I was heading out for a run when Molly asked — no, insisted — to come with me. We had a good time doing a brisk job around the block.
Month: January 2015
Silly Molly
Molly is at a really silly age and does a lot of funny and cute things. Just in the last month, she has racked up a few pictures that deserve to be featured. So here is a quick gallery of funny Molly pics.
End of an Emler
After several years of swimming, Claire has finally graduated from Emler Swim School. She knows all the strokes, and they have nothing left to teach her. Claire can really, really swim now. Mission accomplished.
Elmer has been a major part of our routine over the last few years, ever since she started there back in 2011. Claire has gone to countless classes there. She had a birthday party there. Elmer even became a fun part of our Tuesday routine for a while, back before homework took over all weekdays after school. Since then it was a major part of our Friday nights routines, along with meeting Maddie and Kamile’s family at Jason’s Deli across the street before swimming.
Molly still has time left at Elmer, but it won’t be the same without Claire diving in too. Seriously, though, they taught Claire a lot. That girl can swim.
No More Car Seat
The other day, Claire suggested that she might not need a kid’s car booster seat any more. At first I thought, “Of course she needs a booster seat! Only really big kids can ride without a booster!” Well, guess what. Claire is a big kid now. We tested out the seat belt on her without a booster, and it was just fine.
Our baby is all grows up!
Trying a Bike
Today, Molly took it upon herself to try out Claire’s old bike that has been siting around unused in the back yard. She convinced me to help her clean it up and pump up the tires. Molly got around alright with the training wheels. She may be bypassing her big sister soon, who has so far shown very little interest in biking.
Tricky Shoes With Little Strings
For shoes, Claire has had slip-on’s such as Crocs mot of her life. She has also dabbled in velcro. We recently branched out to real shoelace shoes, some running shoes that she loves. It took her a lot of practice to learn to tie these shoes herself, but she’s officially able to do it on her own as of today. And by the way, the “rabbit through the hole” analogy for tying shoes was officially not helpful to her.
Life Lessons from Monument Valley
A few weeks ago, I got hooked on the iPhone game Monument Valley. It is a beautiful, simple, fun game full of puzzles and optical illusions. I showed it to Claire, and she wanted to try it out for herself.
As Claire got stuck in the game and needed some guidance, I found myself coming up with a few simple rules to help her out. On reflection, these rules are just applicable to real life as to the game. Here is how to win at Monument Valley and in life.
- Keep moving toward your goal until you get stuck.
- When you get stuck, figure out what specifically you can change about your situation.
- Change things one at a time until you are moving forward again.
- What you change often depends on knowing where you want to be and where you have been.
- Repeat until you reach your goal.
I just wish the real world were as beautiful as the game.
And don’t even get me started on life lessons from the Civilization games. I could write a book on that.
McG Kids 