Easter

Our Easter celebrations were pretty low-key this year, but we enjoyed an earlier service at church and our church's traditional Easter Sunday brunch afterwards. (Josiah remembered this brunch from last year and anticipated it eagerly! His excitement about the bagels was contagious. Throughout the service the girls kept asking if we were almost done and if it was time to go over to the breakfast!)

We caught a few pictures of the kids in their finery when we came home. Clara originally had a white dress on, but we had to change it last-minute before church because of a big spit-up. 

Lydia on the left, Josiah holding Clara, Abby on the right

Lydia got a big owie on the inside and outside of her lip a couple days before

Abby's staged smile still looks like she's in pain . . .

Josiah relishes every chance to hold Clara

Snaggle-toothed Ab!

Cranky Lydia!

Later Sunday afternoon, we had a friend from church over for Easter dinner. Then Jeremy hid some plastic eggs with jelly beans for the kids. They enjoyed finding them (of course). Josiah opened each of his immediately and downed the jelly beans. The girls initially just collected eggs--perhaps not knowing they contained jelly beans, or thinking they should wait till later to eat them? Once they had this notion corrected, they gobbled them up, too!

Abby

After all the jelly beans were gone, they hid the empty eggs for each other and hunted again--fun, but not quite the same thing!

Five-Month-Old Clara

Even in the week after I posted her four-month update, Clara gained new skills and abilities. It's fun to see her wake up to the world around her more and more . . . but I'm also sad to see her grow so quickly! I want to keep her a little baby a while longer.

Clara is developing dexterity, too: she likes to grab. She has clearly started batting at and grabbing for all sorts of things--our faces, a colorful ball, a toy, the bird on her car seat. The kids (girls especially) don't like her tendency to grab their hair when they give an over-zealous hug. A couple weeks ago, Clara rolled herself over on the floor and grabbed a Duplo truck that the kids left out. Pretty soon she'll be the terror of the living room!

She loves to sit on Jer's or my lap during dinnertime to watch the goings-on, but I have to keep an eye on her now. She's almost pulled my plate off the table or stuck her hand in the butter. She also seems more interested in what we're eating. In a month or so she'll get her first taste of it.

While Clara still hasn't quite rolled from back to belly (almost, but her hand in her mouth stopped her), she continues to roll from belly to back quite often. Now she's also started doing an inchworm move, pushing her face into the floor and bum into the air in order to inch forward towards unexplored territory.

See that bum in the air? She's on the move!

Clara laughs readily and enjoys peek-a-boo games now. She's clearly ticklish under her arms and on her chest. She kicks excitedly when we talk and laugh with her, or stiffens her legs and sticks her little toes in the air.

She gurgles and "talks" in various sounds but is not quite babbling yet (no clear "bababa" or whatever). But she has started growling! Like her brother before her, she can make quite the racket with her funny, happy growl. Sometimes she likes to wake up at 4 a.m. and growl in bed just to pass the time . . . and ensure an audience of wakeful parents (or at least Mama--Daddy usually sleeps through any noise Clara makes).

She widens her eyes every time she sees the little light on the camera

Clara's ability to fall asleep anywhere and sleep through most things is abating, as I knew it would. She gets cranky and cries when tired and needs relative quiet to go down for naps. Generally she takes a morning and afternoon nap, and sometimes a third one somewhere in there if either the morning or afternoon nap wasn't long enough. I've been putting her to bed for the night at about 7 p.m. Unfortunately she's regressed in nighttime sleep and has been waking at midnight, around 3 a.m., and again around 5 or 6 a.m. I think it's about time to move her out of our room.

Teething might have something to do with her sleep regression and the crankiness that seems more than her past norm. (She wants to be held a lot!) She lunges at my hand to gnaw on it when I'm holding her. Other times she stuffs her hands in her mouth or chews on an individual finger or two. And of course, she's drooling. I haven't felt any teeth cutting through the gum yet, though.

Sweethearts!

I love seeing Clara's interest in her siblings--and their interest in her. Lydia calls her "sweetie-heart" and "little one." Both girls like to reprimand Clara when they think she's being "naughty." ("No no, Sweetie! We don't pull hair!" I've often overheard.) I constantly have to monitor the big kids when Clara is in her rock'n'play--everyone wants to hang all over it to make her smile! When I call one of the girls away from Clara to do something, they protest, "But Mom, Flara will cry! Flara wants to see me!"

 Abby and Clara

Josiah is her most ardent admirer, I think. He is just thrilled with her and wants everyone to see everything she does. "Look! Twara's smilin' at me!" he says excitedly every day. He sings to her (Patch the Pirate's "Jonah" most often), does silly faces for her, dances in front of her, holds her hand, hugs and kisses her, and begs to hold her often. She loves to watch him and rewards him with lots of smiles and "talking" and laughter.

Clara's laugh is contagious. Everyone wants to keep her laughing once she starts! The other day Hannah held her on each sibling's shoulders by turn, and they gave her a ride. She giggled and laughed, and they wanted to do it over and over! It was such fun to watch . . .

 Abby with Clara

 Lydia with Clara

Bedtime Shenanigans

I have a feeling I've used this post title before. Knowing my children, it wouldn't be inconceivable.

