Our neighborhood recently turned 100 years old. To celebrate, there was a neighborhood picnic and parade. Everyone was encouraged to wear 1914-inspired clothes. We did our best on a limited time budget and ended up with something vaguely old fashioned but probably more inspired by the roaring 20’s. Claire invited her friend Susie over, and they all had a great time being in the parade plus a horse carriage ride, crafts, face painting, and just enjoying being out in the late spring weather.
Here is Claire’s poem about Muffin. She is studying poetry in school and seems to enjoy it.
Who’s that standing there
with white fluffy hair?
Big black eyes.
Tail swishing back and forth wildly
like an angry flock of seagulls.
Following is an original story that Claire write in her second grade class. Claire wrote two drafts by hand, then her teacher typed out the final story.
The movie Frozen is a pretty big deal, at least with little girls. The movie was released in theaters five months ago and seems to have only picked up steam since. It probably helps that it’s now on iTunes and DVD. Anyways, this movie definitely ranks as a favorite — no, the favorite — movie for both Claire and Molly.
We have had endless discussions about “Who do you like better, Anna or Elsa?” or “What’s your favorite song in Frozen?” or “What character do you think I am in Frozen?” On the drive back from Corpus Christi this weekend, Claire and Molly watched Frozen in the car. When they weren’t watching Frozen, Molly was singing it. “The snow glows white on the mountain tonight…” she always starts quietly. Molly seems to know most of the words. Claire started a series of family votes on who were our favorite characters (Anna won overall), favorite songs, etc. At first, Molly thought Elsa was a “bad guy”, but Claire has slowly convinced her that Elsa is not bad, she has a good heart but she just has a problem to deal with. Molly doesn’t understand that, but she believes Claire.
We had a babysitter last weekend, and she told us that every single girl under the age of 13 who she sits has been singing Frozen songs, mostly Let It Go. She says it’s a “phenomenon”. I found myself at an after-school dinner for Molly’s school, sitting with Claire, Molly, and another dad from Molly’s class. He went on about Frozen, complete with trivia (the main character names came from the name “Hans Christian Andersen”, etc.)
There is also a backlash. At a second grade roller skating party, the skating rink played the song Let It Go, and all the girls sang along. But all the boys apparently took of their roller-skates, slid around on their socks, and screamed in protest. There is also Let It Go Goes With Everything, which shows just how generic (but still lovely) that song is.
Claire seems to enjoy my personal take on Anna vs. Elsa, which is that Anna is a true optimist and person of action who is always trying to make things better, while Elsa just runs to the nearest mountain to sing a song about how sad and misunderstood she is. Boo hiss, Elsa! 😉 Claire thinks it is funny that Elsa sings on three separate occasions the words “Conceal, don’t feel…” Okay, we shouldn’t be too hard on the cursed, orphaned ice queen. I’m just saying we get it, already, Elsa. It’s time to move on!
Anyways, Frozen is the only thing to really break through the My Little Pony stranglehold for Claire in the past several months, and that is really saying something. I mean, occasionally Claire likes to watch Frozen, although MLP still forms the core of her entertainment universe.
This is a picture of Claire and friends doing meditation for karate. It’s a pretty cool picture.
But Claire is not super “into” karate. She can do some kicks and can count to 10 in Korean. And she gets to have a brief playdate with her friend Susie after school, before karate class, once a week. But she isn’t showing a great interest in becoming a black belt, or even a yellow belt for that matter. I guess she is saving her focus for swimming.
Oh yeah, and Claire looks really cute in her karate outfit. It even served as pajamas one time when her regular PJ’s were in the laundry. I can already picture Molly proudly wearing Claire’s karate gear in a few years.
The girls are looking pretty stylish in their recent school portraits for second grade (Claire) and pre-pre-K (Molly).
Molly’s sassy pose is a big change from the crying toddler of a couple of years ago.
Claire had to do resolutions for 2014 for a school assignment back in January. I have just scanned it now. Here is what she came up with.
Adding this retrospectively in April, 2014, I can say that Claire is doing very well on her resolutions. She has had several sleepovers, done some monkey bars, has continued to not be mean to Molly, has read way over 10 books, and is learning the back stroke at swimming. She she 8 months left to work on jumping rope, dribbling a basketball, and origami.
This the very first My Little Pony video created by Claire! She had worked on the concept for a few days and decided to jump in and do it this afternoon. Claire’s first lesson learned is to try to find a way to keep her arms out of the camera view as much as possible.
Update (June 20, 2014)
Amazingly, this video has now has 2,071 views! There are 8 thumbs up and 10 thumbs down. Claire was a little bumbed about the down votes but has mostly moved on to her newer videos.
By comparison, my own videos for my little app company struggled to get over 100 views.
Update (October 8, 2014)
Wow, this video is up to 66,167 views! We still have no idea how this video got so popular, except that it is the twelfth video listed on youtube when you search for “my little pony pool party”. Being number 12 on youtube is pretty damn good!
Awkwardly, this video is actually on my own youtube account and is by far my own most popular video. I have 89 subscribers now thanks to Claire’s video. Judging by their icons, most of my fans are My Little Pony enthusiasts.
This is a picture of Claire in her handmade paper-and-tape Rainbow Dash costume. The lovingly-made costume is a tribute to Claire’s enduring fascination with My Little Pony. She is even talking about publishing to YouTube a video of her playing with the My Little Pony. There are video like that that have over 30,000 views.
One time I said something offhand to Claire about, “When you move on to the next thing after My Little Pony…” and Claire, shocked, said “What? I will never move on from My Little Pony!”
The only other rival for Claire’s attention is the movie Frozen. Claire and Molly both know all the songs, etc. and talk about who is better, Anna or Elsa (the consensus is Anna, although Claire has some sympathy for Elsa). Claire and I can perform the song “Reindeers Are Better Than People” with me on guitar and Claire on vocals. It actually sounds okay. Maybe we should put that on YouTube, huh?
Still, MLP is king no matter if some people Claire’s age think its “babyish”. Claire is a loyal and proud fan, and her paper costume shows it.
McG Kids 