Durham Bulls - Clara's 1st Baseball Game

We trekked into Durham this evening to join our Sunday school class for an outing with the Durham Bulls. This was Clara's first ever baseball game. Though she's been a fan of each previous live sports event (Davidson basketball and Davidson soccer), we weren't sure what to expect given that Clara fell into a deep nap on the way to the stadium. (Thus the tired scowl above when we took our family photo.)

No need for concern. She enjoyed every aspect from the fans to the game itself to the between inning entertainment to the kiddie-hot dog. But best of all was....

Wool E. Bull. The mascot. Clara still talks about meeting the Davidson Wildcat mascot at JOB's HOF induction ceremony in January, and her eyes lit-up when the Bull took the field after the 1st inning of this double-header. We made a bee-line to meet him, and Kate threw some sharp elbows to make sure Clara could get in a high-five before the deep queue of children started forming. Clara was beaming. 

As we were leaving, we stopped by the gift shop for a meet-and-greet. Clara didn't hesitate to jump on Wool E's lap, get a quick kiss from him, and yet another high-five.

Though she insists on calling him the Wildcat, we think she has a new mascot-favorite. And we're kicking ourselves that we waited until the last week of the season to finally get Clara out to the ballgame! Next year we'll get to many more...

In the Eye of the Hurricane - Clara at 2 1/2

No, apt as it may be, this is not a clumsy metaphor to capture the experience of parenting a two-year old. This is weather reality, plain and simple. Clara celebrates her half-birthday today as Hurricane Irene swirls around us outside. 

This morning Clara stripped naked and ran around the house flapping her arms, yelling "I'm a bird! I'm a bird!"  When we tried to get clothes on her, she informs us "No, birdies are nudie!" When we tell her she can't go naked to Marbles, she thinks about it for a moment. "Well, birdies have feathers, so I'll wear feathers." She permitted shorts and a t-shirt as long as we said they were feathers, not clothes. 

The rain and gusting wind had parents all over Raleigh desperate for time-consuming, energy-depleting, nap-inducing activities. And so Marbles Kids Museum was a fire marshal's nightmare, packed to the gills with kids (conniptic with pent-up energy) and parents (desperate for a release from their own children). The result? Mayhem. 

Even on a normal Marbles outing, as excited as Clara gets about it and as enjoyable a time she inevitably has, it is (as a friend recently noted) a flurry of stimulation and incessant negotiation...for access to grocery carts, turns driving the ambulance, the opportunity to play with a stuffed animal. Now quadruple the normal numbers of patrons and the affect rises geometrically. It's stress inducing.

For the first 15 minutes, Clara cloistered herself in the upstairs pet-care corner, clutching as many stuffed animals as she could with eyes wide and dander up. She wasn't playing. Her objective - survival instinct engaged - was to establish turf, drop back into defense, and keep the enemy children (i.e., ALL other children) at bay.  

We lasted an hour, grabbed lunch downtown, and headed back to the house. 

So, with Irene littering our yard with downed limbs and scattered leaves, we reflect on the hurricane currently being placated with Barney videos on the couch.  (Okay, we couldn't resist the metaphor.) 

A Portrait of the Artist

Edvard Munch, look out!  Clara is taking a keen interest in her happy face drawings, and they bear an striking resemblance to the Scream.

The Nap is Dead...Long Live the Nap

Late-July and August brought what we were sure was the last straw for Clara's daily naps. To recount, naps were never our daughter's strong suit. The process of getting her down has often looked like a Benny Hill sequence. 

The process, in fact, evolved quite a bit over these years. It started with crying it out in the crib. That morphed into reading story after story after story. Then we took L-O-N-G gas-guzzling drives in the car...the only way she would fall to sleep. For nearly two weeks, more recently, she simply did not nap. We mourned our loss of that  one- to two-hour period of freedom each day. We came to grips by remembering that we usually invested at least that much time in getting her to sleep in the first place.

So, we introduced quiet time. And it came in the form of a Barney video. Wouldn't you know it. About 2/3rds of the time we get Clara settled into a comfy spot on the couch, plop her head on her favorite Lady Bug pillow pet, let her clutch a couple Barney plush dolls under each arm, and she zonks out within minutes.

The nap, as we knew it, is dead. But long live the new nap!

Other Thoughts

There is no 2 1/2 year pediatrician check-up, but the emergency room visit last weekend provided updated stats. At 18 months, Clara was 23 1/4 lbs and 2 ft 8 in tall. At two years she was 29 1/2 lbs and 2 ft 10 in tall. As of last week, she is 31 lbs and 3 ft tall. The rate of growth has definitely slowed.

Regarding the use of all that energy that was being funneled to growth, our hypothesis is that her brain is responsible for the extra consumption. She's drawing pictures, typing her name on the keyboard, using words like "actually", and continuing her love affair with the word "why?". 

Among her recent fascinations are jokes. Whenever Kate laughs, Clara asks "why you laughing Mama?" She is eager to understand what makes something funny. She gets simple stuff like saying an apple is a banana is a form of joke. And while she'll laugh uproariously if she believes something is supposed to be funny, we don't think her mind quite gets it yet. But as it is, the fake laugh makes for an easy audience, and that's all Paul requires.

Clara could hardly be more excited about Baby Sister coming. She continues to insist that she is already a big sister, but as Kate shows more and more Clara no longer pretends she has a baby in her own belly. She loves putting her hand on Mama's stomach and waiting for Baby Sister to kick. We don't think she's actually felt it yet -- though we do pretty frequently -- but she pretends to. No one will stop her from being part of the action.

Last thought...today is also Dona's (Paul's mom) 72nd birthday. She celebrated in Auburn, working out in the yard. Happy Birthday Donabel!

