Wearing Her Heart On Her Sleeve

I have a seven-year-old daughter.  She is old enough to express herself well, and young enough that she doesn´t censor herself.

For example, early in the school year, she was supposed to write down a goal for the school year and share it with the entire class.

Clara´s goal:  I am going to be better than everyone else.

My response:  Ummm . . . wanting to be your best is, indeed, a great goal.  However, you don´t think that maybe your friends might get offended about you wanting to be better than them?

Nah.  This thought never occured to her.  After I explained it, it still didn´t seem to make much sense.  But I did get her to tone down her goal.  (At least she´s socially saavy enough to try to appease me.)

Then, about two months ago, I found this scrawled across our message board:

Quiero que todos me quieren.
I want everyone to like me. 

How heart-wrenchingly honest.  

Do we all go through this phase when we wear our heart on our sleeve?  How long does it last before reality intervenes?  (Usually in the form of mean kids.)  How many heartbreaks does it take for us to bury our desire to express our need to be loved?  

For Clara, I sure hope it isn´t any time soon.  

Would that this innocence could last forever.

I was afraid that Valentine´s Day might shatter some of her heart-strewn reality.  Unlike in the US, where all the kids in the class buy a pack of Valentines to give to every single child in the class, Clara´s assignment on Thursday was to write one card, to a specific friend, to give to that child on Friday.  

Oh, this assignment was fraught with danger.  What if Clara gave her Valentine to her friend, and her friend didn´t give her a card in return?  What if everybody wanted to give a card to one girl and then all the other girls were left without cards?  Furthermore, Clara went another step, and after she wrote "Happy Valentine´s Day" on the card, she added, "Zoe--you´re my best friend."  

Oh, dear.  Best friend declarations.  This might be more dangerous territory than boyfriends could be in a few years.  Because what happens if Zoe isn´t actually all that attached to Clara?    

Fortunately, none of these thoughts ever crossed Clara´s mind.  And, apparently it won´t occur to her for awhile longer.  Friday´s Valentine exchange must have gone off without a hitch.   

As further confirmation that the world is still a nice place, Zoe came over to spend the afternoon with Clara.  

Whew.  They may just be best friends after all.

May these two, sweet, little girls get to live a few more months in perfect oblivion to the meanness that surrounds them.  

Final Flag Ceremony

Clara is STILL in school.

I could handle the narcos running amok.  But this 205-day school year?  I may have to leave the country.

All that aside, we are in the final stretch, as today was the last flag ceremony of the year.

Every Monday morning, every single school in Mexico has a flag ceremony.  A select of that school´s oldest and best students are chosen to be in the color guard.  A month or two ago, Clara´s teacher asked her if she wanted to be in the color guard.  I beamed with pride at my little genius.

She said no.

Typical Clara.  I finally got her to tell me why she didn´t want to do it, and she said she just didn´t want to hold the flag, because it would be too heavy.  I reminded her that only one kid got to hold the flag and that a number of other just walk around it.  She could be one of those that walked with the flag.  With the added incentive that her best friend was in the color guard this past year, she was finally convinced to join.

I think they practiced every day for the last month.  And today, the last Monday of the school year, in a beautiful ceremony full of preschool-aged pomp and circumstance, the graduating kindergarten kids handed the flag off to the incoming kindergartners.  

I eat this kind of stuff up.

The kindergartners, on their final lap around the patio.

The big hand off.

The preschoolers show off the hours they spent on precision marching.

Safely turning the flag over to the principal.

The female-dominated 2014-2015 escolta.  The poor lone wolf on the right! 

No More Split Personality

My apologies to those of you who this may inconvenience, but half of this blog is going elsewhere.

When I started this, my plan was to keep my friends and family posted about my life in Mexico and Clara's growth. Or just to share things that I found interesting, be them my family, Mexico, or whatever.

However, I've had a lot more fun writing about Mexico than I originally intended. So sometimes I feel like this had turned more into a Mexico-blog than a Mommy-blog. This means that I sometimes feel that I need to apologize when I want to write glowing reports of Clara's latest accomplishments.

Therefore, Clara now has her own page. It's called Clara's Page. Original, isn't it? www.xanaidah.blogspot.com


I'll just be trying this out for a few months to see if this really does free me up a bit. If it turns out that I really don't like it, I'll move Clara's page back to this one.

