Claymation!

The last few weeks have been just great! Clara has been (mostly) healthy, and she's been in a super mood for most of almost every day this month! She's also having a great time at Kita - a week ago Katrin asked the kids if any of them would like to sing a song for all the others. She didn't expect anyone to, because they're still just 2-2 1/2 years old. But to her surprise, Nour wanted to sing, and sang a song for them all. Then, when Nour was finished Clara pointed excitedly to her chest, saying silently "me! me!" Katrin was astounded, because Clara is usually a bit withdrawn when she's in such a group. So she asked Clara to sing, and Clara started off singing the first few verses loud (and doing the actions!), and then got quieter and quieter until she just mouthed the last few verses while doing the actions. Katrin was SO proud of her!

I continue to be amazed at the complicated sentences Clara says out of the blue. Last night I asked her who would come to visit, and she said "Onkel Robert und Tante Nadine." A few seconds later she then added "Mama hat das gesagt" (Mommy told me that). She likes to play this game with Tanja where she points to, say, a cat and says "That's a bear!" And if Tanja says "no, it's a cat" then Clara either says "no, it's a bear!" or else sometimes "it's a bear that looks like a cat!" Also, Tanja has pointed out that she now often uses the first and second person, using I or me (or ich, mich, or mir) instead of "Clara."

Today when we were visiting one of Tanja's colleagues Clara undertook a really complicated plan that none of us understood at first. She was placing a chair very carefully near a shelf that consisted of multiple same-shaped shelves stacked in steps. Their daughter tried to move the chair that Clara was positioning and Clara reprimanded her sternly "Nein! Das ist nicht deins!" (Stop that! This isn't yours!) It turned out she was arranging the chair so that she could climb up to get some crayons that were stored up on a higher level, and then sit on the chair and draw on the shelf! She's not usually so assertive, but considering how complicated her plan was no wonder she was extra defensive!

Some random photos of fun at home (it's been cold this January!). Clara really loves doing the splits. Here she is clapping and stamping:





Reading with Mommy:


Demonstrating how not to transport a baby:


More splits:


Hanging out:


Cuddles with Daddy:


Last weekend it was pretty cold (-15C), so we spent almost the entire weekend indoors. We took out Clara's modeling clay for the first time, and that was a big success. Here's Tanja's snowman:


You can see how little it really was in the next photo:


Finally, we made a short "claymation" film with the snowman: