School's Out For Summer!

Clara's two years at White Memorial Presbyterian Mother's Morning Out came to a conclusion today. School is officially out for the summer, and Clara will be moving on to Arts Together preschool in August. 

Though it started out under less than ideal circumstances (we try not to dwell on the memory of Clara being bitten, several times, by a flesh-starved classmate on her first day), the experience has been quite pleasant since. 

Clara's First Day of School, September 2010

But what was that sound at 1 pm on Friday? That great collective gasp for air? That was made by the millions of parents realizing, upon picking their child up from the last day of school, that they have to figure out childcare alternatives for summer or run the risk of high-energy, bored children in the house for hours on end, everyday, until August.

As we can attest, once MMO ends, the options are pretty limited for three year olds. Kate has busily researched every camp option, signing Clara up for as many as possible to help stave off boredom.

War Hattie! & Giggling Baby

Poor Hattie! Is she destined to have every milestone compared to her older sister? And every hand-me-down (because they all are) posed against a picture of Clara wearing the same thing a few years back?

Yes. That's the nature of being the younger sister. So, here's Hattie in the Auburn onesie provided by Aunt Angela three years ago...

...and here's Clara wearing the same thing in September 2009:

Also, a video of Hattie giggling from Mama's tickles. 

Daddy Daughter Camping

This Saturday young Clara suspended her better judgment and allowed her Daddy to bring her to Kerr Lake State Park for an overnight camping trip. It was a frightening prospect for all involved parties in the days leading up, but we all survived. Indeed, we managed to have a lot of fun.

The trip was a syndicate of three fathers, each with a three-year old daughter in tow: Clara with Paul, Elizabeth with Brian, and Bowen with Daniel.

We'll let the pictures below tell much of the story...

While Clara initially rejected the idea of going with Daddy - saying she preferred Mama go instead - she grew comfortable with the concept in the days leading up to the trip. She was excited about sleeping in a tent and having a sleepover with her friends. She had never done that before. 

The excitement built all Saturday morning. Though we weren't scheduled to meet the group until 10 am, Clara was approaching a boiling point by 9. We knew if we didn't get her moving and active, that excited energy could quickly turn against us. We left early for the trip.

A selling point for the girls was the chance to sit three-abreast on the ride to the camp site. Paul drove and Brian rode shotgun. Daniel rode solo with the gear. There were a few minor squabbles, mostly around each wanting the exact same thing the other had...but it was manageable. They laughed with each other, tickled one another, and sang along to Clara's favorite Laurie Berkner Band CD.

Daniel supplied the tent. Two of the girls were glad to sleep next to their Daddies; Clara insisted her Father not even be in the tent. Paul made a space for himself in the screened in porch (yes, a large tent), outside the main cabin, to satisfy Clara's request. 

Not accustomed to the manly art of camping, Paul played the feminine counterpart role to Brian and Daniel's lumberjack ruggedness. While they constructed the tent, built fires, and directed camp duties...Paul took pictures, washed dishes, and tried to stay out of the way. It's agreed that this was to everyone's benefit.

We lucked out with incredible weather. It was high-70s, clear sky, and a nice breeze to keep the mosquitoes at bay. This gave us a chance to go swimming in the lake. It was a bit frigid, but this didn't stop all three girls from plunging in and forcing their Daddies to give chase.

Daniel brought his kayak and ferried each of the girls around to explore the lake's alcoves.

Spaghetti and meatballs for dinner. Yep, we were roughing it.

What's camping without smores? We prevented (barely) the girls from impaling each other with the sharpened sticks, and then avoided any burns (despite a few serious marshmallow fires). Success! They ate their dessert, and then...

...we insisted they burn off excess energy by dancing for several minutes to The Sugar Hill Gang's Rapper's Delight.  

Bed time arrived. This was the part we were all dreading. It would seem there is no three-year old that goes through nighttime procedures in a way to makes life easy for their Daddies. We started the process at 8.15 pm. Paul made the over/under wager suggestion of 9.00 for snores. Paul took the over; Daniel and Brian went under. They were zonked at 8.55. Brian might have slipped them some benadryl at the end. He's competitive that way.

The guys stayed up for a couple more hours, chasing back raccoon, telling stories around the campfire, and lamenting the obnoxious Navy sailors at the next camp site over who had imbibed too much and were treating the entire campground like their raucous port-of-call. Thanks to them, there was little sleep to be had that night for the adults, but the girls weren't bothered by it. Elizabeth woke before 6 am, Clara made it to 6.30 or so, and Bowen was the champ...sleeping all the way to 8.15.