Our First Trip to the ER

With a child as enamored with climbing as ours, we knew this day had to come eventually. Honestly, we're a bit surprised it waited almost exactly 2 1/2 years. But on this Saturday evening, from 8 pm until about 9.30, we were a part of the coterie of concerned-looking parents sitting uncomfortably -- toddlers in laps -- in the Rex Hospital Emergency Department waiting room.

It has been a rough day for Clara. She took a nasty spill this morning at the park, tripping over her flip-flops and skidding across the sidewalk on her elbow and forehead. This made for some nasty battle scar abrasions, led to some well-deserved tears, but didn't merit a trip to the ER.

That we saved for after dinner. Paul was dangling Clara by her forearms just as some friends were packing up to go. When he let go, she immediately grabbed her left arm and started whimpering. For the next hour, despite many attempts to get her to move it voluntarily (or even squeeze our fingers with her hand) she held the arm limp by her side, clutching it tightly with her opposite hand to keep it immobilized and prevent her parents their attempts to play MD.

Off we went in search of a doctor. First we tried two separate urgent care centers. It seems they all close by 4 pm on Saturday. So then we march into the Rex ER, suspecting we would walk out several hours later with scratchy cast plastered to Clara's arm.

In between the tears, we should say that Clara was quite excited about the adventure. The moment we threw out the possibility of a hospital visit, she clung to that idea with relish. "Time to go to the hospital," she mustered with some dissonant cheer inside the anguish, "We're going to see the doctor!" At the ER, she wanted to know what everything was; what everybody was doing. She buried the pain with curiosity, asking us to distinguish the various people in scrubs...is that one a nurse or a doctor?

By way of pleasant surprise, we didn't have to wait long at all. We were triaged almost immediately where the worst trauma was Clara refusing the nurse's attempts to get her pulse. But she was glad to submit to the weigh-in (31 pounds) and height check (3 feet even). 

We were soon in the minor-injury room being tended to by a PA who didn't hesitate to soothe us -- this is not a broken bone -- before conducting any physical check of Clara.  I see this all the time, she said, and I can correct it very quickly. She took Clara by the wrist with one hand and put the other by her elbow and gave it a firm twist. Clara grimaced and cried. (To get a sense for how it all worked, enjoy this piece of YouTube instant-education here.)

Just a simple case of nursemaid's elbow, the PA told us, and Clara will be using her arm within moments. It will be as if nothing ever happened.

And, thankfully, she was correct. She instructed Clara to give her Mama a big bear hug, and our little girl didn't even hesitate using that once-limp left arm.

The parents sighed with deep relief. We were told nursemaid's elbow is quite common in pre-school aged children as a certain ligament remains flexible and prone to slipping out of place if one pulls or twists their arms. (Insert accusing glance at father.) If it happens again -- and it very easily could -- she'll show us how to fix it all on our own. But for good measure, stop swinging your child around in circles and get into the habit of picking her up by grabbing under her arm pits.

Clara made out with a dozen or so Sponge Bob stickers, and we changed her into her pajamas while we waited for all the paper work to process. Within moments of getting into the car, our little girl -- freshly initiated to the world of ER visits -- fell deep asleep with her Barney clutched under her arm. Adventure complete.

C-L-A-R-A

Sometimes, in the evenings, when Mama and Dada need to get some work done, Clara pulls out her own little computer and works along side us. Today, Mama taught her how to type her name...

Lake Wateree

The Baker Family were gracious hosts for our weekend at Lake Wateree outside Columbia, South Carolina. Kate and Paul enjoyed the pleasure of adult conversations while Clara and Davis played as well as you might hope any two-year-olds will.

The highlight for Paul requires a little background. For about two months now, Clara has adhered to a strict ABD policy...anybody but Daddy. Paul has been banished from nighttime routines...his offers to help Clara with anything are greeted with an immediate and shrill "Noooooo!  Mama!"...and any attempt to hug or kiss Clara upon returning from work elicits "No Dada, no. Stop that!"

This was pretty much the case as we started our lake adventures with the Bakers. Until...we went out on the boat and Paul made an ill-fated attempt to slalom after a seven-year hiatus. This is a summary of what Clara saw this first time she has ever been on a boat (interpretation of her thoughts courtesy of Paul) ... "Ok, Daddy is putting on a life jacket. No big deal. The boat has stopped and he's jumping in the water. Interesting, I'll pay attention. What is that thing on his feet? Why are these people throwing a rope at him? Hey, wait, how come the boat just kicked into high throttle? I can't even see him behind the wake. No, wait, there he is. He fell into the water. He doesn't have the rope anymore. Why are we speeding away? Is this the end for Dada?"

She then cries out "Don't leave Dada. No! Where's Dada?" or something like that. Kate reassures her, and then Paul promptly wipes out two more times while attempting to get up. She is convinced something sinister is happening here and it brings out some deeply buried affection for her father, an emotion long forgotten but, alas, not fully extinguished. (Paul's interpretation; melodrama required.)

Finally, someone is merciful enough to toss Paul a second ski and he manages to get out of the water. Clara now sees her Daddy magically walking on the water behind the boat. After the trauma of participating in a conspiracy to abandon him in the lake, this looks pretty cool. 

All that afternoon, Clara clings to her father, reliving the story of how the boat was going SOOOO FASSST... "and you were going SOOO FASSST too Dada...you were 'skee-ing.'" Indeed, this fascination would last for at least a couple weeks afterwards and seemed to break the ice (just a bit) on this Daddy-Can-Do-No-Good phase.

Not wanting a good idea to go to waste, Paul's is considering what other death defying feats might help him keep the love of his baby girl. Hang gliding anyone?