But if I do like splitting up these interests, I'll be sticking with it.

Sorry for the inconvenience.

It's About Time

1) Since it's been awhile since I posted a Clara update, and
2) the kids is making strides (quite literally) in a number of areas,
here's the skinny on Chubbs:

She walks! Without holding onto my hand! The second week that we were visiting my parents, she and I went to Parkview North's playground. I was sitting on a bench about 3 yards away from her as she played with their enormous abacus. After awhile, she pooped out, took a seat, and asked me to pick her up. I told her to walk to me. She kept asking, I kept insisting. Finally, she planted her hands on the ground, hoisted her heiney in the air, got to her feet and walked over to me. I was incredulous. She just looked at me, plainly saying, "What's the big deal? Of course I can walk."

Thanks for finally letting us in on the secret.

Her vocabulary is also advancing with leaps and bounds. Keeping in mind that bilingual children are a bit slower to speak, I was still getting a little worried when, at 20 months, her only recognizable words were "mama" and "papa". And even those words were hit and miss. Just within the last week or two, she has developed an 8-word vocabulary.

• Mama

• Papa (she does say "dada" pretty frequently, but as we've never referred to Mario as "daddy or "dada", I'm not counting it as anything.)

• baby. Until yesterday, this did not refer to a baby, at least not in Clara's mind. To Clara, "baby" means animal, any animal. Puppies, Chris's cats, the hornet in my parents' kitchen, illustrations of cows . . . they're all babies. Finally yesterday she did point to Baby Bill and call him "baby".

• no. Today she decided to prove that she is very, very good at "no". Funny how the baby books often mentioned that kids learn to say "no" right around the same time they learn how to walk. They were right on, in Clara's case.

• please. She still does the sign language, but now she'll often accompany it with a verbal, "pee".

• ball. It comes out as either "ba" or "be". Very consistent, though. I think it was her first word after mama and papa.

• yeah. I've heard her say it a few times in the last week, but "no" has solidly eclipsed anything positive.

• beer. Mario was enjoying one tonight and Clara was working really hard to get a sip. After quite awhile without success, she thought it would be good effect to string together, "Pee [accompanied with hand signal], bee." For real? Beer?!? You're out of control, Clara.

Go, Saraperos!

Mexico's national baseball championship is culminating this week (possibly tonight!) in the great city of Saltillo, as once again, Saltillo's Saraperos have proven to be one of the best two teams in the country.

Mexicans play baseball?

In Saltillo, yes they do. Baseball is bigger than soccer. (heaven forbid!) However, other Mexicans must play the game, as Saltillo's team is currently playing the team from Puebla and last year they trounced a team from Cancun. Yeah, did you catch that? My two favorite cities in Mexico are battling out baseball glories.

But, with a score of 20-1 in only the 5th inning, it seems that Saltillo has this game wrapped up.

And, beyond asking Mario various updates (as he also switches back and forth between this game and the Braves/Dodgers game), I'm not really paying that much attention. Baseball is not much fun to watch. Especially on TV.

But, while I'm finally on here, I'll throw in a small Clara update because the kid is finally WALKING! OK, she's really just cruising. She took two steps by herself in the pool on Saturday. Other than that, she insists on holding our hands or the furniture. We're doing our best to convince her that she really can walk while holding on to just one of our hands. Today, it seems that she's starting to buy that.

And Friday she finally realized that she can stand on her own without freaking out. Before that it was "OH NO! OH NO! I'M NOT HOLDING ONTO ANYTHING! I'M GOING TO FALL! GET ME NOOOOOOOWWWWW!" Now she's OK with being on her own as long as I do pick her up within 10 seconds. She'll get there. Slowly but surely seems to be her theme.

So that's the scoop with us.

Dude, seriously--won't they call the game at about the 7th inning if one team is 25 runs ahead of the other team, or is that just Little League? Because this is just sad.

Where's Your Please?

I had always thought that infant sign language was a bit goofy.

Then I had a daughter that thought it was cool to bang her hand on the tray of her highchair to demand more of anything.

Maybe baby sign language isn't that goofy after all.

However, the week I began to teach her how to say please (touching your hand to your chin, and then lowering that hand slightly) must have also been the week that I tried to get her to show me where her nose is. Therefore, Clara says please like this:



OK, so nobody besides Mario or myself will know what she's indicating. However, she is consistent, so it's clearly cemented into her head as the way to ask nicely for something.

