claire

The First Tooth Comes Out

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Claire officially lost her first tooth today.  That bottom-middlish tooth had been loose for almost two months but finally let go at school today during lunch.  Apparently it comes out as Claire was eating a pear in the cafeteria with her friend Harper.  Claire stared run-walking to find a teacher and almost got in trouble with the cafeteria monitor.  Claire was very proud of her missing tooth.

The tooth stayed in Claire’s school desk the first night but came home the next day where it slept under Claire’s pillow in a special tiny pillow of its own to help the Tooth Fairy could find it.  When I woke Claire up the next morning, the very first thing she did was check her Tooth Fairy pillow.  In it, she found her tiny little tooth had been traded for a special half-collar coin.  That was a special coin from the Tooth Fairy, who will probably end up slipping a plain old dollar bill in there on later teeth.  Claire was surprised it was a silver half dollar coin, thinking half dollars were normally gold.  Still, she really likes her “only silver” coin.

Where Did My 3:00 to 6:00 Go?

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Okay, this is one of those posts where I just gripe and moan.

I try not to complain in this blog very much.  But griping may be more interesting than all the nice, fun stuff anyways.  I adore the kids and don’t want to complain.  But really, this post is about me more than the kids.  I want to capture this moment so I can remember later just how difficult this period could be.  But it is only tough in a slow, grinding, unrelenting kind of way, not a “You’re pants are on fire!” kind of way.

This post covers the most horrifying part of the day: the late afternoon / early evening.  Below is my late afternoon schedule.  Notice how actual working time magically shrinks to nearly nothing before your eyes.

  • I leave the house to meet Claire at the bus at 2:55 pm, no matter what was going on at work.
    • This is a nice part of the day, and I always look forward to it.  But it is tough on the work schedule.  I avoid 3:00 meetings and sometimes have to take them on the cell phone at the bus stop.
  • After walking back with Claire and setting her up with a snack, I return to work around 3:30.
    • Another great part of the day — probably the best — but again tough on the work schedule.
  • I re-settle into work.  Usually it takes about 15 minutes to really get back fully engaged in work, so now it’s 3:45.  Wow, it’s been nearly an hour since I went to get Claire.
  • Claire needs some help focusing on her homework.  Some days are good, but many are not.  We have to start on homework by 4:15 to make sure we get it done in time to pick up Molly.  Usually that is tight, and sometimes we run over.
  • By 5:15 or 5:30, Claire and I head off to pick up Molly.
  • We are back by 6:00, thanks to the close proximity of Molly’s new school.
    • This is a major improvement over Molly’s old school, which often took nearly an hour round trip despite being only two miles away — freakin’ traffic!
  • Did you notice how much work time there was after 2:55 this afternoon?  Yes, 30 minutes.  How did that happen again?

This leaves me behind at work, automatically, every day.  I have to make up for it at night, every night.

Just to complete the exercise, the day rounds out like this:

  • Dinner, additional homework, and the kids’ bath and bedtime puts us at 8:30 or 9:00, always a little frazzled at this point.
  • Wake up time for school is 6:30 am for school, so there are only a couple of hours left tonight to finish what was left behind when I went to Claire’s bus stop earlier this afternoon.
  • This is also the time to go to the grocery store, handle the mail, do the laundry, plan a birthday party, and so on.  Exercise is also a good idea, and often worth trading for some sleep.
  • The 9:00 to 11:00 “golden hour” is so critical that I just can’t absorb any bedtime problems from the kids.

We tried an after-school nanny, but she did not work out.  She only showed up half the time and wasn’t very engaged when she was here.

We could leave Claire in Extend-a-Care after school.  Maybe that would be fine, but she would only have about an hour a day at home, if even that, aside from going to bed or getting up.

I could let Claire walk home from the bus stop by herself and ignore her once she got here.  But the bus driver made it clear that Claire should not be walking home alone.  In fact, he won’t drop her off if I’m not there.  Besides, I can’t just ignore Claire — sweet, funny Claire.  But she can do her homework alone as far as I am concerned.  🙂

Spring Break 2014

| patmcg

The girls got to visit Grammy and Grandaddy in Corpus Christi for the last few days of spring break.  They visited the beach and parks, flew kites, and played with play-dough and Legos.  Sounds like a great time!  I mean, can you possibly top that?  I’m attaching a couple pictures that Joyce texted to us.

