Updates

Not too much lately, but these past couple days Claire has ventured out a little and taken a few solitary steps. Nothing really more than 6 fast paced stumbling steps, but steps by herself nonetheless! She has been cruising along things more and more, and loves to "walk" her truck (well, Paige calls it a truck...but it's those push-along/ride-on car thingies) sideways everywhere. Paige also likes to help Claire walk, too. I have a video of Paige doing so, that I'll paste here after this.

The girls have had a nice little cold for almost a week now. Well, Claire has....but Paige for a bit longer. The doctor has told me a few times that the colds going around this season are pretty bad and stick around for a long time. I, myself, had bronchitis last month and finally got treated for it. It doesn't seem like the girls ever got it...and hopefully still wont.

It seems as though Claire is already moving to a one-nap schedule. I think Paige had two naps when she was this age for quite a bit longer. But then again...Paige likes her sleep like her mommy does :)

But yeah, I have found out that as I put Claire down for her typical 10:30 or 11:00 nap, it takes her 45 minutes to an hour to finally fall asleep. And then she almost never takes her 3:30 or 4:00 nap. So, the last two days I have made an effort to keep her up and occupied until anywhere between 12 and 1 pm, and then put her down. She's usually tired by then and will sleep 2 1/2 hours! So...looks like that's the right move to make.

Claire has been babbling a lot lately too. Her recent repetitive favorite sounds like this "doo-ga-doo-ga doo-ga" or maybe it's more like "doo-guh"....anyways, it's really funny to listen to, because she might say it really fast for about a minute. Like she's holding a conversation with herself.

I have been saying for a while that I need to start taking her pacifiers away from her. For the most part she doesn't use them. But when she gets tired (or if she's roaming around the house and finds them) it will calm her down. Also, she's on whole milk now, but refuses to take milk in anything other than the bottle. She will drink water and juice from the sippy cups just fine, but if I put milk in the sippy cup she will take one sip and make a face like "uh...this isn't juice...gross" and hand it back to me. Haha! Sooo...I'm gonna have to think of things I can do about those two (pacifier and bottle). I know that I'll probably just end up doing both cold turkey. I just have to get un-scared and actually do it! :)

Paige has been going through a phase lately that is driving me nuts. She's very insistent on things she thinks should be true. For instance, this morning I put some toaster waffles in the toaster and she said "those are pancakes" and I said, "no, they're waffles" and she said "No. They are pancakes" and I think we did that two more times before I finally said "Paige, listen. Waffles have holes in them like this (pointing to picture of waffles). Pancakes are smooth and don't have holes." I don't think I convinced her though because she insisted one more time that they were pancakes. I think that if that was a rare occurance (her telling me what is right or wrong) it might be funny. But when it happens all the time, all day long...it's not funny anymore. She also tells me what to do CONSTANTLY. "Momma, I want juice. Momma, give me some cheese. Momma don't do that, it doesn't go there. Momma, move. Momma that dish doesn't go there. Momma get me food!" UGH. And, like I said, she's insistent on it. She will boss me around all the time until I finally tell her to be quiet. I also always tell her how she should ASK me things (not demand them from me) and she knows the right sentences...but she never starts out with asking me the right way. I know she will eventually learn, because I will be persistent with HER on it...but this learning stuff sure takes a lot out on a parent!

Of course, I was an angel when I was a kid. So my parents never had this problem with me ;)

Oh, Paige also LOVES puzzles. First, last year, she got a huge 2 ft x 3 ft floor puzzle that she put together after only shown once. Then I got her another floor puzzle. THEN she got a 25-peice Winnie the Pooh puzzle (actually 3 of them) along with some other 25 peice puzzles. She put those together very quickly. After that, I got her a small (like 5 in x 7 in) 50 peice puzzle that she put together by herself after a couple times of Brian and me showing her. After she mastered that, I bought her a 100 peice puzzle that I wasn't too sure about (I thought maybe 100 might have been too much). But the first time she opened it and attempted to do it, Brian said she insisted on NO help, and spent 1 1/2 hours straight in concentration on doing it all by herself the very first time (neither one of us showing her how it's put together...what the end result is). I was very impressed! So...I don't know what the next level is, but maybe in a few months I'll get her a puzzle with a few more peices to it.

Paige also can write her name. BUT, haha, it's usually done like this:


She usually avoids the "G" and then will maybe write "P" and "A" a couple more times. But she does understand that her name is spelled "P-A-I-G-E" (even though she'll sometimes say it this way: "P-I-G-E" hahaha). She also loves to tell me that I'm Cortney Yoder, daddy is Brian Yoder, that she is Paigey (or sometimes she'll say Paige) Yoder, and then sister is Claire Yoder. Paigey Yoder is a smart girl :)

Anyhoo, here is the funny video of Paige walking Claire: