Clara-isms

I love when friends post the funny things their kids say on their blogs or Facebook pages and Clara is starting to get to a point where the things she says or how she responds to the world around her are becoming really hilarious as her vocabulary expands and her maturity develops. 

Clara often asks me to "hold you?!" (meaning she wants me to hold her, obviously) but just recently she has started tucking herself up into a little ball when she is up against me rather than just letting me hold her normally.  It is like she wants me to wrap her up as much as close as possible.  When she does this she repeats the little mantra "safe..and...sound", which is something I mentioned to her once and she latched on to it. 

The other day we were playing on the bed after Clara woke up from her nap when we thought we heard a helicopter.  Since we couldn't see one through the window, I scooped the little miss up and we rushed outside to try to spot it (because she loves helicopters).  Outside, I realized that it was actually a jackhammer across the street that was making the noise, not a helicopter, so I said, "oops, I was wrong.  It was just a jackhammer."  And for the rest of the day, Clara repeated, "Helicopter? WRONG. Jackhammer." over and over and over.  When Paul got home she probably did this for him 20 to 30 times. 

Sometimes I spell things to Paul rather than saying the word in order to keep things from Clara.  This doesn't work so well, which we learned this week when I asked Paul after he got home from work if he wanted to go on a "W.A.L.K" after dinner.  Clara looked back and forth between us then started ran to the garage door and started exclaiming "W! K!, W! K!" having clearly realized the meaning of that combination of letters.  She has continued asking for random "W! K!'s" for days where she used to ask to go for "walks". 

Clara likes to randomly use our first names.  She will shout "Paul!" to get his attention or call down the hall for "Amy!"  We try not to laugh about it but it is really difficult and that is probably why she keeps doing it. 

She has recently taken to randomnly listing the members of our family "Mommy. Daddy. Clara." then she sometimes tacks on a "Baby Nash."  We actually don't talk about the possibility of another adoption around her much other than including it in our daily prayers, so it stops my heart a little each time she brings it up.  Today after reading books on the floor in her room while Paul was out front painting, she repeated her little list but after mentioning "baby Nash", she got right in my face and specified "baby brudder".  I hedged and said, "yes, it would be so excited to have a baby brother OR a baby sister, wouldn't it?  we would love to have a baby in our family!" and she firmly repeated "baby brudder" while looking straight into my eyes.  I can only wonder what she was thinking but it was super cute and I certainly hope she is right.

Other cute things she says lately:

"Own!" sometimes, "own! own! OWN!" - meaning, "let me do it myself!", utilized when climbing in and out of the car, putting on shoes, or other tasks

"Tissue!" - when she feels sad, she asks for a tissue that she wants us to wipe her (usually dry) eyes with.  It is like the emotional equivalent of kissing a boo-boo to make it all better. 

"Love you TOO!" - responding to our "I love you's". 

"Happy Hollow!" - I hear this over and over and over - it is a little petting zoo/amusement park that we have a season pass to and she loves going there and tries to convince me to take her pretty much every day. 

I know there are other things she says but I am forgetting them right now.  I'm going to have to start keeping little notes for myself and saving up her little quotes to put on here.