And mercifully, it's cut down on the table-smacking.

Whee--Jilly Kart!

Clara and I are in Indiana for the rest of the month. We're both making discoveries that broaden our worlds (or something). On Saturday, Clara discovered my friend's cat. Dirks the Cat is now Clara's new favorite "person". Whenever he walked into the room, she giggled and giggled and squirmed around, trying to get closer to the cat. Fortunately, Dirks is very patient and still enough of a kitten to be pretty curious about Clara, too. Until now she's never found anything interesting enough to incite her to get off her butt. We may just have to get a cat ourselves. (nah)

As a completely unrelated observation, the Wii game system has hit Ft. Wayne with a vengenance, and it seems to me that everyone I know has one. At first, I wasn't real excited, because I've always hated video games and never expected that to change.

Then I played Mario Kart of the Wii.

Hoo, boy--do I like video games! On Saturday night, my friend and I were playing umpteen rounds of Mario Kart. As I was driving home on the highway, I passed over a large black spot of oil and thought to myself, "do I get a power boost for that?"

Yeah, I think I'd had enough Mario Kart for one day.

To be fair, it was midnight. But, for those of you who drive in Ft. Wayne this week and next, if you come across a red Saturn Vue in your daily commute, it may be prudent to keep your distance. I'm normally a good driver.

But it may be possible that I have again overdosed on Mario Kart.

Milestones aren't just for the baby, baby!

I hate driving. I always have. Driving around town in high school nearly always flooded me waves of panic, fearing that I'd do something wrong, piss someone off, or just get into an accident. Oh, the stress!

Eventually, I did get over that. But I never enjoyed driving.

Upon moving to Mexico, I was really excited about the thought of living somewhere that has a reliable, cheap, and fairly efficient public transportation system. Wherever I have lived in Mexico, I have taken full advantage of the buses, combis, and taxis and gloried in the fact that I had absolutely no need to maneuver a car in the midst of Mexico's freakish traffic.

However, Saltillo's traffic follows fairly standard rules. Turning left from the right lane is actually discouraged here and the traffic police here really do have some clout. For example, taxi drivers insist that passengers in the front seat buckle up because they know that otherwise they'll get fined. Again, I was shocked and charmed by the level of civilization here.

This also means that I ran out of excuses for why I could procrastinate my mastery of the standard transmission vehicle that Mario owns. Reason #2: the heavier that Clara gets the less fun it is to strap her to my back while we ride the bus. Reason #3: while I'm beginning to find friends, they all live on the OTHER side of town. Boo.

So after months (OK, years) of touch-and-go "how to drive a standard transmission car" lessons, I finally traversed town by myself, with Clara shouting encouragement from the backseat, a few days ago. I feel like a real grown-up again.

Despite the fact that I'm back to the whole knotted-stomach, driving-induced stress that I experienced in high school, I know I can do it. The stress will pass eventually.

This made me think of Clara and her "quest" for increased mobility. I put quest in quotation marks, as she has made it clear that creeping and rolling around on the floor is as mobile as she wants to be, thank you very much. Quite like me and my satisfaction with the buses and taxis. It doesn't matter that she is over a year old and most other kids her age are at least experimenting with walking. I was over the age of thirty and had no desire to drive a car, like a "normal" adult.

Like me, she just needs some real incentive coming from deep within to make it worth all the effort of getting her legs under herself. She almost had it this morning when she really, really wanted a cup that was on top of the coffee table. But, like me driving the car, it will just take a lot of practice to get it.

She'll get there.

The Torquelich

My parents were just asking if I had any new photos of Clara. Nope. We haven't done much that's interesting recently, and all the pictures that I get of her playing look the same, because she generally does the same thing all the time. She's really hooked on the Container Game. She finds something that fits well into a container and then takes it out. Puts it in, takes it out. Ad nauseum. I made this even more exciting for her the other day when I gave her an old baby bottle, some diaper pins, and the sticks for her bottle-dryer. Hoo-nelly! What fun! She plays with these for about a half hour at a stretch. The bottle is particularly challenging as she can't jam her chubby little fist inside to get the pins back out. While she's figuring out physics, I get the dishes washed. Oh, boy.

However, I did take this video recently. Enjoy!

