Happy Third Birthday to Claire!

She's sweet, funny, stubborn, clever, creative, sensitive, smart, and loving all in one.

Claire has really gotten into using her imagination and spends a lot of her playtime pretending to be Stephanie from Lazy Town or Ariel from the Little Mermaid. She usually tries to recruit the entire family into this imaginary play. You can often find me answering to the name Eric, because I am Ariel's prince for the day or hear Claire calling Keira Sportakis because she is the Lazy Town hero.

She is clever in the way she speaks and what she calls things. The smoke detector, for example, is the "Screamer" and the ocean is never called the ocean. Claire always calls it the Sea. I'm not sure where she picked that up since we all call it the ocean, but who knows? Maybe she's a poet in the making!

Claire is both amused and frustrated by Keira's constant babbling. Keira isn't really speaking with real words yet, but "talks" all day long in her own little language. Claire swears she is speaking Spanish and is constantly complaining to me that "Keira's speaking Spanish again" and "Tell her to STOP!"

Claire has ZERO TOLERANCE for Keira touching her things and I am constantly rescuing tiny Keira from Claire's wrath. Unfortunately for Claire, Keira is one tough cookie and she's not afraid of some prissy little three year old's attitude. Poor Keira's been through much worse!

Claire is extremely loving and is always wrapping her arms around us for hugs and puckering her little lips up for kisses. She still is obsessed with my hair and still loves playing with it and burying her face in it when she needs to be comforted. She tells me "It smells like flowers" and it makes me laugh every time. Especially since she has a little lisp and it sounds really funny to hear her say that.

Claire no longer sleeps with her "pocky". I was planning on getting rid of it when she turned three, but one night the very first week of September, we lost the only one we had. It was awful. She was so distraught and I was ransacking the house trying to find it. There were lots of tears, but she finally fell asleep. A Blankie Bear under each arm, but no pacifer for the first time since she was an infant. I found it the next morning, but figured if we survived one night, we may as well make the break now. It wasn't easy. Claire is no fan of change of any kind and she was NOT going to stop asking or crying for her pocky. It took two very long weeks, but she eventually broke the habit. She still asks for it once in awhile and even said to me one night, "You're never going to find it, are you Mom?" I was honest and told her no. She was a big girl now and big girls don't use pacifiers. It was as sad for me as it was for her. Another baby thing...gone.

Claire's favorite things of the moment are The Little Mermaid (hearing her sing the songs is the cutest thing!), the song Boom Boom Pow by Black Eyed Peas, being "tickled nice" (it's what she calls when you rub her arms, back, or belly very softly), spending time with her Grammas, cooking (I can barely pour a bowl of cereal without her immediately pulling up a chair to stand on and "help"), the guitar (just like her Daddy!) and lots more. It's exciting watching her develop her interests and make decisions for herself. She's becoming a little person right before our very eyes.