taken by surprise....

well.. claire and i have had a few little doozies this past week.

1) she got her first tooth. it came with a lot of cooing, tongue rolling, and genuine curiousity on her part. she is so cute and loves rolling things around in her mouth because of this new development. she is also making what i like to call a "platapus" face. i just love it.

2) the world cup...Hup Hup Hollanda...such a close game and so sad that they lost. The intensity of the game made claire want to cuddle with her daddy and then she put something over her head. ha!

3) the weather went hay-wire this week. it got up to 104 F, no wind. and i am guessing our homes were 90 F. we were SOOOO hot. i could not believe melanie, she gets a badge of honor, because honestly, i was sweating all day and that was sitting in front of a fan. not 38 weeks pregnant. ahhh!

the only way to stay sane was plan outings to places with air conditioning. for real.

4) last night claire, val, mel and i went to a near-by air conditioned mall to meet people, treasure hunt and relax . I took claire to the ladies restroom to change her diaper. The bathroom worker/cleaner grabbed her immediately and tore off her diaper, claire started screaming and the women stuck her under the sink and started rubbing her buttocks vigorously to clean her. wow. then as claire was screaming she was looking up at me with these big blue eyes saying "do something, mom". the women had no plan, because now that claire was soaking wet from the waist down, i saw her glance at the rag that she used to wipe down the counters and sinks. there was no paper towels. think fast, mare. think fast. i grabbed a bib i had in my bag and used it to wipe down claire's poor bum.and placed a new diaper on the bear.... claire settled into my arms with relief and we left. As we were leaving, the women bascially said to me in arabic. " you understand how to do that now?" wow. that was not what we were thinking was going to happen when we went to the women's room.

( still shocked from her experience!)

( look at the trooper- mel!!! she is going to have Isaac any moment and we are SO ready!)

but we have also been seizing the day...

claire is loving interacting with the babies these days...

and she loves the De Mans!!! her orange shirt that said "south Africa" was perfect for this world cup...thanks dad!

she is the perfect companion for my outings in the evening to meet people. she has been taking late afternoon naps so she can be awake when all the actions takes place...and she has been such a blessing for me!

Yessica and Val were out-on-the-town with us!

she watched anne with me last night. i debated for a long time if this was too early for exposure. but after much thought, i decided that she might really feel moved by anne's ambition and imagination. =) i think she wanted to eat her more than watch her, but hey it is a start!