claire at two-and-a-half

For about six months now, I've been going to write down a few things about Claire at this age.  Last night I was looking at our old blog books and found the pictures of her when she was born.  Holy cow!  She's growing up so fast.  I remembered that if I didn't write things down now, pretty soon she won't be doing these fun things anymore and we'll have forgotten.  That's one thing about keeping up my blog, I suppose.  At the time I write things down, it seems like I'll remember that moment forever, but when I go back and reread it, I realize I would have completely forgotten a perfectly fun moment in our family. 

Here's Claire at two-and-a-half plus a few months:

1.  She still wears a leotard and tutu at some point almost every day.

2.  When I drive the girls to ballet lessons, she packs her "ballet bag" and has to wear her ballet clothes.  She cries every time she can't go in once lessons start.  Every time. 

3.  Miss Frederick, the girls ballet teacher comes out after class has ended and has Claire perform her latest ballet dance for all the big girls.  Then she and the big girls oooh and aaah and Claire thinks she's hot stuff.  She's never shy.  Never.

4.  Miss Frederick wants to teach Claire ballet next fall.  Claire will only be three and Miss Frederick teaches students five years and older.  No exceptions, except Claire.  She already has a dance picked out for her.
5.  I know Claire would love, love, love to take ballet.  Although we don't typically let the girls start an activity (ballet, gymnastics, etc) until age five, I think about it every now and again.  That's because I love, love, love Claire.

6.  She has a tiara that Ryenne gave her for Christmas.  She calls it her T.R.W.  As in, "Have you seen my T.R.W?"  We don't know where this came from.
7.  Claire loves, loves, loves her dad.  Last night as I was reading about her birth and the scary days that followed, I remembered how her oxygen levels would improve whenever her Daddy came into the room and talked to her.  This didn't work with anyone else, only Daddy.  It worked every time and everyone commented on how cool it was.  Those two have had a special bond always. 

8.  Claire watches way more movies than the other girls ever did.  We didn't even have a t.v.(now we only have one for movies) until Ryenne was about 5, and so movies were something that only happened at Grandma and Grandpa's for most of the oldest three girls early years.  Now Claire watches about a movie a day.  We're obviously not very big into screen-time, and so this is something I feel guilty about, but Claire does not.

9.  She can quote movies like you would not believe.  I'm thinking she gets this trait from her Uncle Josh.  He's a master at this, and for a two year old, she can hold her own.  One of her favorites is Ramona and Beezus (if you haven't seen that movie, you should).  Our personal favorite is when we are sitting at dinner and she starts to make funny faces.  We know what is coming. . ."I'm going to say a bad word. . .(more funny faces) . . . .GUTS!  GUTS!  GUTS!"  Lately she likes to put on Ryenne's winter snow hat and wear it around all day.  Then she transforms into Agnes from Despicable Me.  She makes us laugh all the time.

10.  Miss Claire is very independent.  She has learned how to fend for herself.  Ryenne and Kate talked their Dad into putting the doorknob on their door so they could lock Claire out.  (Their stuff seems to be much more fun).  They keep the key on top of a picture frame outside the door.  The other day I saw Claire push the bar stool over, reach up on her tippy toes to get the key, and push the stool back.  She's no dummy.
11.  We love Claire at age two.  I've said before how I used to think age two was such a frustrating age.  It's probably the combination of me becoming a little more relaxed as a mom and realizing how fast the time really goes that helps me enjoy her so much.  Terrible-two's or not, we can't imagine our family without our Claireabelle!