We had breakfast, went for a hike, and stayed at the campground through lunch before breaking for home. The girls were exhausted. The Daddies were wiped. We were eager for the comforts of our own beds that night. But we enjoyed it and pledged to do it again next year.

Hattie Sleeps Through the Night!

Of all the milestones in the child's development, this has to be the sweetest...for the parents at least. Last night Hattie slept for ten consecutive, uninterrupted, belch-free hours. A full night!

We always grasp for reasons to explain why new things happen. Though I suspect most milestones fall under the category of they will always happen eventually if you wait, we want to believe that we somehow produced the result. This is no different. We ascribe the full night to Kate introducing a dinner solid food feeding to Hattie's routine. This time it was rice cereal plus Pappaw's apple sauce plus a little milk. The stuff sticks in her little belly for a while, digesting in a slow burn, and we think this sated feeling keeps her from waking up...with the added benefit of putting less gassy pressure on her system. That's the theory anyway.

Also, we gave it back for three years, but have re-borrowed the ExerSaucer from the Ryans. The same one that gave Clara so much enjoyment back in the day. (The link is here, and Clara's matching picture is below.) Hattie is loving all the new toys, jumping up and down like crazy, and it's even spurring many more "thpppts"...her preferred form of verbal communication these days.

Hattie in ExerSaucer

Clara in ExerSaucer in July 2009

Mother's Day 2012

Kate was eager to share a Mother's Day experience with Clara. Those shared mother to older daughter moments can be so hard to come by while balancing the demands of an attention-hungry five month old. So they blocked out Saturday morning to get self-treat with the mother-daughter manicure along with friends Tiffany and Nadine.  

Clara has been parading her be-flowered fingernails proudly.

At MMO, Clara made her mama a flower in a cup for Mother's Day. And we complemented that fine offering with some lilies, a dark chocolate bar and a homemade card, all ready for Kate's inspection when she got up in the morning. 

We spent the afternoon with the Millers in Durham, not only giving us a chance to visit with some close friends, but also making an excuse for the girls to get dressed up for some nice pictures. 

Pen Pals - Clara and Nadine

A recent correspondence (via mothers' email) between Clara and her pal Nadine...

Dear Clara,

I love you so much, Clara. Flap your wings, Clara. Clara, dance!

Love,

Nadine

*****

Dearest Nadine,

I want you to fly and dance. I love you a lot!

Hugs and kisses,

Clara

Some Hattie Updates (With Some Clara Flavor)

If it provides no other value, the blog has been a great reference piece for us whenever we have questions of what happened when. We've indexed nearly four years of the NC Drydens on this little web experiment and find ourselves relying on it to supplement our foggy recall of life events since we've become parents.

It's been particularly helpful - more resource than sentimental in this case - since Hattie came along. We can't for the life of us remember when Clara hit certain milestones (rolling over, eating solid foods, sleeping through the night, first tooth, etc.) as we try to gauge when Hattie might do the same. And so we turn to the blog as keeper of all events critical in a nice chronological layout.

For example, we try to remember the first time Clara got sick. Voila! The blog tells us here about her case of thrush just shy of the nine-month mark. For Hattie it came much, much more quickly. Such are the travails of having an older sibling. 

We were walloped by ailments and doctors visits this early-May. The girls both came down with some congestion with post-nasal drip one Sunday night. They were miserable. Within two days Hattie was barking  like a seal puppy, the tell-tale sign of croup. We put her on steroids, and she was cured within two days. Clara, however, had the meanest cold we've seen. Hers persisted with high fever (102) for several days, requiring two trips to the pediatrician, two absences from school, and more time on the couch watching videos (gold star exemptions) then we care to remember. It took a full eight days from start to finish, and the same bug ran through six other little girls at MMO. Fierce!

Of course these things always come when you're trying to make bold parenting moves. This time, Kate was set on moving Hattie from the pack-and-play in our room (her exclusive sleeping place for five months) to the crib in her room. Hattie continues waking two or more times a night, so we've come to prefer the proximity of the pack-and-play (scoop her up, feed her, put her back...all in only six paces). But for the sake of our long-term sanity, we have to get her used to her own bed.

