Month: March 2015

Bringin’ in the Easel

| patmcg

We cleaned up the back yard today, and in the process discovered the old art easel that had been forgotten out on the back patio for a while.  It was covered in dust and pollen.  The girls took it upon themselves to bring it inside and refurbish it.  They tackled this job with enthusiasm.  I did nothing but give them some rags and cleaner.  Molly and Claire got the easel in perfect shape, carefully wiping it down, removing every bit of dust and pollen and arranging the easel in its old spot.

Once the easel was in place, they put it to work.  Claire started drawing on the whiteboard side, and Molly took over the opposite blackboard side.  Claire draw a bunch of random cute things and titled it “Random Art”, and Molly drew a house.  It is amazing how far Molly’s art skill has progressed.  It really looks like a house!  And it even has some writing on it.  Here is the fruit of their labors.

 

 

Spring Break / Jumpoline / St. Patrick’s Day

Image | | patmcg

Grammy Joyce was in town for a few days while I went to South By Southwest Interactive 2015 and the kids started Spring Break.  With Joyce around, I could stay at SXSW and not hurry back to get the girls.  Plus the kids just like to see her.

Today, our nanny Sarah took over watching the kids for the rest of the week.  They kicked things off with lunch at Jason’s Deli and a fun trip to Jumpoline Park (see photo).  That was a good way to kick things off in a week where most of the girls’ friends have left for vacation and we’re stuck here at work.

Also, it was St. Patrick’s day.  Don’t the girls look good in green?

Sleepover

Image | | patmcg

Claire’s absolute most favorite thing in the world is having a sleepover with her friends.  We host sometimes but tend to get a little worn out juggling Claire’s friends’ needs with Molly’s, and with our work often bleeding into the weekends and getting into the way.  Anyways, here’s a rare picture of Claire enjoying a sleepover at her friend Susie’s house.

T-Shirt Idea

| patmcg

Molly has plenty of silly things to say these days, but she is not the only one.  Claire can get pretty silly too.  Here’s an example from the last few nights over dinner.

Claire has invented a character of a little girl, probably toddler-aged, who demands that her parents take her all over the world to collect random t-shirts.  She wants to go to California to get a “California Cafe” t-shirt with a picture of a muffin on it.  From Hawaii, she wants an “I Heart Hawaii” t-shirt with a picture of a pineapple wearing sunglasses.  She wants to go to Paris for a shirt that has picture of the Eiffel Tower and says “Paris!”.  She says “teeeeeeeeee” over and over until she gets the t-shirt.  And you cannot order these t-shirts from Amazon; no, you have to go get them.

Tonight, Claire came up with an extra silly t-shirt idea that had her laughing so hard she could barely breath.  It says “Ooooooooooh my gosh!” in big brown letters on an orange short.  And then at the bottom in small print it says, “Pakistan”.

Pakistan t-shirt mockup
Mockup of Claire’s t-shirt idea

She loves the addition of “Pakistan”.  We have been listening to Malala Yousafza’s book I am Malala recently and taking about it a lot.  This is what made her think of Pakistan.  What made her think of the other parts, I will never understand.

Firemen During Winter

| patmcg

Molly in a many-striped outputMolly says a lot of silly things.  She has a really active imagination, and share her thoughts throughout the day at random times.  Molly’s thoughts reveal a mind trying to understand a complicated world that just doesn’t make sense yet.  I usually do not record the numerous silly things she says, either because I just flat out do not understand what she is talking about, or more likely because I can’t take the time or record them in the moment, and they are soon forgotten.

But just this once, I remember one of her thoughts as I sit down hours later at night before I go to bed.  So here is a good example of the kind of things Molly says daily.  This is actually one of her more coherent moments.

While driving to the YMCA on this cold, cloudy day, Molly postulated on why we need firefighters in the winter time.  She said, “We need firefighters during winter because sometimes the snow is burning hot and some people leave their windows open.”  She went on to explain that the burning hot snow would light a house on fire if it lands inside.  I pressed her on this idea of “hot snow” a bit, and she conceded that maybe it is just warm snow.  Really warm snow.  Snow that is warm enough to burn down a house.  And except for the danger of burning snow, we would not need any firefighters during winter.

So there you go, a quick snapshot into Molly’s mental model of the world at age five and a half.