Saying goodbye to Ross
   Saying goodbye to Ross

 

Fun at the "little beach"
Fun at the “little beach”

Kit had some time off for the first (and maybe last) time ever over spring break this year.  Everyone she works with wants this week off for South By Southwest.  This week is apparently in higher demand than Christmas.  So we resolved to take advantage and see some of the music in town.  We showed up a little late for a free showcase at the Four Seasons for the KUTX live broadcast starting at 7:00 am.  Just in case we were in danger of resting up too much, the next morning we somehow showed up at 5:45 for a 6:00 am (“stupid early”) showcase at the W Hotel for KGSR.  That night we saw Lucinda Williams at The Roost outside of town.  Then we were done, wiped out.  In all, we saw Lucius, Typhoon, Rodney Crowell, Ages and Ages, Nicole Atkins, Rhett Miller, Jeremy Messersmith, The Mowgli’s, Robert Ellis, G. Love, Phantogram, and The Hold Steady.  We heard some amazing, almost free, music and discovered new bands.  

Also, we got Kit a new car.

Quick Trip to Houston

| patmcg

With Kit on vacation this week, we were able to make a quick trip to Houston to see my parents, for the first time in about a year (they had been to Austin several times, though).  We were able to leave Friday after school and spend two nights at my parents’ house.  This gave us all of Saturday in Houston, where we went to Hedwig Park, had Mexican food, and visited Kit’s cousins Cindy and Duane, who were in town at the medical center.

Claire was anxious to go swimming while in town “because it’s a tradition.”  It is true that we have had many great swim sessions at my parents’ big, warm community pool, but this time it was February and not warm outside.  I was not enthused, which is rare for me and swimming, but we brought along our swim suits and tried swimming at Cindy’s apartment complex.  It was maybe 60 degrees outside, and the pool was too cold to be fun.  We all dipped our feet and legs in the pool and eventually, much to Claire’s disappointment, called it a day, opting to explore the apartment complex in bare feet and swim suits instead.

We’ll get back to Houston in the summer sometime, so we can swim and splash in the warm water all day!

Valentines Day 2014

| patmcg
The girls in their Valentines outfits.
The girls in their Valentines outfits.

With Valentines Day here again, one thing I like about the girls is their enthusiasm about things like Valentines Day.  They both dressed special for the day.  Molly wanted to wear all pink, and I mean all pink.  Claire had been saving up a special red shirt with a heart on it for today.  She did not wear all pink or red, but she did wear pink shoes.  There is absolutely no cynicism or irony here.  The girls still just love to dress up in as much of a Valentines theme as possible.  This is one of the great things about their age.

We spent last night scrambling to finish the girls’ Valentines cards to give to their schoolmates.  Molly decided to do handmade cut-out hearts decorated with stickers and glitter.  She skipped the glitter due to some, uh, issues we had with glitter in the recent past.  Glitter does not clean up easily.  Molly had been working on her Valentines for a few days now.  She thought she was done after she did about four of them a few days ago.  She was surprised there were more to do.  So we set up an assembly line where I cut out hearts and wrote the “to” part, then Molly added stickers and scrawled her name “MOLLY” at odd angles near the “from” part .  Claire started slowly a few days ago, putting off the Valentines project, but got busy as the big day approached and finished up last night by herself with no problem.  She gave out pre-made Valentines cards with heart-shaped lollipops (my long-running fight with distributing Valentines candy is basically over).  She wrote a special note to her top six or seven closest friends.

I made a heart-themed dinner featuring strawberries in new heart-shaped ceramic bowls for the girls and heart-accented pot pies from Whole Foods for Kit and me.  The girls came home from school with a load of candy from their friends, and now we must battle through yet another holiday sugar influx.  The girls were so full of candy that they didn’t even want the tiny heart-shaped cake we had ready for dessert.  We’ll start up on the usual standard of two candies per day tomorrow!

