It's All About Claire

You'd think that the title would prepare you for a post about some funny story about Claire thinking the world revolves around her. And while it might, a few things have happened this week that made me take a step back and realize what a special girl our Claire is.

I have been amazed these last several months about Claire's growth into the big sister role. She really has blossomed into a loving and kind girl, and I'm lucky that I have this opportunity to get to know her better. As the second born, she always had a friend in Lily and they were often partners in crime. When it came time to snuggle and calm down, there were always two, with Lily's boisterous demeanor winning out more often than not. I have discovered a Claire that I didn't know very well until recently.

I have watched her interact with Sam and Caroline and she relishes the fact she can help care for them. Claire, on her own, will seek out Caroline in her car seat and start talking to her. Caroline just loooooooves Claire. One of Claire's new tricks is crossing her eyes. Being a constant face-maker myself, I was quite pleased. She was showing Caroline her crossed eyes which got a little giggle from Caroline, but Sam had obviously never seen it before and he just starting cracking up. He kept asking her to do it over and over and Claire was so pleased to be the center of attention making Sam and Caroline laugh.

Even though parents love their kids all the time, there are times when you get a special look in your eye and the love you feel is more than usual. Watching Claire cross her eyes was one of those times. She was so pleased and we praised her to no end.

The other standout moment for us with Claire was yesterday at a zoo outside the city of Buenos Aires. Every parent from the beginning of time has used the trick of spelling words when they don't want their kids to know what they are talking about. Being in another country, we have opted to just speak Spanish. Well, after being proactive and encouraging Claire to really learn Spanish, we might have to start spelling words in Spanish. We were at the zoo and were discussing the possibility of getting ice cream for the kids before we left and Candace was asking me what I thought about it in Spanish. Claire, who was a few feet away from us looking at some weird animal turned and asked, "What? We're going to get ice cream?" Also at the zoo, she walked up to a complete stranger, touched her necklace and said, "Que linda." (How pretty.) We are so proud of her.

The painful thing is to see Claire's sincere hurt of having lost her best friend Lily. A lot of times, Claire will fake pout and mention she misses Lily to get a hug from us or to help her get out of a little trouble, but a few times over the last couple of weeks she has be involved in an activity that has reminded her of her time with Lily and it will really impact her. It breaks our hearts both to see Claire feel that pain, and to have that same pain return to our own hearts.

She is a special girl and I love her very much.