For those of you from camp, do you remember the Torquelich skit? I love that Clara makes the same noise that the Torquelich makes when it's hungry. And she came up with that all on her own. Isn't she so smart?

And if anyone knows how to turn these videos vertically, please fill me in (they're opened with Windows Photo Gallery).

Hoarding the Videos

I realize that nearly all my posts lately have been about the girlie. However, it's cold and rainy outside, so we're not getting out much, and therefore about the only source of inspiration I've got!

I've been meaning to post these videos for awhile now, as I know my parents will enjoy seeing them. And if anyone else wants to join them in this shameless Clara-fest, be my guest!

I apologize that the first two are sideways. If anyone can help me straighten them out, using QuickTime or Windows Picture Manager, I'd appreciate it. These were taken maybe a month or two ago.

The last two videos were taken in August, when Clara was really into making monster noises. The makes better noises on the first video, but we didn't have the lights on in the room. So the first video is audio, the second is visual (because I guess she got tired of being a monster five seconds into that video).

Things are rather slow this week, with Clara fighting a cold. However, there is an upside to having the constant stream of snot wiped all over her face--she's taking two-hour naps! I might have expose her to more children and their germs. It's not all bad.

Since she's zonked out and I can't play with her, here's a list of some of the Clara's more recent accomplishments or other ways she keeps herself entertained.

• She has discovered how to insert her index finger into her nostril. No real surprise that Jill is raising a nose-picker. Fortunately, she has not yet realized how to get anything out. Thank goodness I keep her fingernails short.
  

• She has decided that every 2-liter bottle or empty gallon of milk is her toy, whether she actually plays with them or not. I found this out the hard way last week as I was taking out the trash. Clara was happily playing on her blanket with her stuffed animals and measuring cups when, scavenging around the kitchen for more trash to throw out, I callously squashed an empty plastic quart of milk. Immediately, broken-hearted cries issued from the adjoining living room, making it clear that I was throwing away a most treasured companion. I had no idea.
  

I now squash plastic bottles in the dark of the night.

• She is trying really hard to sit up on her own. That is, she tries really hard whenever she feels like it, and two days can pass before she remembers that it might just be useful to be able to push herself up to a sitting position when she gets tired of laying down. So most of the time whenever she falls over, she's content to just roll around on the floor. No doubt she already knows that if she happily rolls around for long enough and then protests, I'll come and rescue her. However, whenever I do offer my hand as an anchor, she can pull herself up the rest of the way. Unfortunately though, that's probably not really helping her figure out how to do it on her own. She'll get there. And I really do try not to interfere.
  

• A spoon loaded with food and propelled by the girlie now makes it into her mouth! This is brand-new as of this week. I still load up the spoon for her, but now that she's having some success maybe next week I'll see what she does if I put a bowl of oatmeal in front of her. Then again, maybe I'll wait until it gets warmer, so we can eat outside and I can hose her off afterward.
  

• And, despite the very cool set of plastic pots and pans that Mario's mom gave her for her birthday (and are a hit), her favorite toys are still the box of baby wipes, the box of eyedrops, and the nail clippers. Really, why is there such a market out there for infant/toddler toys? Despite the amazing selection of "real" toys laying around our house, she still prefers those everyday, useful little tools. No surprise. However, those which pose an element of danger are exceptionally appealing.
  

Thank goodness she can't get around on her own yet.

Happy Birthday, Clara!

Today we celebrated one year that Clara has been making her mark on the world. Being a weekday, we couldn't do anything super-special (Mario had to work, of course). However, I invited my friend Sheila and her daughter to spend the day with us.

After the girls had breakfast, we walked to the playground in the Alameda. For the first time in weeks, Clara's swing was free (the only piece of play equipment she is able to enjoy). We hung out by the swings, watching Katya and Sheila try out all the other stairs and slides.

Clara was just about finished with the swing when a class of second-graders came to the park for recess. They started flirting with us from a distance with shouts of "Hello!" "Hello!" What's you name?" "Hello!" A few kids got a big more adventurous and asked a number of questions, especially about Clara. Once they found out it was her first birthday, they got really excited and sang her both "Las Mananitas" and the Happy Birthday song. After that, they got really friendly and Clara decided she was a bit overwhelmed. I thought it was pretty cute.