Kate, of course, is managing the process. She retreated during the sick week, but picked up the project again shortly thereafter. So far, pretty good. We've altered our go-to-bed approach a little, sticking the bottle in Hattie's mouth during dinner time in an attempt to measure the milk flow and make sure the belly is as sated with food as possible. Our hope has been to push her past the traditional 2 am feeding. The first few nights have been promising. Hattie set a new record, going from 8 pm to 4 am! But we've learned these things are one-step forward, two-steps back. And we're in the back steps now.

Naps remain a challenge for the second child trying to keep up with the active day of her three-year old sister. It's a rare day that Hattie gets a solid hour in her crib (not that she would agree to that even if the schedule allowed it). More often then not, it's a cat nap in the car seat, a few Z's stolen in the stroller, or - in the extreme - pure exhaustion forcing her into a forward-facing "slump sleep" in the baby bjorn. 

Some other notes...

Hattie seems to be breaking her first teeth. Like Clara (here), it's those little suckers on the bottom gum. 

Her favorite form of communication (besides crying) is the "thhppppttt!" 

Now that she's mastered the back-to-belly rollover, she's working hard on getting her knees under her in anticipation of the crawl.

From her four-month check-up (here) to the last pediatrician visit for croup - time elapsed...just over a week -  Hattie went from 15 lbs 11 oz to 16 lbs 4 oz! 

Hattie with baby bud Sadie.

Superheroes

Clara's fascination with all things ballerina, fairy and princess has been building momentum for months now, reinforced by all her little girl friends sharing the same interests. It culminated on Friday when she came home from a Barnes & Noble visit with Mama and Hattie with "My Princess Purse" in tote, a pink briefcase that houses a tiara and scepter and was (redeemingly) available in the bargain bin for $3.

The fascination has been well-documented on the pages of the blog with pictures of Clara in one of her many tutus, practicing her ballet moves, casting magical spells and (though only in the company of friends) referring to herself as Princess Clara.

The trend may have made an about face as of yesterday. That's when Clara went to Costco with Kate and stumbled upon a discarded packet of young-reader DC Comics superhero books. She has been obsessed with it ever since, reading them over and over again. Asking about the special powers of Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman. Rationalizing the intentions of the villains so they won't scare her.

Notice the "S" on her chest, created  by Kate  at Clara's insistence.  

Kate asked her if she wanted to dress up like Wonder Woman. She said, no. She wants to be Batman. Then she reconsidered. Better yet, she said, she wants to be Superman! He can shoot fire from his eyes like this (she shows a squinty glare) and breathe ice from his mouth like this (she sprays your face with a fine mist of saliva). That's what she'll be for Halloween!

As Paul was trying to get Clara in the bath that evening, Clara employed one her verbal delay tactics. "But Daddy...wait, wait, wait! I have a secret. Ummm...Did you know that Clark Kent is really Superman?" 

Clara insisted on sleeping with four of the books all night last night. Paul took them away to put on a shelf after she fell asleep. He regretted that when, at 4 am, Clara showed her head at his bedside asking where the books went. Paul walked with her back to her room as she peppered him with questions about where they might have gone. Groggily, he sputtered the lame suggestion...maybe they flew over to your bookshelf. "No, Daddy," says Clara in response. "They can't fly. That's only in my imagination."  Once she had them back in her clutches she fell immediately back to sleep.

Our budding superhero falls asleep at 4 in the afternoon...on a stool...with lollipop in mouth

She slept in until 8.00 this morning. When she came downstairs, she still had all four books in her grasp. The cover of one showed Superman bursting through a load of rocks. She held it high, her first words of the day being "Superman can easily break rocks with his fist!"

Clara then asks Mama to read the books to her again before breakfast.

Later in the morning Paul noticed Clara running around the backyard with arms outstretched as if flying. Kate, holding Hattie, was a few feet behind in chase. They were playing superheroes. Clara was Batman. Kate was Superman. Hattie...the Joker.

What are the chances the tutus are soon replaced by capes? The tiaras by masks?

Hattie's First Solid (ish) Food

Hattie got her first taste of solid(ish) food this morning. For weeks now she's been paying close attention to what everyone's chomping during dinner, occasionally grabbing for it. 

She probes the food (rice mush in a lovely breast milk reduction) with her tongue, contorting her face in an uncertain expression, and then laps it like a puppy. Perhaps one part in a thousand actually stays in her mouth and makes it down the gullet. 

We consider this first feeding an exploration. Call us dreamers, but our great hope is that solid food makes for a more sated belly, reducing the reliance on a constant flow of milk, and leading to the satisfying slumber of deep nights and full nights in her crib.