Random moments with CLAIRE

* Claire's hearing was next to gone because of a cold she had a few weeks ago. The cold came and gone, but her ears would NOT pop!! She seriously could hardly hear. It was quite annoying for us as well as for her, I'm sure. We pretty much had to YELL at her to get her to hear us. It was frustrating...and just made us want to YELL even louder because of how many times we had repeat ourselves, talking louder each time!! Seriously. It was bad.

And then a miracle occurred! She blew her nose! I only wish I would have had the camera rolling after that momentous blow. "hello?" "Hello." "HELLO!" "HELLLLLOOOOO!!" "HEY. HEY. HI. I CAN HEAR LOUD!!" "I can hear BIG and SMALL." "I can hear FAST and SLOW." "I can hear LOUD and QUIET." "HELLO." "HELLOOOOOO!!" She hadn't had this much excitement, animation or joy for DAYS! All the sudden she was the loud one yelling and repeating herself! ...so LOUD so GRATEFUL to be able to HEAR! WE were pretty grateful too. Makes you realize the things you take for granted....like being able to hear fast and slow, big and small, LOUD and quiet!

* Claire is really into happy things right now. In every prayer, she's grateful that we could all be happy; she's grateful for our happy yellow room and then lists a handful of things that make her happy. And she is certainly a living example of happiness herself!

* Speaking of prayers, Benson complained the other day after Claire said the lunch prayer on the food that Claire's prayers are too long. After getting a few bites of grub in his tub, a light bulb went off in his mind. "I KNOW why Claire's prayers are so long, mom. She's not hungry like I am for food. She gets fed in her tube and that makes her not hungry.....but I AM HUNGRY! That's why my prayers are fast and Claire's prayers are long." It's true. All very true.

However, on a side note, I just talked with Claire's dietitian today and we are going to start cutting back on some of her milk feedings. We're going to try decreasing the calories she gets from the milk and see if she'll be hungry enough to (say shorter prayers) eat more by mouth! Her fluid intake will still have to be high, but we can substitute water for the milk and see if she can make some steps to getting off the formula and getting onto more real foods! Exciting step for this girl!

* Claire learned the letter M last week and her favorite word to write now is MOM. I've been getting lots of letters filled with mmmmmmmm's ooooooooooooo's and mmmmmmmmmm's and I LOVE IT!! She also thinks that learning to read is nothing more than saying words really s l o w. Now that Benson is starting to read, he obviously says words slowly as he figures out what each word is...so Claire has started doing that too. She grabs Annie, picks her favorite book, makes up her own words (or remembers the words that actually tell the story of the book) and says them super slow. "LOOK MOM! I just read a book to Annie. I can read now too!"

Gotta LOVE this Princess!!