On the way home, both girls zonked out and continued to sleep for an hour once we were home. Awesome. When they woke up, we had macaroni and cheese for lunch (Clara's new favorite) and then we went to the patio to play until both Katya's and Clara's dads came home.

Once Mario came home, we sang her Happy Birthday again, I tried to teach her how to blow out a candle (but she didn't catch on at all), and we attacked the cherry cake. Despite all the sugar, she was more than ready for bed and out by 7:30.

But before she crashed, she did want to share with her admirers her thoughts on the significance of being able to count her age in years, instead of just weeks for months.

She Thinks She's a Jedi

Clara thinks she has Jedi powers. Half the time, when she sees something she wants that's beyond her reach, instead of scooting herself over to get that object of her desires she simply stretches out her arm with all her might, willing that the Force will do the rest of the work and bring it to her.

So far she's been unsuccessful.


She also discovered a new favorite food this week: macaroni and cheese. It was homeade and baked in the oven and oh, so wonderful. However, as Clara thought this was the best thing that has ever found its way into her mouth, she has eaten the lion's share of the pan. Next time (for her birthday) I'll be making a double batch.

She's On A Roll!

Yes, I realize she's about 5 months behind schedule, but Clara has finally decided that rolling over may just be a useful skill to master.

And master it, she has!

She also learned this week how to take off her sweater, provided it's a cardigan and the buttons aren't buttoned. I'm so glad she figured this out in the middle of December in a house without heat.

Bananas

The other day Clara was really into playing with her banana while I fed it to her on a spoon. As I was peeling it back, I thought, "hmm . . . what would she do with this?"

Wow.

As you can see, she went to town. I think she wound up eating the entire banana that night. She's pretty into feeding herself now. Unless her papa is around and she can get him to just stick food directly in her mouth, like a baby bird. Or if she wants a drink of water, she'll pick up her sippy cup and just hand it to me instead of bringing it to her own mouth.

But she's getting there. And it's usually pretty entertaining--for me, at least.
she's apparently convinced that she can't do it herself. )

Can She Crawl Yet?

The short answer to that question: no. Not by a long shot. Of course, she is my daughter (I never really crawled and didn't walk until I was 21 months old) and Mario's daughter (also never crawled and didn't walk until he was 18 months old), so this is the one area of her development where we hold no great expectations for her. In fact, we hold no expectations at all. And, having taken all the pressure off, we're able to notice that she is making some initial attempts to move herself around on her own, among other interesting developments.

• She doesn't cry anymore when she realizes that she's fallen over onto her belly, as long as her leg isn't trapped uncomfortably underneath her. She's also getting better at freeing that leg, too (although I often have to help her).
  

• Her arms get into the right crawling position, but her legs do not. Therefore, she tends to push herself backwards. And if the whole reason she laid on her belly was in to go for a toy in front of her, it frustrates her to no end that she scoots herself farther away from it.
  

• She's back to having a monster appetite! Favorite foods: oatmeal, any kind of fruit, crackers, ham, olives. Despises: pureed chicken, avocados, black beans (although she's learning how to tolerate this one).

• Her "vocabulary" has expanded dramatically. At three months, she was quite an expressive chatterbox and used nearly every vowel sound. At four months, she decided that she was just really good at "ah", and that was all she said for the following four months. Now she's combining most vowel sounds with some consonants. My favorite, of course, is "mamamamamama". She hasn't figured out "papa" yet, but "babababa" comes close enough. Except when you consider that "baba" in Spanish means "drool". Hmm . . .
  

• Her new favorite games are 1) putting anything in a box and taking it out again. And putting it in again, and taking it out again. And maybe putting the lid on. 2) Giving me a toy (or piece of cracker), then asking for it back. And then giving it to me again. And waiting until I give it back to her. And maybe she'll give it back to me.
  

• My parents were determined to teach her how to crawl in the two weeks they were here. It wasn't long before they realized they were fighting a losing battle, so my dad settled for teaching Clara how to roll over. [Note: she did this once before, at 7 months, just to prove she could. She had no interest in repeating the feat.] He'd roll on the bed with her and then flip her over once more on her own. Then she rolled from her belly to her back towards him. Now, whenever she's tired of being on her belly, at least she's able to get herself onto her back.
  

• She waves "bye-bye". Granted, she doesn't usually get the wave out until we're two rooms away from the intended recipient, but she'll wave nonetheless.
  

