All About Clara: Age 4

On July 25th Clara turned four years old!  It's always been hard to realize that Clara is growing older. She has such a "youngness" about her.  Maybe it's because we've babied her (she was still using a highchair until a couple months after her birthday, and still often asks for her paci (she gets it for sleeping time and occasionally early evening).  SHE , however, likes to always tell us to look how big she's getting.  She'll stand up straight and tall, move her hand from her toes up to her head and make this cute little "Do-do-do-do!" sound as she shows us how she's grown.  (Or in her words, "I'm already growed!"  :)  She already likes to marvel at the thought that SHE"ll be a mommy someday, and I'll be the grandma.  Thankfully that's still a long time away!  I've got to soak up my time with her while she's still little.

Clara is really a very pleasant child.  She has a very cheerful disposition, loves everything and everyone.  She delights in singing, dancing, learning, and reading.

She is a very silly, funny, loving girl!

Clara loves whenever friends can come to play at our house!

Not a good picture, but Clara at the park with her best pal, Maggie.  Those two always have such fun together!

Went through a phase of loving to go through her drawers and put outfits together, then taking them off and putting on a new one, repeat and repeat. :)

REALLY enjoying her dirt pudding during General Conference. :)

Here's some "About Me" info on her:

Height: 3 ft. 5 in.
Weight: 31.5 lbs.
Clothing Size: 4T on most things
Nicknames: Clarabelle, Clairy, Goosey, Clarence (That one's from David)
Favorite color: pink and purple
Favorite book: Loves all books, but really enjoys the Little People lift-the-flap books.  Also loves the Pinkalicious series.  (Since it's Christmas she'd probably say her favorite book is "Twas the Night Before Christmas," a copy we have that was recorded by my parents taking turns reading it.  One week out and I'm pretty sure she has the whole thing memorized.)
Favorite food: Probably watermelon.  She wishes she could eat that all year long!  She is the BEST eater!  She has never turned her nose up to anything I've put in front of her except lettuce.  She often says, "Everything on my plate is so yummy!  Everything you make is so yummy!"  I know, she's a dream in that way.  Complete opposite of Eli with food.  She definitely has a sweet tooth and gets a little nutty when sweets are around.
Favorite song: "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" (now at Christmastime she has replaced it with the song "Hey, Santa," though she only knows that line of the song, haha!
Likes: Playing with her brothers, reading stories, singing songs, dancing, playing with her friends, going to school, playing playdoh, puzzles, writing her letters and numbers, giving hugs/snuggles.
Dislikes: Going potty, washing hands, stopping doing whatever she's doing until she's finished, sleeping in her own bed, getting her hair done.

She is an awesome sister and playmate.  Very good at sharing and very kind.

Clara's taken an interest in the clock. She loves to look at the clock and say "It's on the 2 and the 5!  What time is that?"  (or something similar.)  She also loves to take what she's learning and apply it elsewhere.  Like she gets so excited to spot different shapes all over the house ("The top of the lotion is an oval!" "There is a rectangle on the door!"

Here's her birthday interview video I took of her in the beginning of September--

We've had a couple of rather big struggles with Clara from her 3-4 year old year.  The first has been potty-training.  I tried starting potty-training Clara last August.  She took to it really well, was super excited and had no trouble going pee and poop in the toilet.  But she was absolutely TERRIFIED to use a public toilet.  (This happened because of an incident with an automatic toilet.)  Even now she still refuses to go potty at other places.  So we have had MAJOR issues with accidents.  For many many months she had lots of accidents every single day.  It didn't make a difference at home or out.  She would never tell me when she had to go potty.  Even if I tried taking her very frequently she would still have accidents.  Poop and pee accidents. All of the time.  And they never bothered her!  That was the part that really baffled me.  Unless you were about to put her in the carseat she would absolutely never tell you she even had an accident!  Rarely does she willingly go potty.  For SO long I always had to make walking to the toilet some sort of game--twirl, skip, race Mommy, beat the clock, etc.  And I can never rely on her to know when she needs to go because she will most always say she doesn't have to, ha!

