The Feger Family est. 2012: Clara turns THREE?!

How have three years flown by? This little chicken is a ray of sunshine with a side of sass. The girl knows what she wants and she can give a speech and countless reasons as to why she should be able to do what she wants. She doesn't take being corrected well, never has...she hates the word no, always has... You cannot tell her or show her how to do anything, EVERYTHING has to be her idea. She is easily flustered when she can't do something she wants. These are qualities that seem to have been for what seems for the last three years, straight from the womb. I remember on the measuring table, moments after her arrival, the nurse said, "Good luck with this one!" She is a spitfire and I try to embrace her strong personality, as she is equally as loving, soft spoken, shy, thoughtful, compassionate, and brave. I just see the "strong" side a lot since I'm her mama and she can be her true self with me. She tells people like it is, mostly it's nice things but she has no problem telling someone when she is uncomfortable or she doesn't like/want something, which I like about her. She is still obsessed with emotion and tends to be dramatic. She is good at independently play but is not very good at being independent when taking care of herself. She likes to be fed, dressed...taken care of. We are working on that, now that she is 3, she magically has to do more for herself. We both know how fast she is going to grow so we do help her with WAY more than we should, since in a blink of an eye she'll be off, too busy for mom and dad, and we'll be wishing she was asking for help.

Clara wants to make people happy. Each time Everett cries, which isn't often, she'll sing ABC's and he magically stops. She is the first to notice when he's flustered or hungry and she'll say, "Mama, come get Everett, he needs you." She cheers him on when he does something on his own. Since she sits through all his therapies, she knows exactly what we're working on which amazes me since she's never truly paying attention to us, so she must hear us while she's playing. She'll scream to me from the living room, "Mommy, Everett crawled all by himself, he pulled up by himself, he took a step this way..." the list is endless. Then she says, "Good job Bubby, you're doing so great, you're so strong." There's pretty much nothing in the world that can make me happier than those moments. (A.) Everett doing well and most importantly - (B.) His big sissy, loving and supporting and NOTICING his every milestone. Now, don't get me wrong, there are moments when she doesn't want her Bubby in her space, but more often than not, he is her fast friend and sidekick. His face doesn't light up for anyone like it does his sissy, he has a separate, especially large smile and love that is just for her. She sees it, and I think that's why her love for him is just as deep.

What does Clara like to do in her early third year at life you ask? Dollhouse is still number one. Building blocks is always a go. But most of all, anything make believe. She wants everything having conversations with one another. It could be a doll, an animal, a rock, a ball. She is obsessed with finding a dada size, mama size, Clara size and Bubba size everything and then they all have to talk and go on adventures together. She makes the couch cushions stepping stones and the couches are the boats and you cannot ever touch the "muck" aka the floor. We have to hurry and get our feet up before the alligator bites or hurry to safety before the polar bear attacks. The animals always come and are always friendly and come along for the ride. She doesn't ever ask me to read her a book, she knows our routine and there are many times a day designated for reading. Once we dive into one, we could easily be on book number 10 an hour later. She likes repetition and knows all of her letters and the sounds they make. She memorizes words on flash cards but if we don't stay consistent with them she loses it. She can read words best from her educational iPad games she loves, she'll say the words before they say them. She knows a lot of Spanish words and uses some in daily language. I really wish her daddy would speak in Spanish only at home, so we could all be fluent. She is apprehensive about any transition these days. She doesn't even want to leave the house to go to her favorite places at times. But once we get going she is fine. She has acted like a home body, though, probably because she spends most of her time here. Her favorite place is the splash park, then the regular park, then beach. She likes to climb on everything, everywhere. She is cautious, but takes risks carefully. She is clean, sometimes too much of daddy's OCD has clearly rubbed off. I try to keep a healthy balance and remind her it's okay to get down and dirty and we can clean up later. Speaking of daddy, he is her favorite. (Everett's too, I'm chop liver.) She wants him to tuck her in at night and play, play, play. I love their relationship. Sometimes she'll have a mama phase, but it's usually daddy. She is practicing writing with him and she is making improvements over the last few weeks. I want to get her into school, I know she is ready and fear she's going to have separation anxiety when that time comes since I'm with her most of the day. We cannot afford to pay for school and pay for care for Everett though. Also, doctors request she be home so we don't have her bringing illness into the house. We get sick enough as it is. We've had our fair share this fall...I think it's from me bringing germs from school, even though I wash my hands and change my clothes. We're in round two already. I want her to socialize with kids more, we really miss her BFF AJae that we did everything with. She didn't care too much for soccer, she liked gymnastics better. I think the kids all running in the same location and trampling over one another wasn't her idea of fun. However, she was a good sport and stayed on the field, and even accidentally kicked the ball a few times, one daddy helped her leg kick into the goal! It is young to start, but you can see some kids are able to become involved, she was not very interested and I don't know if she would have stayed on the field if daddy wasn't coaching. She likes to play in the garage, we miss our backyard and personal pool for sure. She is already missing swimming so we'll have to get to grandpa's house soon. We were going to go last weekend but E got sick. She will play alone well, unless she knows you're giving attention elsewhere and then craves it. For example, I could be tinkering around in the morning getting breakfast around, or getting the diaper bag ready and she's fine with that. However, when I'm on the phone or talking to a therapist she will try to get my attention, sometimes she'll wait her turn, she is getting better waiting. I know mommy does a lot of talking and a lot of talking about her brother, so I do feel guilty and try to find a fair balance. She likes going to his therapy sessions but when we have two in a row it gets hairy. She has been pretty needy at times and I have to talk through her tears and attempts to get my attention. I feel so bad, I need a clone.

