Unique

If you are reading this blog, you will have to indulge me a bit to get through it!  Today, I am writing about my sweet Clara.  Yesterday after I dropped her off at school, as she was walking through the big metal front door, she lost her footing and the heavy door closed over her foot, slicing down the length of her pinkie toe.  Bleeding and crying, and pale white from the pain, she hobbled to the nurse's office.  Fortunately, the nurse said she did not need stitches, but she called me to come pick up Clara from school.  She could not walk and I was planning to carry her to the car, but the nurse offered her wheel chair, and Clara was a little cheered by that.  :)  She later told me that she had always wanted to ride in a wheel chair!  I took her home for about a half an hour, but it was yearbook signing day, so I brought her back to participate in that.  Once again, Clara was in the wheel chair, and apparently, first graders get instant celebrity status this way.  Clara signed so many yearbooks, and there was always a crowd around her, making sure she was okay.  I took her home after that, telling her teacher that surely she would be back the next day.  But, today is the last day of school, and Clara did not sleep well and was in too much pain to go to school.  Poor girl!  It is game day, and of all the school days to miss, the last day is not at the top of her list! We will try for an afternoon 1/2 day!  Because of all this drama, she is on my heart today, and I wanted to write about my special girl!  (Of course, my other daughter is super special, too, and I am sure to blog about her in the near future!)



I love my crazy Clara girl so much!  It is amazing to me how true to themselves children are.  As a baby, Clara established herself as a unique individual, and very different from her big sister, and I love that uniqueness!  She was not an "easy" baby, she was not quiet, and she was not easily entertained!  But she was full of life, she had a big belly laugh, and she took in everything that was going on around her.  She was slow to warm up to people, but when she gave you her affection, you knew it was special and from her heart!  Once you won her over, there was no turning back!  As a toddler, our little C.J. was into EVERYTHING!!  I never had to put child locks on cabinets when Madeline was little, but even with child locks, Clara found ways to get into bad things!  I have story after story of calling poison control, calling 9-1-1, and chasing after her pajama-clad little body as she raced from the house down the sidewalk!  Clara is 7 now, and she will be a 2nd grader next year.  I cannot believe it!  Now she reads chapter books, she finds educational videos to teach her about octopuses, geography, and technology...she just cannot learn enough to keep her mind occupied!  She loves facts, and she shares them with us daily, often teaching us a thing or two.  She is curious and likes answers!  Yesterday, as we were eating her homemade orange juice pops, she says "these popsicles are 100% fruit juice and have no added sugar, Mom."  Then after pausing and thinking for a moment, "Hey, Mom, I want them to prove to me that they are 100% juice."  I say, "Well, how should they prove it, Clara?"  She says, "Well, I guess we'll have to take a trip to their factory.  Because I don't think they squeeze it by hand...that would be a lot of oranges, and I'm pretty sure their hands would get tired.  But we could look at the machine, and make sure it is just putting fresh oranges into the juice."  Clara makes me smile!