The potty-training fiasco has been a huge stress on me.  Even still I keep her underwear off in the morning until she has gone poopie, because she will absolutely just go in her underwear (or on the floor apparently).  And I try to keep her without pants on a lot of the time at home because she will still hold her pee in too long and go a little in her pants before she says she has to go potty.  But thankfully she is verbal about it now!  She is doing much better.  She wears pullups at night (they are always soaked).  I was worried about her using the toilet at school.  She's had only two accidents in over 3 months being there!  I'm very grateful she'll go potty there.  And thankfully even though she won't go when we're out (not even for the 3 hours we're at church!), she's better at holding it in until we're back home.  I ALWAYS have extra clothes on me.

The other big struggle has been sleep.  She was the perfect sleeper until she learned how to climb out of her crib (after 3 years old, ha!).  Then sleep became an illusion.  We turned her crib into a toddler bed and thought she'd think that was pretty cool, but nope!  It was a crazy time because Ezra was sleeping in our room in the pack 'n play, so I didn't want her to come in and wake him up.  I was also still nursing him a couple times in the night.  And if I had to get up to go nurse him and leave her, she completely lost it and had huge crying meltdowns/freak-outs.  Whew!

In May Clara and Eli got bunk beds in his room!  We thought this would be exciting to her, but she still came out of her bed a lot.  I would get so frustrated with her coming out again and again and again.  Finally I realized that I didn't want her falling asleep with her mommy upset with her.  So I started staying in her room with her (she goes to bed an hour before Eli) and singing to her until she fell asleep.  That was difficult to do when I had a nursing baby I had to nurse before bed, but was possible after he was weaned.  There is still the issue of her getting up in the night.  She gets up and comes into our bed every night.  If I bring her back to her bed she gets right back up and comes back to our bed.  If I make a bed for her on the floor she'll stand up and won't lay down and will get upset.  So I let her sleep in our bed.  David often goes to the couch (who can sleep well with a kid in the bed?).  It's not good for anyone, but it's one of those things that you're so tired and desperate for sleep (like with a little baby) you don't care who's sleeping where. I know it's a phase.  It's not like she's going to want to sleep with us when she's 13.  Eli hasn't come in our bed in years.  It's hard to have patience through the phases, though.

As I said, she still uses her paci at night. I thought I would take it away/lose it quite a long time ago, but it always seemed so cruel to me to take away what she loved so dearly.  So instead I've just decided to let her give it up for good when SHE's ready.  She can't take it anywhere.  She's not supposed to have it other times, just for sleep.  Of course in retrospect I wish I had gotten rid of it when she was two!  Oh, well!

Clara probably doesn't sound all that pleasant now, ha! I promise that even through the trials, she is a joy and a blessing, and we love her dearly.

Activity at the library.

Working on her letters.

The three playing silly together.

She loves exploring the outdoors.

Loves riding her bike!

Clara started Pre-K in September. She attends at the same preschool that Eli went to, same two teachers, Mrs. Mills and Mrs. Foreman. She LOVES school!  When I brought her the first day she was shy and nervous, especially since kids around her were crying.  She didn't want to go with her teacher, but the preschool director bent down and talked to her and asked her to help her be a detective and find something with her.  Clara walked away happily with her "spy binoculars" on.  The second day she did NOT want to go back.  She told me "I already went to school!"  (It's 3 days in a row, then 4 days off, 3 hours a day).  She screamed and cried the whole way there. When I unbuckled her she climbed to the trunk.  The teacher carried her inside as she was tantruming.  It was so sad!  She was all smiles when I picked her up, and has loved it ever since.  She loves doing her homework worksheets and wants to do them as soon as she gets home, ha!

Her teachers love her, too.  I had a Parent-Teacher Conference with them a couple weeks ago and they raved about Clara.  They said she's a friend to all, always has a positive attitude, eager to learn, and has made such terrific progress.

1st day of PreK. She made the funniest poses!

Singing and dancing to "Bushel and a Peck."

Video of her while she was playing with dolls--