12 weeks!

Somehow my little Clarabelle (one of our nicknames for Claire...Claire Bear is also often used) is 12 weeks old already. I have been warned that if I blink too many times I will find her all grown up already, so I'm trying to keep my eyes open :) So many thoughts and so few creative ideas for organizing them, so bullet points will have to do for today:

• We've really enjoyed strollin' around the neighborhood during the afternoon and evenings. I've lived on this street for eight years now (yikes! Time flies!) and have met more neighbors in the last two months than the previous seven years. Something about a baby invities conversation and community. I love it!



• I love a bit less, though, pushing the stroller up the last hill to our house. I swear the incline/grade of that hill has increased in the last three months :)



• Scott put it well yesterday when he said that Claire is really becoming a little person. Her personality and mannerisms are really starting to come out. She ticklish on the bottom of her feet. She really wants to be sitting up and looking around. She focuses on people across the room. She flirts with cooing and the cutest little eyebrown raises (I wish I could capture that on video, but as soon as I get the video camera out, she just stares at it with a very serious, sober look).



• She's sleeping light a champion! She hasn't woken up in the middle of the night since Easter weekend. I usually put her to bed between 8:30 and 9:30 pm, and she'll sleep until 6:30 am. It's bliss for me! She's starting to break out of her swaddle blanket (or the baby staight jacket, as we fondly call it), so I'm a bit nervous about how well she'll sleep when I can't cozy her up in that at bedtime...wish me luck :)



• Of course, since she sleeps so much at night, her daytime naps are a bit shorter, but I'll take the uninterrupted night sleep :)


• Claire has found her voice in the last week or so. Fun, fun, fun to hear more "talking" these days. She's very expressive and strains to be heard. Hard to believe that we'd have a talker, right? :)

Speaking of voice, there's suddenly crying in the background, so best wrap it up for now...I'm coming Claire!