Just Molly Tonight

| patmcg

20140213-111740.jpgClaire suddenly got invited to sleep over at her friend Susie’s house tonight.  This was a big, unexpected treat for Claire.

It was also a treat for Molly.  To make the night special for her, we asked what she wanted to do.  Immediately, Molly said that she wanted to do fuse beads and have chocolate ice cream.  We managed both, and then some.  We went to Jason’s Deli, still Molly’s favorite restaurant.  She had been clambering to go to Jason’s even since our cherished Friday night swim lessons and subsequent dinners at Jason’s Deli, came to and end in January.  Molly loves the cheese pizza and the free ice cream.  We also did fuse beads, including the part where you actually iron them together, which we often skip.

We also managed some just-Molly time on the Wii.  She took her best shot at Wii Sports Resort, uninterrupted by Claire.  It turns out the Wii (at least the games we have) is not that easy for a four year old, and eventually she just wanted to watch.  Eventually this morphed into watching the Winter Olympics.  Molly loved the ice dancing.

Molly briefly lobbied to sleep in me and Kit’s room, like she did when Claire hosted a sleepover, but she did not push it.  It was already a pretty great night.

Bullseye!

Image | | patmcg

A while back, Claire bought one of those toy plastic bows with suction cup arrows, for the movie Brave.  She never really figured out how to shoot it and never had a good place to practice.  She taped up a hand-drawn target on a piece of paper on the playroom cabinet, but of course the suction cup arrows never stuck to the paper.

At the end of her latest sleepover, Maddie’s dad tried it out and stuck an arrow right into the white board of the kids’ art easel.  Brilliant!  A few days later, Claire’s friend Claudia come over, and they drew a target on the easel.  Pretty soon, after working on their technique, Claire and Claudia were firing and sticking one arrow after another to the easel.

Today before we picked up Molly, Claire got her first perfect bullseye.  She shot and just nailed it.  So here is a picture to commemorate her first bullseye.

That Tooth is Loose

| patmcg

20140203-claire-loose-tooth1Claire just got her first loose tooth!  It’s a bottom tooth near the front.

Claire is so excited about this.  It’s the first thing she tells everyone.  Claire has been watching her classmates lose their teeth for the last couple of years wondering when it would happen to her, and now she’s really in the big kid club.

Molly says that she will probably be getting her loose tooth any day now too.

As a side note, I just had a gum grafting done on my own mouth, so I have to be a little careful about which part of my mouth I chew with.  Now loose-tooth Claire gets to join in the weird-eating club.

The Main Six

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Claire showing off her own My Little Pony sketches
Claire showing off her own My Little Pony sketches.

Today I asked Claire this question: “Is Twilight Sparkle the only Alicorn of the Main Six?”  The thing that surprised me was that really was curious if  Twilight Sparkle was the only one of the main My Little Pony characters to have both a horn and wings.  Huh?  Claire’s My Little Pony fascination had rubbed off on me.  I don’t really sit and watch the show, but it is on a lot, and Claire loves to talk about it.  She will rant about each character as long as you will listen.  The very first thing Claire brings up when she has a friend over is MLP.

The TV show in question is My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic and is just about the only show Claire has been watching for the last several months.  The only other show she chooses to watch, besides the occasional movie, is Barbie: Life in the Dreamhouse, which she can watch only once a week since it’s too, well, Barbie-ish (although it is funny and pokes fun at itself a lot).  Some of Claire’s friends tease her a bit for liking a “babyish” show like My LIttle Pony, but Claire proudly stands by her ponies.  I have to side with Claire on this one — the show is fairly complex and layered with morality tales, not just a bunch of generic pink ponies acting cute.  The characters are unique and independent and learning lessons through trial and error.  Claire hates — hates! — My Little Pony: A Very Minty Christmas since it is pretty babyish and shallow and has a whole different feel.

So is Twilight Sparkle the only Alicorn in the group?  Claire tells me that yes she is, at least at the end of season 3.  She is dying for Netflix to get season 4, though!

BTW, Claire’s friend say that Claire is the most like Apple Jack since she is honest, dependable, and helpful.

The official portrait of the Main Six ponies.
The official portrait of the Main Six ponies.