She loves nature and animals as seen in previous posts. She is a great helper, always willing to give me a hand cooking, cleaning and needs some motivation to clean up after herself, but will. She is creative and sees things that I wouldn't see, she is more of an abstract thinker, not like her mama. I'm stuck in the box. She sees shapes, words and numbers everywhere we go, and remembers things that blow my mind. The girl forgets NOTHING, which can be good and bad. When I want her to do something she doesn't want to do, I bribe her with more playing time. Consequences are taking away toys. That's more effective than time out. However if she doesn't something completely uncalled for, she goes straight to time out, but that's rare, unless we're in a fun phase of pushing limits. She likes to play her iPad and mobi-go which Addi sent her. We have a handful of educational games to choose from and she does very well. She doesn't typically go pick it up to play on her own, It's something I use in our hour drive in the car to and from therapy and sometimes when I need to tend to Everett at home. She does still like TV, she has a variety of shows she watches and I'd say Dora and Team Umizoomie are her fav. Others include: Bubble Guppies still, Little Einsteins, Paw Patrol, and PJ masks which I don't really like, it's not very educational and the characters play pranks on each other and can be rude, so that's just a "treat" show. She asks permission to do things, I guess we must have trained her to do so, which I like for the most part but at times want her to think for herself so I'm listening carefully to Andre and I and make sure she's confident enough to make her own decisions when she should be. She loves playing with friends and cousins but needs time warming up. We have a quiet home and when we go places where kids are loud and crazy she needs time to adjust and likes mama or dada with her. She gets really excited to go do things, even little things and it's so much fun to see the excitement in a child, the innocence, the lack of worry. Although she's always thinking, about something, and always telling us about it. She hears everything! She talks non-stop. She likes to play I Spy in the car. She is a creature of habit and likes routine. She likes to have "containers" for things. For example, her car has a trunk, she has two pencil boxes, multiple little zip purselike bags and she loves to collect "treasures" and put random things together. Her treasures consist of, but are not limited to: rocks she finds, shells, beads, charms, little baby dolls, small travel shampoos she calls her buddies?, shapes from games, bounce balls, it could be anything. It takes me forever to clean up each night and put it all back. I leave it in her pencil boxes but I cannot stand the randomness everywhere. She likes to collect them all back the next day anyway and tell me that she found certain things she's been "looking for". There are times she makes a building and has all her "friends" set up near it and we have to leave certain things until morning so she can continue playing where she left off. This is a good tactic to get her upstairs and in bed, I promise not to clean it up. She loves cuddling before bed, she never wants us to leave. It's typically daddy since I'm cleaning up the house, but he trades with me every once in a blue moon and I love it. I love one on one time with her since it's so infrequent. She is my best friend. I love every. Single. Moment I am with her. Even when she's challenging, I do by best to uplift her personality and not squash it. I don't know how I got so lucky, but I am. And I'm forever thankful she is mine.

Clara's gifts were: strollers, dolls, a couple cute clothes, butterfly mask, a talking bird (live pet), cool games, a mermaid blanket, money, thoughtful cards that she listens intently to and says, "Awe, that's so sweet," when I'm done reading them. We got her a magnet kit, she LOVES magnets, a recorder, a couple necessary outfits and a few more things I've forgotten since I'm posting this in LATE November. Bad mama!

Time to pick out a cake!

Birthday party day!

Love this one...

My favorite picture.

Clara is going to thank us for her crown one day. NOT. She did want a Nunu crown, but it was a bit large!

The Feger's got her a dress and high heels, she LOVES the heals especially.

Actual bday morning.

Headed out to breakfast with daddy since mommy was taking baby brother to get fitted for a spio vest (core support).

Bubba got her a kitty she loves. She said it was her favorite present because bubby picked it out for her. We were hoping she would release "kitz to the lambz" from Elsa back to Everett since she had her own kitty. Now you can see here, she has both clutched tight. Plan failed.