Claire is a good girl. A really good girl. She is sweet and kind and just generally good natured. That said, she can be a tough kiddo to look after. Her engine is running on all cylinders the majority of the time she's awake and expecting her to spend a calm and relaxed day at home is like asking her to summit Mt. Rainer (which I fully expect her to do some day...with her Uncle Kevin, of course). I've had friends watch her for less than five minutes at the gym and had them say "Wow Chelsey, she's really busy", which is a nice way of saying, "Holy cow, your kid is crazy". It's true. She is.
Truth be told, I like this about her. Her intensity is the driving factor behind all of the exciting (and exhausting) ways that Claire is a little different. When I was very pregnant with Claire and fearful of being a miniature person giving birth to a full sized baby, my doula passed on the wisdom that I would have the right baby for my body. In my case, she was right and I think her wisdom applies beyond giving birth; I have the child I was meant to have. I'm proud of my semi-feral child. And although I can't say she got her exuberance for life from me, she and I see eye-to-eye when it comes taking on life, we don't like to miss out on the fun.
So, it's no surprise that we've struggled a little with the rainy season. I saw it coming. There was no escaping it. Our post-nap outdoor outings are generally a thing of the past and around three o'clock, we're in desperate need of some excitement. There are indoor options out there, you just have to look a little harder.
One of our friends gave Claire a gift card to Build-A-Bear (cool idea right?). On a particularly gloomy evening, we decided that it was time to cash that sucker in and get our bear-building on. Claire was awe-struck by the whole event. She sprinted through the store at full speed, checking out all of the bear schwag. We had a little trouble getting her to slow down to focus on the whole "building the bear" part but she had a blast.

After we picked out our bear, you get to "build" it. The woman there was really sweet but had high expectations for how much a 20 month old would be excited by stuffing her bear when she was in toy heaven.

 Then you give your bear a bath.

 And comb its fur.

Then you register your bear, which means your mom signs up for Build-a-Bear emails without realizing it. The fun part was that she got to name her bear. We asked her what to name it and she said "Bert" a la Sesame Street, so we took the liberty to feminize it and dubbed her "Bertie".

The last step was the accessorize your bear. There was a little confusion on this step and Claire instead decided to accessorize herself with a cute little pink bear purse.

Then the bear is housed, cardboard gingerbread style, and sent home. Claire took her role seriously and packed it all the way to the car.

Sidenote: I'm playing blog catch up. Apparently there is a limit to how many enormous pictures you can store on blogger.com without upgrading your account. All fixed. Holiday posts to come.