Princess Palooza

Clara channeled her inner princess on Saturday and partied it up with 35 kids under the age of four. They bounced, zoomed, and toddled their way around our new backyard -- most in costume as princes and princesses -- while their moms and dads enjoyed slushy margaritas and yummy BBQ! Thanks to everyone who joined us and helped us celebrate both our birthday girl and our new digs!

Here's the birthday girl in action, as Cinderella.

We invited kids to come dressed in full regalia...

King Mark decided to come in costume as well -- any excuse to break out the kilt and sword!

The bouncehouse was happening, as was the castle:

But the most popular attraction proved to be the cake!

Tim and I each caught the birthday girl before she flitted off to play again.

It wasn't all about Clara... I managed to catch up with a lot of friends while Molly snoozed on me, and we also snagged some pictures with Molly and her Lamorinda BFFs.

We had many outtakes and blooper photos -- thanks to Crystal and Heather for capturing some of these moments!

Joey was at the center of a love triangle, but in typical male fashion, he was oblivious to the drama (Megan was highly put out that Joey was playing with a new little Moraga buddy!).

All three of the 17 month-olds -- Tessa, Annie, and Olive -- set about demolishing the remains of the ice cream cake when no one was watching.

And finally, Clara proved that pearls dress up any attire, even red polka dot underwear.

Now, time to get this kingdom cleaned up!

Three Years: The Stats

After being dragged along to the pediatrician's office many, many times for Molly, Clara finally was the patient yesterday, and got to properly introduce herself to her new doctor for her three-year check-up. She was a charming little chatterbox, and was apparently one of the toughest kids the nurses had ever seen when it came time to get her shots. She winced at the first one, grimaced at the second, and then finally cried at the third -- for about two seconds, and then she wiped her tears away with her sleeve.

"Did that hurt a little bit?" I asked, genuinely astonished that she actually cried.

"No," she said, "It didn't hurt a little. It hurt like big, big pinchers!!"

Without further ado, here's a rundown on our brave little girl at three!

Weight


31.5 pounds (50th percentile)

Height

36.25 inches (50th percentile)

Clothing Size

3T

Shoe Size

Size 8, although she's been known to squeeze her little feet into size 6s and 7s lately, in a desperate bid to hang on to some favorite pink slip-ons and Converse.

Favorite Foods

Fresh fruit of any kind, but especially strawberries, blackberries, bananas, and pineapple! She also loves pizza, olives, garbanzo beans, red bell pepper, cucumber, chicken nuggets, french fries, and anything and everything that can be dipped in ketchup!

Bedtime

After moving from her crib to a big girl bed, our formerly wonderful sleeper is now up to no good when the lights are out, playing with her dolls, her books, and her shoes. Once she's accepted that it's truly bedtime and we mean business, she puts herself to sleep by singing "Twinkle, Twinkle," hugging her dolly with one hand, and playing with her bellybutton with the other hand.

Naptime

It's a rare day that Clara doesn't nap, and she definitely needs that two-hour break from shenanigans with Joey!

Health

I think Clara is our healthiest child, and even when she has the sniffles, she soldiers on, thanks to her superhuman pain tolerance!

Milestones (colors, numbers, letters)

Clara knows almost all of her letters, can point to them and identify what they are, as well as a word (or words) that start with the letter. She can count to about 16, and knows all of the basic colors and shapes.

Newest accomplishment/ skill

She's been potty-trained for about a month and a half!!

Vocabulary

Clara's vocabulary amazes me every day, especially when I compare her sentences and phrases to Joey's at the same age. She's our little chatterbox as well as our little eavesdropper ("What did you say?" "What are you talking about??"), channelling Aunt Shawna, but most of all, she's our little copycat. She parrots Joey all the time, and is alarmingly quick to parrot Mommy and Daddy, especially if we're using colorful words.

Favorite activities

Dressing up (as a princess, pirate, musician, or animal) tops Clara's list, but she also loves dancing, singing, and playing with blocks. Being naughty is also a favorite activity, especially when in cahoots with Joey.

Favorite TV Shows

Max and Ruby, Miss Spider's Sunny Patch, Go, Diego, Go! and Dora the Explorer

Favorite Books

Fancy Nancy
The Ladybug Girl
I'm the Big Sister
Good Night Train

Happy Birthday Clara Jane!

Yes, this birthday wish is two days late... that's par for the course around here lately, with construction chaos inside and outside of the house!

Seemingly overnight, our little toddling Clara has turned into a little girl, and we celebrated her third birthday with dinner at home, presents, and ice cream for dessert. She loved blowing out her candles, gushed over all of her presents ("I didn't know that was going to be BLOCKS!!! I love blocks!!" and "I got new sunglasses!! WOW!"), and no sooner had she turned three, than she was announcing she was three and a half. Hold your horses, little lady!!

