2 months

It's hard to believe that 2 months have gone by since we had Claire and at the same time, it's hard to remember what life was like without her. She is such a joy. She's got strong muscles and can basically control her head, flails her arms and legs about, and can stand for quite a while when we balance her. Once we were at IHOP with my mom and dad and my mom was holding Claire on the table. Claire's feet were against mom's chest. Mom would pull her in to talk to her, and Claire would push with her feet, causing her to slide on the table. It was pretty funny to watch.

Claire also smiles very easily, and all of the time. She recently started laughing too, though not for an extended period of time. It's usually just a "heh" which is really cute. She's quite the talker and likes to hold conversations with us or her bears on her mobile. She also recently started playing with her baby Einstein toy she got for Christmas and loves it. She lays under it and flails her arms and legs, causing the music to play and the lights to blink. She plays with that toy for quite a while. It often buys me time to shower, make dinner, etc. Since she likes to be held all of the time, this is valuable time.

Here is Claire talking with her Grammy. I love how sometimes the talking seems labored, and she has to push the sounds out. Also, notice the thunder thighs!



I wanted to put up some pictures of Claire at 2 months, but for some reason, it won't let me upload them. I'll put them up later. Here's the video for now.

Claire had her 2 month check up yesterday and we finally found out that it wasn't our imagination that she has grown a ton. She is now 13 lbs. 9 oz. (in the 97th percentile) and 24 3/4 inches long (in the 95th percentile.) At one month she was 10lbs. 11 oz. and 22 3/4 inches. She's our growing girl! Even though she spits up quite a bit, it doesn't seem to be slowing her down. The doctor says she is just perfect. At the end of the appointment, we had to do the not fun part - immunizations. First she had the rotovirus vaccine which was done orally. (For those of you who don't know, because I didn't, rotovirus apparently causes really bad diarrhea.) She did really well taking it until the very end. She took her last bit, and started coughing. I picked her up and there it went. She started to throw it up. Apparently enough stayed in her so she didn't have to take it again though. She made a mess of the floor though! Then she had a shot in each leg. The second one stung more, and her daddy comforted her and talked to her. Afterward, he held her while she cried. I'm not sure who was crying more though, Claire, or her daddy. She was a little fussy for about 4 hours after the shots, but then after that seemed to be totally fine, and I didn't even give her any medicine. She's tough.

Last week we went down to Pennsylvania. We spent some time with Chris's family in Montoursville, and also went down to State College one day. We got to see my professor and mentor, Dr. Shafer and talked with him for a while. He loved holding Claire as his youngest of 3 daughters is now 16. We also visited Chris's mentor, Dr. Gerber, who loaned Chris a Baroque horn so Chris could use it to do research and prepare for his lecture recital in April. The horn is very nice and expensive, so it's very generous for Dr. Gerber to loan it to Chris. They love to talk horn stuff as they both have a passion for period instruments and performance practice. We had a good time being back on campus and may end up there again in the fall. (No, we still haven't decided for sure what we are doing in a few months. We'll let you know when we know. Basically, it's either Penn State or the army.)