my annual photobook.  But you get some for your viewing pleasure on my blog too. I don't know if these are the best ones or not, and I haven't edited any of them.  But it's 8:00PM and I'm tired from a busy day at work and home and have Grey's Anatomy waiting for me on the DVR.  Oh, and maybe some of that "better than s-e-x" cake I made for Easter Sunday dinner.  

I was off from work on Friday.  We went to Jesse and Ben's house to see big brother Andrew and meet baby Ethan.  He is adorable!  Does this beautiful Mama look like a woman who has two boys under two, and had her second c-section 10 days ago?  Yeah, I didn't think so either.  

Towards the end of our visit, Claire sweetly asked me if she could hold the baby.  Then she looked away from him the whole time.  She'll be a great big cousin to her two baby cousins on the way.....??

On Saturday morning we decorated eggs.  I am reminded every Easter that I am amazingly incompetent at making hard boiled eggs.  I even asked Josh this time if he considered the water to be boiling.  We ended up with five (yes...five) half-boiled eggs to decorate.  See how Max feels about that?  Pull it together, Mom. 

I dislike how terrible the lighting is in my kitchen, because that's where a lot of our family memories take place. 

After nap on Saturday, we went to the farm to celebrate Easter with the Dockens, Parks, and Hebels.  I am so thankful for the work that God's hand is doing in our family- both of Josh's sisters are expecting. Next Easter there'll be FIVE little cousins in the egg hunt.  

This boy?  He just kills me.  Today I spent probably too much time at work staring at this 

picture on my phone.

Out of all the 200+ pictures, I am in ONE of them. And only because I kindly asked my SIL to take a picture of me and Max.  At least it's a cute one. 

Saturday night I stayed up late making Cinnamon Sugar Pull Apart Bread for Easter brunch.  From actual flour and yeast (not even the fast kind).  I also got crazy and made a double batch of Potluck BBQ meatballs from the amazing Pioneer Woman to put in the freezer for weeknight meals. 

Easter morning, we went to a beautiful service at our church with my dad, Becky and Chris. Afterwards we enjoyed brunch and had another egg hunt.  Claire insisted that the Easter bunny HAD to come to her house while she was at church, because she did NOT want to see him. 

A little over-exposed but I love his huge green eyes and four little bottom teeth in this one.  Does he really have to turn into a pimply, hormonal, sweaty fourteen year old? Because I really like him at 17 months old.  

She's not trying to seduce you with her bare shoulders.  It's just that her 2T dress was huge on her almost 3 year old body.  

After naps, we went to Nana's house for Easter dinner, along with Big Brody, the Farmers, and Chris and Becky.

This is sweet baby Maylie at 13 weeks old. 

And yet another egg hunt! Claire and Cambrie are so sweet together.  Cambrie is a total tomboy and does things like grunt and army crawl on the floor and play in mud and booty dance.  And Claire either looks on in horror or tries to impersonate, but ends up squeaking instead of grunting (lest you think she is an angel, just spend a few hours in our house.  NOT an angel, letmetellyou).  

I tried getting all fancy schmancy with these last photos.  Focus on the flowers? 

And again? 

And now focus on Nana with her grandbabies! 

Each holiday I am reminded of how incredibly grateful I am to live near family and have my children grow up with their grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins.  I didn't have that growing up- our nearest relatives were six hours away.  

 Even more so, I am thankful that my Savior died an excruciating death.  For me.  

And that...?  It changes everything. 

WITH ALL CREATION, I SING

PRAISE TO THE KING OF KINGS

YOU ARE MY EVERYTHING

AND I WILL ADORE YOU. 

Staycation, part dos

Our staycation continued Friday with a trip to the Minnesota Zoo with Melissa and Carson (and baby girl, due in June).  Can you see the monkey? 

Carson and Claire are both on the timid side, with new people or situations.  They get along well. 

On Saturday we went to Kristen Hanson and Tyler's wedding.  Kristy and I grew up in the same cul-de-sac.  Her sister's (Amy) blog is one of the blogs on the right side.  Kristy is five years younger than me, Amy is two years, and their brother David is one year younger than me.  They were great, great friends growing up (and still are!).  Amy and I say that we were each other's very first friend- we first met in the cul-de-sac with our puffy snowsuits on when I was four and Amy was two. Their mother, Mary, called me a "peacemaker" when we were growing up.  I've always remembered that.   

Kristen was a stunning bride and the ceremony was incredibly touching and God-honoring.  

Tyler and Kristen praying with both sets of parents. 

We enjoyed chatting with our 'old neighbors' at the reception.  The kids did remarkably well for being out and about during nap time.  We had to hightail it at 3:00PM because we were on borrowed time.  Both children fell asleep on the hour car ride home, bliss! 

 Behind the cute cake centerpiece is my Godmother, Cindy, and her husband Paul.  

Claire kept saying on Saturday and today that Kristen had a "butterfly" (beautiful) dress. 

It's back to the grind tomorrow.  I tried making evenings a little easier this week by making and freezing a lasagna today and cutting up all the veggies for the crockpot chicken fajitas I'm going to make tomorrow.  I am blessed to have been able to spend the past week with my children and see many special friends during each day's playdate.  And I'm thankful that this coming week is only a 4-day week for me!  

Have a great week!