Claire's 23rd Month

Claire turned 23 months yesterday, which means the big TWO is now less than a month away! I have to say, though, Claire's 23rd month might be more significant than that actual birthday milestone. She grew up so much in the last month (i.e. at the age of 22 months), due in large part to her big sister-ish status having Baby Girl Chandler in our house. BGC came to us about six weeks ago and it looks like she'll be with us another six months, at least!

Claire being attached to me as she is, I thought she would have a hard time with a smaller baby in the house, but the moment BGC came in, Claire became one of the big girls. She and Kate want to help feed the baby, dress the baby, change the baby's diapers. . . and Claire sure thinks she is big!

She loves to put the bottle to BGC's lips, let her take one suck, then pull it out and declare, "I did it!"

She now likes to pick out her own clothes (from a choice of two), buckle her own top buckle on her car seat (or any other buckle on any car seat or infant apparatus she finds), and drink from a open cup. She has strong preferences about which sippy cup she gets, when she uses them, and is quick to request one of her two favorite foods, even for breakfast: peanut butter and baked beans. And she gives a polite and perky "tan tou!" (thank you) whenever you hand her something. She's also very good at finding things. I can offhandedly wonder where my phone is, and she will find it and bring it to me.

I keep telling her that when she turns two, she'll need to use the potty and stop nursing. Those will be tough. I thought she would be easy to potty train because she wants to do everything Kate does, but for months, whenever I ask her "do you want to sit on the potty?" she says cheerfully, "No!" Then, suddenly a few weeks ago, when I opened the box of 2T clothes for fall and showed Claire the panties she gets to wear when she learns to go on the potty, she immediately wanted to sit on the potty! "Potty!" she'll exclaim, and it sounds remarkably like "Daddy!" So, she's been sitting on the potty some now, though she's only done anything in it once.

As for the nursing, she won't go easy. I thought our trip to Charleston in August would help wean her, but she was right back in the game when we returned. At 22 months, I started limiting her to bedtime only (and during the night, because YES, she still wakes up!!) and while she has had a few fits when realizing in the morning that this shop is closed, she's dealing okay. Cutting her off completely is going to be tough, though.

buckle buckle!

feed the baby!

So sad!!