Claire, arms & teeth

Let’s stop all this Christmas craziness and talk about Claire for just a minute.

Because there are three things I want to remember about her right now, and I’m determined to keep a record of them, gosh darn it!

1) Claire faked a broken arm at school. She had a bunch of kids duped that something was wrong when she finagled an old tank top to look like a cast. I’m telling you, this girl’s creative. Apparently it was a very good disguise. Grace came home and told me the news (I can count on Grace give me the scoop on anything that has to do with anything else…she knows her stuff).

“Hmmm,” I thought.

Dave and I went out of town the next morning before I could get to the bottom of the fake broken arm incident. We came home to a message from her teacher asking about her arm. When I called back to explain what the deal was with the fake cast this is the story I got:

At circle time Claire’s teacher noticed that she had a “cast” on her arm.

Teacher: “What happened to your arm, Claire?”

Claire (very solemnly): “I cut it off.”

Teacher (trying to ease the worry of 25 kindergartners whose jaws had promptly dropped to the floor in shock about this breaking news): “Oh dear, Claire, that sounds horrible. How do I still see your arm, though, if it got cut off?”

Claire: “Well, we got a new one that the doctor sewed back on.”

She proceeded to tell about the doctor appointments and to reassure everyone that she was now, indeed, just fine.

Hmmm. You think she needs some more attention around here?

Luckily, attention is what she got because Claire has some BIG news:

2) She lost her first tooth. And let me tell you, I forgot how dang exciting that is. Her eyes have been as big as saucers and glittering like nobody’s business with every wiggle.

Finally the other day she announced she was ready. Yep, she was ready for the good ol’ dental floss tied on the tooth and on the doorknob trick to pull that baby out. Oh man I love pulling a good tooth. Especially when kids opt for the “doorknob pull.”(Do you like how Max is handing me the phone at such an opportune moment?)

Unfortunately, Claire left her lost tooth smack dab on the middle of the counter, and it got lost in the after-dinner-shuffle. She was sick about it. Dave tried to pass off a left over piece of rice for the precious lost tooth. Claire held it in her hand and looked up at him very perplexed and said, “it’s a little bit squishy…”…trying to believe him with such a confused look on her face.

Luckily either the tooth was found or Dave passed off one of Grace’s old teeth she keeps in her treasure chest as being Claire’s little gem, and all was right in the world once again.

I love how she has a new smile now: one that sticks out her bottom lip a little further…just enough to show off that gaping hole. Boy howdy is she proud.

And last but not least:

3) Claire got a reward for growing out of her UTI related bed-wetting (that is, before she lapsed back into the darn things). It is a “copy of an American Girl Doll” (yep, that’s what she calls it). I’ll tell you what, I’m in love with Target once again because of these dolls. They are SO cute, and they are seriously just like American Girl dolls, except they cost $20 bucks (…and they don’t have that luxurious hair, but hey, Claire’s not complaining.) She got to bring her for show-and-tell and she was so excited to be her twin. She adores this thing, and it has about forty-five names now because she can’t settle on one.These are the clues she wrote up all on her own to help her class guess what was in her “sharing bag.”

I LOVE that she says it “is a kid,” and that it starts with an “m” for ‘Merican Girl. Oh man I love how kindergartners write. It makes my heart turn all mushy.

Ok, one last thing….for my sister’s sake. This was Claire’s Thanksgiving turkey:
I love that out of her top five “thankfuls” she chose one sister, one friend, and one aunt: “mi ant cherdee” (which translates to “my Aunt Charity”). Sorry other Aunts, but Char’s the one who came and babysat her right before Thanksgiving…

Love this girl, arms falling off and all.