Big brother Joey was happy to partake in the birthday festivities, offering advice all along on the most effective procedures for unwrapping presents and blowing out candles... our little efficiency expert in the making!

Stay tuned for more birthday fun after a princess explosion - I mean, party - takes place on Saturday!

The Breakfast of Champions... Or Superheroes

At this rate, Joey's Halloween costume may look pretty worn by October 31.



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Sweet Talker

In the morning rush to get breakfast on the table, lunches packed, kids dressed and teeth brushed, it's extremely unhelpful if either Joey or Clara tiptoe into our bedroom and wake the baby up. But it seems to happen a lot, most often with a pounce and a "rooooaar" that they think is hilarious and sends them into fits of giggles.

I snuck out of the house this morning to take the trash to the curb, and returned to find the baby wide awake and on the verge of tears. I wheeled on Joey, and he promptly confessed (mostly because he's paranoid about Pinocchio's fate), and then spread out his hands like a bonafide Italian, palms up.

"But Mommy, I just wanted to see her beautiful eyes!"

We're in trouble... he's either a future con artist or, even worse, a future defense attorney!

Outnumbered

All of our readers who hop over to neighboring blogs will he happy to know that some of your favorite little people were all in one place. All of the Cecchin cousins except Tommy (who had preschool today) romped, played and got very wet at the Moraga park today!

The adult-to-kid ratio proved to be favorable for mischief; with Grandma Cecchin and I manning the little ones, Lucy and Molly, the big kids were left to their own devices, which included sprinkler fun, wrestling, and a lot of giggling.

Lucy and Molly turned 9 months and 4 months old, respectively, yesterday, so we tried to snap some pictures of the two of them. They were less than cooperative...

Thanks to Grandma Cecchin for trekking out to the East Bay to join us for some midday fun... and bringing Marco and Lucy along, too!

Friday Night Lights... and a Flashback

We had a family first on Friday night -- we braved a professional sporting event event with all three kids in tow -- and it was a success!

We attribute this to three key factors: 1) It was at the A's stadium, so there was plenty of room to spread out; 2) there were plenty of wholesome, kid-pleasing snacks on hand like hot dogs, peanuts, popcorn and hot chocolate; and 3) we went with our friends Eli and Amanda and their kids, including adorable 3 year-old Lucas, who is a *perfect* playmate for both Joey and Clara.








My favorite shot of the night might be this one, of Joey admiring Molly, seated on Daddy's lap in the row behind him. Could he look any more proud?

This was Molly's first taste of Major League Baseball (although she did attend a couple of Daddy's softball games this summer!), so we made sure to capture the moment.

Since this blog wasn't around when the other kids went to their first games, I dug up pictures of both Joey and Clara at their first A's games, and now I'm *really* confused about who Molly resembles!! Apparently all of our kids have their very own looks!

Family Filmmaker

As our firstborn, Joey's babyhood was immortalized with hours and hours of video, and many thousands of photos. Unfortunately, it seems that the quantity of photos decreases in direct proportion to the number of children you have, and poor Molly is destined to have less screen time than both her brother and sister.

Fortunately, Joey has recognized this injustice, and has shouldered the role of family historian. If that means pausing the monkey preschool game on Mommy's iPhone to properly document and record Molly's finger-sucking obsession, then so be it.

Fancy Dancy

When you have a little girl who nightly requests the same bedtime story, her older brother may or may not become similarly entranced. Should we be worried that Joey can now recite Fancy Nancy to Clara? Don't answer that.

Zooming Out

Molly's little cleft was such a surprise and shock at birth that it was hard to imagine there would come a day that I would dread "fixing" it. It gives her face an impish, lopsided charm that we'll miss immensely! We have another consultation with her surgeon at UCSF in two weeks, and her surgery will be scheduled shortly after that. In the meantime, I'm documenting my happy little baby as much as possible!

She's quick to smile...

especially when she's being entertained by our travelling dress-up troupe.

Little Duck

Molly donned her first swimsuit last week during our heat wave, and took a dip in the pool at our health club. She loves pools as much as she loves her baby bathtub... It must be something in the Lamorinda water!

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First Day of School

Over the summer, a mom friend of mine related in hushed whispers the horror of bringing her 4 year-old son to see Toy Story 3. It was traumatizing, completely inappropriate for toddlers, and may have turned him off movies for life. Despite some misgivings, we went the following week, and as we drove home from the theater with two deliriously happy kids, I couldn't help but feel like I had taken a seriously wrong parenting detour somewhere.

I felt the same way this morning, when I dropped off both kids for their first day of preschool, and they ran in without looking back, practically mowing down the timid toddlers in their way.

Molly and I were left feeling a little extraneous, so we headed out for our first of many solo adventures on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Today we took a trip Lowe's...I can't wait to see what thrilling errands next week brings!

The excitement of the morning made for two squirmy, amped-up kids, but here are Joey and Clara as we headed out the door!

It's a very good thing they're not in the same class...