Lydia on the left, Abby on the right

Overall, having the three big kids in one room (bunk bed plus toddler bed) has worked well for us. Everybody is content with his or her bed (L likes her bottom bunk "with a tent" [blanket tucked under Josiah's mattress] and A is happy with the toddler bed. Of course, Josiah loves the crowning glory of the top bunk. Lydia has her sights set on a top bunk when Clara moves into their room and we have two bunk beds in there--so she told someone the other day). We no longer have to sit in the room till they fall asleep to ensure they stay put. We do the bedtime routine (sing, pray, poems, Daddy creatively lifts each into bed, Mama sings some more, and the lights go out). They usually chat a little, fight a little, require parental intervention a time or two, and then settle down and sleep.

Trying on wedding finery before bed

Sometimes the shenanigans are exasperating. Now that the girls are potty trained (mostly), they sometimes request a second trip to the bathroom after lights-out. We're never really sure how necessary this is, so usually they get to go . . . with a warning to void entirely this time.

Often the shenanigans turn to sheer naughtiness. For awhile Lydia waited a few minutes after we left the bedroom and then climbed the end of the bunk to switch on the light. "It's mornin'!" she'd announce cheerfully. Once she did this after the other two had fallen asleep (causing waking and crying, of course). Josiah and Abby would sometimes put her up to it, though, asking her to turn on the light but insisting they were innocent of crime because she was the one who physically flipped the switch. Thankfully she (and they) have mostly quit this!

Lydia

The other night Abby's wailing summoned Jeremy to investigate. He discovered that she was distraught because Josiah and Lydia kept insisting that she was a sinner. "You're a sinner, Ab!" Josiah asserted. "We're all sinners, so you're a sinner!" Lydia added her agreement: "Abby is a sinner!" Even the next morning, Josiah remembered the argument and wanted to ensure Abby concurred with correct theology. "You're still a sinner, Ab!" he reminded her.

Abby

Recently Lydia's shenanigans seemed a little Calvin-and-Hobbes-esque . . . . We made cookies one evening a couple weeks ago. The kids helped me mix them together, and everyone got a cookie after dinner. Well, we went on with the evening, put the kids to bed, and cleaned up the kitchen--but we hadn't put the cookies away yet. They were on the counter on cooling racks. We had turned off the kitchen light and sat in the living room together. The kids had been quiet for a little while when Jer said, "Did someone just come out?"

I hadn't heard anyone and from my vantage point could see partway down the hall. Jer peeked around the corner to check in the kitchen--no kids. I didn't see anyone go back down the hall either, but he figured he'd check. Sure enough, when he went into their room, Lydia said, "I'm sorry, Dad! I'm sorry, Dad! I'm sorry, Dad!" Her guilty conscience pricked her into confession and she handed him a half-eaten cookie. I didn't know she was capable of such stealth!

Sorry the photos are just about entirely unrelated to the topic of this post . . . at least they include the kids involved!

Daddy and His Girls

Lydia and Daddy

 Abby and Daddy

 Clara and Daddy

Four-month-old Clara

Our sweetheart Clara is no longer a tiny blob of a baby!

She continues to love people, and when she's sitting in bouncy seat or rock'n'play, she gets obviously excited if she thinks someone might pick her up. Josiah often keeps her happy by looking at her, talking to her, and generally being within her line of sight. If I ask him to move back or do something else, he says, "But Mom, Twara will be sad! She wants to see me!" Lydia and Abby like to check in on her but don't persevere in entertaining her.

Clara is moving more. She has rolled over many times front-to-back, and nearly gotten over back-to-belly (kept from a complete roll by her fist stuck in her mouth). When she does tummy time on the floor, she often rotates herself, and has sometimes gone 180 degrees. She kicks and waves her arms in excitement when happy, and she seldom lays her head on my shoulder anymore--she wants to be up and looking! She has also started "climbing" my stomach when I hold her, poking her toes in an attempt to summit my shoulder. She cranes her head to look at interesting things (like the pictures on our fridge).

Haha . . . poor girl :) (Also, can you tell she's outgrowing her clothes?)

Like her sisters, she is a fanatic about sucking on her fingers or hands. She hasn't yet shown a preference for a thumb, but she often gets a thumb or one or two fingers in. Sometimes she just goes whole hog for an entire fist (or two). She's drooling now, but hasn't any teeth to show yet--I don't expect them for a while.

Josiah took this picture

While she makes more noise now, she's still a very content and mellow baby. She goes with the flow (for the most part). I can even do dinner prep most evenings with minimal fussing from her, as long as she's in her bouncy seat watching me in the kitchen. A couple weeks ago she started laughing full, real laughs--not just little squeals, but true giggles and peals of laughter. I think she's ticklish under the arms.

Her nighttime sleep has not been wonderful of late. She had been doing regular 6-7 hour stretches, with a few nights of 8 or so hours. Unfortunately she has done her longer stretch at the beginning of the night recently, going down about 8 p.m. and waking around midnight or 1 a.m. to nurse--which means I usually miss out on sleeping a couple of those hours. Then she's been waking again at least once before morning, and some nights it's been several times. I don't know if it's teething, growth spurt, or what. Mostly she goes back down without too much trouble, but the multiple wakings have been wearing on me.

At her four-month check last week, Clara weighed 13.8 lbs and measured 24.75 inches. For comparison, here is my post on my four-month-old twins in 2013. They were actually over four months (almost five) when I posted that, but they both weighed more than Clara does now. Perhaps she'll be our smallest one? She's hanging around the 50th percentile for weight but has gained in height (if you want to trust the fairly inaccurate measuring system of the doctor's office staff)--63rd percentile now (up from around the 50th). She has outgrown her 3-month clothing and fits nicely into most 3-6 month stuff (and some 6-9).

Clara brightens our lives and is certainly a popular member of the family!

The four, youngest to oldest