Claire at 21 Months

I can't believe Claire is closing in on TWO! I'm getting ready to sign her up for her first zoo classes, and it occurred to me as I filled out Elsa's school paperwork for next year that only one year from now, I'll be doing this for Claire! How can that be?

Anyway, Claire is doing very well these days. Here's the update.

Motor Skills
We've been doing our physical therapy for about four months now. The Birth to Three Program originally estimated that Claire would need weekly appointments for six months, but after the new year, we went down in frequency to once every two weeks. And the last time Sarah was here, she admitted there wasn't much for her to do at this point. So I think we'll be going down in frequency again very soon, if not "graduating" entirely.

Sarah thinks Claire's remarkable progress is due at least in part to me working with her a lot on the exercises Sarah recommended. I didn't have the heart to tell Sarah that I actually haven't worked with Claire much at all. I did in the first few weeks, but since then she's done so well on her own that I haven't felt the need to make much conscious effort. I think Claire was just ready to catch up, and she would have done so whether she had therapy or not. Therapy may have sped up the process a bit, but for the most part, I think Claire just had her own timetable. This kid just does things on her own terms, that much has become clear. : )

But another possible contributing factor is that Claire is now wearing orthotics in her shoes. We've had them for about three weeks now, and they really have made a huge difference for her. Recently Claire had developed a habit of shifting her weight from foot to foot, even when standing still. Sarah thought that was probably due to some ankle weakness. The orthotics, which fit inside her shoes and are completely hidden from view, are designed to give her some ankle support. And from almost the first minute Claire put them on, we've seen far less of that weight-shifting. Her feet also seem closer together when she's walking. Sarah said it's possible Claire will need these orthotics all of her life, or she may outgrow the need for them. She could also outgrow them a while, then need them again when she gets older and heavier. (Sarah said if she ever complains that her feet are hurting, we'll know she needs them again.)

Talking
Well, we haven't made as much progress here as I had might have hoped. Claire certainly talks a LOT, and adds new words all the time. The problem is that very few of those words sound like they're supposed to. In fact, some don't sound anything like they're supposed to. She almost has her own language, some of which we can decipher, some of which we can't. That has been a little frustrating for me at times, especially since Elsa was practically speaking in full sentences by now. It's frustrating on two levels: I can't communicate with Claire as well as I would like, and, with Elsa being so advanced in this area, I just don't know what's normal and what's not. Let me be very clear that I'm not worried about Claire, and I do understand a lot of what she's saying. But I am curious where she stands.

Since there wasn't much to do on the physical therapy front, I was discussing this with Sarah the last time she was here. She often works as a team with other types of therapists, including speech therapists, so she explained to me a little about kids' speech. There are three areas of language that kids have to master. One is "receptive language," which is understanding the words that are being said to them. Claire has no trouble with that—she always knows exactly what I'm saying to her, can identify just about any object in a book, and can follow complex commands (when she wants to, anyway!). Another is "expressive language," which is basically the desire to talk. Just like her big sister before her, Claire clearly has this one down pat. She's constantly babbling, whether we understand her or not. The third is "articulative language," which is the ability to pronounce the words. I think it's obvious that's where Claire is having problems. My guess is that's extremely normal at her age. But obviously we'll see how she progresses in the coming months. And I hope this will prove to anyone who may have been wondering: Speech abilities are not necessarily a reliable indicator of intelligence. Sorry to destroy anyone's worldview, but there you have it. Nor does this mean that Claire will not be "verbal" later in life—that's a totally different area of language development that Claire has no trouble with whatsoever. (Anyone who's spent 10 minutes around her should already know that she is quite verbal!)

Eating
Claire is her sister's polar opposite in many ways—take eating, for example. She just isn't very interested. I know, crazy, right? Well, Elsa thinks so, anyway. : ) In the past six months, the only meat Claire has eaten is about three bites of a cheeseburger at McDonald's one time. Other than that, she won't touch it. No chicken nuggets, no hot dogs, nothing. I've tried chopping up hot dogs into tiny pieces and hiding them in her baked beans, to no avail. She knows what's animal and what's vegetable. I don't know how she knows, but she does. Speaking of vegetables, those haven't crossed her lips either, in quite some time. Even fruit is hit or miss—she'll eat any kind of berry, and every once in a while she'll eat a banana or an orange, but that's about it. Our standbys continue to be macaroni and cheese, peanut butter and jelly, yogurt, applesauce, and baked beans. That's Claire's diet, in a nutshell.

Breakfast is her worst meal of the day—she often refuses to eat anything other than yogurt, no matter how many other choices I offer. And, probably not coincidentally, those tend to be the days when Claire is especially crabby. The other day, after a particularly horrendous hour or two, I actually wrestled her into her high chair at 10:30 a.m. for lunch. She screamed her head off for about five minutes, then finally gave in and ate her peanut butter and jelly. And you know what? She was perfectly cheerful after that. So I don't get it: If she's hungry, why doesn't she want to eat? And why won't my other child stop eating when she clearly isn't hungry? Whenever I make dinner for these two, I'm reminded of that Jack Sprat nursery rhyme. Between the two of them, maybe we'd have a nice normal eater?

The upside of all of this is that Claire still weighs only 30 pounds on our scale. That means she's gained only a little over three pounds in the past nine months.

Personality
Well, if you've spent much time around Claire, you know she doesn't exactly have her sister's sweet, sunny disposition. : ) This girl knows what she wants, and she is prepared to stick to her guns until she gets it, believe you me. But I'm sure that will serve her very well later in life (it just doesn't always serve her mother very well). And we have a lot of fun with Claire too. I'm going to do another post in the next few days about some of the silly, goofy things she's done lately that have the rest of us laughing.

Claire is still more of a girly-girl than Elsa ever was. She actually doesn't mind having her hair done, and she's shown even more interest in princesses and Barbies than Elsa has (Elsa still mostly loves her animals). Claire is also finally starting to really enjoy books, which thrills me to no end. She will go through phases where she brings me book after book after book, happily plopping down into my lap to hear them. She still can be a little impatient with books—sometimes we'll open one, and she'll hear about three words before she decides she's had enough and needs a different one. But still, that's major progress.

And while Claire is not the naturally kissy, cuddly love bug that Elsa always was, I think she's starting to come around a bit on that as well. She's been much more into hugging and kissing lately. Today Claire and I spent a good 15 minutes trading this duck hat back and forth. She put it on my head, then she put it on her head. Then she put it on my head, and she put it on her head. Then she would just smile sweetly at me and lean in for a kiss. To see that smile on her adorable round face always does my heart good, no matter how crabby she was the rest of the day. : )