Month: July 2009

Changing Tide

| patmcg

About a year ago, Claire was having an awful time with her baths. Every night was a trial of patience and nerves. Since then, things have gradually gotten a little better, but no more so than since the move to the new house in Austin. Now the only problem is getting her out of the bath! Maybe it is the new fresher, nicer bathroom with the sunroof, or maybe the just general change of scenery. It really seemed to pick up after our trip to Barton Springs, for whatever reason. Anyways, she loves her baths now.

Claire has also gotten a lot more adventurous in the bath. She is now swimming, splashing, sticking her face in the water, blowing bubbles, and playing with the drain. She may be getting a little too comfortable. She insists that it is really not dangerous to run and jump in the tub. I finally told her that if she slipped and fell, she might have to go to the hospital and get a cast like with her bounce house accident. Yes, I pulled the bounce house card. I felt a little bad using a scare tactic, but it is an honest argument, and it did the trick. No more running and jumping in the tub!

TODO: Need bath or towel pic

Howdy, Austin

| patmcg

At long last, we have moved to Austin!

Not long ago, Kit’s job search from Dallas was not going so well.  We were afraid Kit would be unemployed, and we would be forced to move to Richardson for the lower rent, where Kit would be a stay-at-home mom with a hard earned but unused MD and PhD.  Or we would move somewhere random and presumably cold (Duluth or Scranton come to mind) just to find a place that would hire her.  The job market out there is tough now, even for doctors!

But here we are moving to Austin, of all places, where Kit has landed a sweet job thanks to her friend Chrissy from the residency days. Chrissy recommended Kit to her group in Austin, and by some small miracle (actually a big miracle to us), they hired her.  We always had our eye on moving to Austin or San Antonio, but we never really thought it would work out.  But here we are with a good job lined up for Kit. We are very lucky indeed.

Even though we are happy to move here, Claire had to leave behind some great school friends (Katherine from her Dallas preschool was her best friend!) plus a great baby sitter who we only used once before we left.  Claire of course has a new bedroom that is smaller than her old one in Dallas, but it actually works better for her age.  She will be starting up at her new preschool soon, which we were also extremely lucky to get her into.  Many of our other preschool choices were unorganized and chaotic, and one seemed to be run by a teenage girl in a swimsuit with no shoes.  But by another miracle and some good timing, we got Claire into an excellent day care which normally has a two year waiting list.

So far to Claire, Austin has meant a lot of fun, especially in the water.  In the first weekend alone, we went swimming or splashing on three different occasions: Barton Springs, the splash fountain at Auditorium Shores, and Chrissy’s backyard for the Fourth of July.  You just can’t help but run out and get wet around here, especially with a little kid and temperatures over 100 degrees most days.

Now the real adventure begins as Kit settles into her new job, Claire settles into her new school, I move back to full-time working at home, and we all prepare for the new baby.  These are huge life transitions, and they will bring challenges for us all.  But for now, it looks like we have things on the right track.

Love that Pen!

| patmcg

Claire has never really had a true lovie, comfort item, or whatever you want to call it. There has never been a consistent object that she would not part with, she wanted to bring to bed, and she looked for the first thing in the morning. The usual suspects have failed the test. She likes her stuffed animals well enough, but they are really just regular toys that end up getting scattered around her room and then summarily ignored. She likes her purple sleep blanket, but she does not normally use it outside of sleep time.

So imagine our surprise when Claire developed a strong, dedicated attachment to a pen. Actually, it’s a highlighter. A green one. But we call it a pen.

She tracks this pen with great dedication. She holds it in the car seat on the way to school. She walks it to the front door of the school, where I finally collect it from her. She asks who is going to pick her up, and which car we will be in. If the afternoon car is different than the morning car, then she asks if we can possibly transfer her green pen to the other car so she can have it immediately after school. At night, she always holds her green pen during story time and puts it down on the floor right next to the bed when it is time to turn out the lights. Occasionally there is a small panic if we cannot find said pen before bedtime. It is truly a lovie. Except she is not allowed to cuddle with it in bed. You know, because of the pen marks and all.

This pen is the sister of a purple highlighter Claire’s her mom gave her for entertainment in the hospital when she broke her leg. I think that was the seed for why this pen is special. Claire quickly dried the purple one of ink, and we ended up giving her the green one as a replacement. She quickly dried the green one of ink too, but she still carries it around and has not lost interest yet.

Publisher’s Note: On the night of July 30, 2009, Claire really, really lost her green pen. However, by pure luck, she was distracted by some new Horton Hears a Who! finger puppets, which she took to bed in her pen’s stead. Over the next week or so, the finger puppets have yielded to a “squiggly straw” as her new comfort item. So we are officially over the missing green pen. But that pen definitely held the record by far for number of days as Claire’s lovie.