Wow! I have a ton of catching up to do! I haven't been able to update my blog due to technical issues with blogger at my parent's house and the fact that once I got back home from our two weeks stay there, I left my camera card at their house. I am once again at my parent's house and discovered that blogger only works correctly using Mozilla, not a Juno browser or Internet Explorer. Computers!
So, no, I have not been so overcome with grief over
Harley's ordeal that I haven't been able to blog. I have been basking in the glow of a hair-free home and I am still surprised when I sweep the kitchen and tumbleweeds of hair don't migrate across the floor.
Anyhow, back to blogging.
Josh left for a two week mission trip to Mozambique at the end of May. I packed up and left to stay at my parent's house so I wouldn't have to entertain Claire all by myself all day, everyday.
It actually worked out really nicely for both me and my parents because my dad went out of town on business for two weeks so my mom and I were husbandless together.
Claire loves to be anywhere but our boring house so she was so excited to be at Nana's. There are so many things to do! The first few days were really exciting for her because my parents
drained their pool and were in the process of refilling it. We let Claire play in it as it was filling. She LOVED it.
Way down in the deep end!
The next day the water was up to the shallow end. She played for hours and has some cute tan lines.
She learned how to use a ring when it was shallow and now she is a pro!
Later that day, Poppy mowed the lawn before he had to go. Claire helped him.
She looks unamused but she asked for more so it must have been okay.
The next day, they got their flood irrigation.
Claire loves throwing the ball for Cali.
She spent quite awhile playing in the irrigation water.
Claire for whatever reason was a little punk most of the time that we were at Nana's. We thought she might be teething but there are still no molars coming in so she has no excuses.
Typically, when Claire misbehaves we spank her, but you can't spank her for
incessant whining - it just makes the crying and whining worse. (trust me, I have tried... many times) My mom was watching her one morning while I was gone and Claire wouldn't stop complaining because she wanted "uppies" but my mom was vacuuming so it was not even an option. After listening to it for so long, my mom made her "go to bed" until she calmed down and got over her little nasty. To our surprise this form of punishment worked wonders. Claire stopped crying and loudly announced "All done crying!" and after that, she was a happy girl. I have always stayed away from "timeout" forms of punishment because I hate when parents only do timeouts when their little brats obviously need a good swat. But like I said, spanking for whinyness wasn't getting us anywhere but this did. She now has her pack-n-play set up and knows that if she is crying or complaining for no reason she will be put there.
What a difference it has made! Hurray for Nana!
I'm working on Claire's birthday party post. Now that we are up and running computer-wise, I will keep them coming until I'm caught up.