• Far and away the most important accomplishment to date (although I hesitate to publish it here for fear of jinxing her) SHE SLEEPS THROUGH THE NIGHT! At the age of nine months, Clara is finally sleeping through the night. She has done this before, as early as two weeks old. However, it was just for a night or two, and then she'd be up at all hours again. But for nearly the last two weeks, she's slept solidly in an 11-hour stretch, from 7pm to 6am. And the best part is that after I feed her at 6am, she'll go back to sleep for another two hours. But that's just bragging. So I'll stop now.
  

Something to Bite Into

Clara has started eating crackers.

They're an (almost) endless source of entertainment.

This picture was taken on one of her first days with the cracker. I can tell, as I must have gotten a little overzealous, gave her multiple cracker options, with the end result of the child "two-fisting" the crackers.

However, she still doesn't have the pincer grasp completely down yet (putting the thumb and forefinger together rather daintily), so once she's nibbled off the cracker that isn't covered by her palm or fingers, she's out of luck.

Even though she knows there's still plenty of cracker there.

It's tough to be a baby.

Back home again, in . . . Saltillo (rather the opposite of the way the song goes)

Although the last seven weeks in Indiana were delightful (and honestly, I could have easily stayed a few more weeks) it's good to be back home. After having a week of very late nights for Clara during our last week in Indiana, we're working on getting her schedule back to normal, and getting her used to playing on her own again, which is tough, as "mamitis" has set in with a vengeance.

Over the last week, Clara is leading us to believe that perhaps she will be a crawler, long before we ever expected her to have such an inkling. Mario and I were both butt-scooters who had no real interest in being mobile as infants. He walked at 18 months, I began to walk at 21 months. As neither of us crawled much, we aren't expecting that Clara will.

However, last Sunday, my dad and I noticed that when she was sitting on the floor, she walks her hands out in front of her so she's almost prostrate to the floor. She looks like she could get up on all fours if she could only get her legs out of the way. Then, once she's tired of being prone, she walks her hands back and sits up again. All without assistance.

I'm rather impressed.

Mini-me, she is not.

Before she was born, I jokingly referred to Clara as Mini-me, or Mini-Mario. She is beginning to make it clear that she is neither of these people. I am relieved.

To make myself clearer, I need to back up a few weeks (possibly months). Little Girl has been laughing for awhile now. Not often, but every once in awhile something really tickles her funny bone. What I love is that she doesn't have a baby giggle. Nope. She has a rather reluctant chuckle, a low-pitched chuckle, often followed by a squeak. It's wonderful. Heh, heh. [squeak]

At first, she'd just laugh whenever Mario or I found something really funny. She'd see us laughing and think, "hmm . . . Mommy's laughing. Heh, heh . . . Yeah, that's funny!" Now she has developed her own sense of humor. And this is where her personality begins to split from my own. I think we had spent so much time where she literally was an extension of me that it took me by surprise that she will laugh at things that I just don't understand. She really IS her own person.

For instance, now when she's in the bathtub, she thinks that it's pretty funny when I wash her cheeks and neck with the washcloth. Why is this funny? And apparently it's a hoot when I kiss her belly (I'm thinking she might be ticklish). Fortunately for both of us, she sometimes thinks it's pretty funny when I squeeze her. (Mario is so happy that I can now pass off some of my squeezing urges on her now--and that she enjoys them, too. His ribs deserve a break.)

All that I know, is that we have embarked on a dialogue (or misunderstanding) that will last many, many years. She'll think something is hilarious, and I'll be on the sidelines wondering what on earth was so very funny. This reminds me of countless lunch periods with my preschoolers last year. Hah, hah--yeah, that's funny. Now eat.

Vampire Killer

So Little Girl freaked me out again.

Yesterday, I poked my head into her bassinet and was appalled to discover a huge spot of blood on the side of the bed (huge is about an inch in diameter). I didn't notice that she had been bleeding! And what would make her bleed when she was in bed?

Just before I made a frantic phone call to the doctor, I remembered seeing two mosquito bites on her right thigh. The blood spot was at about thigh level on the right side of her bed. Hmm . . . Coincidence? Apparently not, as I found a dead mosquito underneath the unsightly stain.

Yep, my girl can take care of herself. Don't mess with the Claranator!