Hugs, Not Hits!

I have been wanting to do a post on Claire for awhile, but it has been difficult for me to get the energy to do so. I wanted this to be a positive, happy post, and I wasn't sure how to do that when things have been difficult with her. We love her dearly, but she is not that happy, wonderful 2-year-old that everybody dreams of having. It's been rough, I'm not going to lie.

However, the last couple of weeks have been MUCH better- and hopefully it will continue to be so.

Claire is a hitter. She has been for a long time. Awhile back we instituted a "hugs, not hits!" campaign and it has actually seemed to help. Luckily, she winds up before she hits you- you can see her going to hit you a mile away. That makes it easy to tell her to give hugs, and almost without fail she will. So now it's actually really cute because you get a hug out of it, and now she almost never hits- even Audra knows to tell her to give hugs. We have hopefully solved that issue.

Then, she cries a lot. A lot a lot. And she's whiny. BUT...

In the last couple of weeks her language skills have exploded (don't be jealous, D, because remember all the crying and whiny we have to deal with!). Now she can really talk and tell us what she wants. And, her little personality is coming out and it is a lot of fun. She is not happy and smily, but she is quite the jokester. She likes playing chase. She likes hiding under the table while we cry out, "where's Claire?" She likes to come up and "tickle" us while saying "tickle" over and over again. She and Audra love to wrestle. She likes to take Audra's things just to see Audra get annoyed and than give it right back. She likes to take things and hide them behind her back while we say, "Where'd Barbie go?" She LOVES to tease us when we ask her to go somewhere. For example, we'll say "Please go to the changing pad" and she'll say, "right there?" and point to it. We'll say yes, and she'll take 2 steps forward and say, "right there?". Two steps more, "right there?"

Today Ben put a bib on her and she said clear as day, "I don't want to wear a bib." Woah!

This morning I noticed she was imitating Audra while she prayed, so tonight we had Claire say the dinner prayer which was super cute. She would repeat after me, which means she basically said, "mama" "daddy" "Audra" "food" "Amen." So cute!!!

She loves the circus. We checked a book out of the library about the circus and she wants to read it 100 times a day (did I mention she loves books? She does!). There's a part with drums and she opened up and was reading the book to herself and said, "boom, boom, boom, boom" which is what the book says.

She hasn't been nearly as whiny for the last couple of weeks, and her tantrums have really calmed down. It's been really pleasant, actually. Of course, she has been sick the last couple of days (yesterday she had a 102.9 temp) so that might be helping that.

She LOVES coloring- that is one activity she will do for an hour. That and playing in the sand. Or water. She loves dumping sand and water.

She is definitely a dare-devil. She loves climbing and getting into trouble. This wouldn't be so incredibly horrible, except she is also incredibly clumsy. She is a huge klutz. This means, about 12 times a day we hear her fall and start crying. She cries for 9 seconds, then promptly gets up to do the same thing again.

Giving her choices has also proved immensely helpful. We have always given her choices, but you guys reminded us we needed to give her lots of little silly choices. But, it has led to her always needing two spoons. We offer her two different colors, and she always chooses both of them. Oh, well.

Hopefully, we have turned a corner with her. I am hopeful- the last couple of weeks have truly been awesome with her. I love seeing her fun, joking personality come out. I'm crossing my fingers that she just gets better and better!

To end on a super high note, I will re-tell the story of when we saw her for the first time. It was an act of faith to have a second child after Audra. We were really scared, because Audra was such a difficult baby. But the second Ben and I saw Claire after she was born, we literally both fell absolutely in love and KNEW she was supposed to be in our family. And that hasn't changed- we absolutely LOVE her, even though we have had some rough days. We are so grateful to have her in our family- she's a spitfire, but she's our spitfire!