claire

How Easter Began

Video | | patmcg

Claire had Friday off and, as usual, she spent most of her day working on a project.  Lately, she is particularly interested in making seasonal or holiday-related pictures, cards, gifts, etc.  This Easter, she has taken this idea to new a level.  On Friday and Saturday, Claire planned and prepared her first play, a performance about how Easter began.  She assigned each member of the family a character.  Claire was the Easter Bunny, Molly was a chick, Kit was a bumble bee, and I was a butterfly.  Claire then made costumes for each character.  She taped paper and stickers to dresses for her and Molly, a similar idea for Kit, and we agreed on an outrageous orange outfit for my monarch butterfly.  Claire wrote a script, which I dictated on the computer so we could print out a copy for everyone.  Claire picked some music so we could do a dance in the middle.  She created a set and put out chairs for the audience.

This whole play was a surprise for Grammy and Grandaddy, who were staying with us and served as our audience.  Claire made sure they did not see the costumes or other preparations before it was time for the performance on Sunday morning!  Claire was super excited about her play, and he excitement was contagious for the rest of us.  Well, except for Molly, who refused to take part in the dress rehearsal, but who came around when it was time to actually do the play for a real audience.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you “How Easter Began”…

Spa Night

| patmcg

Claire was invited to “spa night” at the house of her friend from school and the neighborhood, MH. It was MH’s idea to organize spa night, which involved several moms and cousins doing manicures, pedicures, hair irons, foot baths, the whole works for MH, some of her cousins, and friends.

We walked Claire over there after dinner, where the 7-year-old HM answered the door and agreed that 7:30 would be a good pickup time. Then MH let Claire in, said goodbye, and shut the door. Her mom came out moments later to say hi and, yes, adults are present too. Claire had a great time. Spa time was preceded by (another) dinner and a pillow fight, so actual grooming time ran a little late and even got Claire to bed late, past 9:00 pm.  So basically it was the perfect night.

Claire came home looking quite elegant, with straight hair and I believe her first real lipstick.

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Bedtime Helper

Video | | patmcg

Last night at bedtime, Molly asked if Claire could give Molly her bath and get her ready for bed.  So we went downstairs and asked Claire, who immediately said yes.  Claire took care of Molly’s entire bedtime routine, including bath, getting dressed in pajamas, brushing teeth, reading a story, and getting tucked into bed.  The only help she needed was a little bit of guidance on shampooing Molly’s hair, which does tend to be dicey at time.

Here is a video of story time.  (It’s chopped in the middle to keep it shorter.)

Peacocks!

| patmcg

Today while the kids were at school and I was working from home, we had some surprise visitors in the backyard.  Around 9:00 am, without warning or explanation, two peacocks suddenly appeared in our backyard.  They would stay there, hanging out on our back porch, just outside my office, until evening.  I emailed the neighborhood email distro, and eventually found out that they were (sort of) a neighbor’s pet, “A much as you can own a bird”, the neighbor said.  They had been trying to round up the peacocks for a while, and after a botched attempt by someone named Quentin to capture the large fowl, another attempt would be made the next day.

When Claire got home on the bus in the afternoon, I decided not to mention the peacocks right away and let her discover them herself.  A few minutes after being home, Claire came up to my office and said, “Dad, sorry to bother you, but this is important.  You won’t believe this.”  And then slowly and seriously, she said, “There are two peacocks in our backyard!”

We went out and took pictures of the birds, making sure not to let Muffin out.  As I noted in the neighborhood email, “I would like to avoid breaking up a peacock / dog fight.”  Claire would name the white peacock Caramel Dream and the colorful one Captain Chubbles.  Later, Molly got to see the peacocks too.  Molly was not quite as fascinated with them, but she did note that someone must have “painted” the colorful one.

Just Kit’s luck, the birds finally flew/hopped away over the neighbor’s roof minutes before Kit arrived at home.

Math Quiz

| patmcg

Claire decided that it would be fun to ask me some math questions while driving her and Molly home from school today.  What could be better?  It started out easy enough.  “Ziggy has 6 bananas.  Joe gives Ziggy an apple.  How many pieces of fruit does Ziggy have?”  On answering 7, Claire declared, “Great job!  You get a sticker when we get home!”  If I did not know that Claire was pretending to be an encouraging teacher, I might have thought she was being very sarcastic.

Then Claire tried to confuse me.  “Fifty has 70 cents.  Fifty gives Leo 3 cents.  How many cents does Fifty have?”  I tried to confuse her back.  “Hmm, so Seventy has 50 cents, right?”  It did not work.  Claire reiterated that someone named “Fifty” had 70 cents.  I said the answer was 67, but Molly was adamant that the answer was actually 90.

Finally, Claire just about stumped me.  “What is 100 divided by 2000?”  That was not easy to answer while driving down the freeway.  I told her it was .5, and she said “Yes!”.  Then I thought about it more and said .05.  Claire deferred, “Sure, whatever you said.  I think you’re right.” Maybe I didn’t have to think about that one so hard after all.  Do I get another sticker when we get home?

Winter Trip to Houston

| patmcg

The girls and I made  a weekend trip to Houston over the President’s Day weekend.  The girls had three classes between them on Saturday (Molly swimming and ballet, Claire art) so we headed up in the late afternoon after the classes were done.  it was a fun but quick trip.  We mostly chilled out, and visited my old haunt, Hedwig Park.  The girls were not ready to come back home on Monday!  I’ll let the pictures tell the rest of the story.

Wishlist

| patmcg

Claire drafted her official wish list today.  These are things she is saving up for with her allowance.  She seems pretty inspired and focused on this.  Lots of this is things other kids have that Claire wants too.  And most of it is expensive, so she’ll be saving for a long time.

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  • American Girl doll
  • iTouch (iPod Touch)
  • Zipline
  • Bird
  • Scooter

 

Molly Uses the Potty!

Video | | patmcg

Part of Molly’s bedtime routine is to sit on the toilet for a while.  She actually loves her toilet time.  She pulls up a step stool with a stack of books and sits on the toilet and looks at her books.  Normally we have to put an end to her toilet time after a few minutes because she is just relaxing but not getting ready for bed.  But tonight while Molly was browsing books on the toilet, I went off for a minute to check in with Kit.  When I got back to Molly, she was yelling, “I went to the potty!  I made urine!”  Now, Molly has been known to have an active imagination at times, but I did not get the sense she as making this up.  She was grinning ear to ear and super excited.

I congratulated Molly on her fine toilet work.  After wiping and washing hands, we went back to tell Kit and Claire.  Kit screamed really loudly with delight and started jumping around.  Molly got super excited too and started doing the same.  Personally, I was excited too, but my ears were literally ringing from all the noise.  Molly was so proud, though!  She said she wanted underwear now, and she thought Santa would know she used the toilet.

Claire, who was in a grouchy mood, initially tried to be excited but get a little irritated, maybe from the noise and/or maybe a little hint of sibling rivalry.  This was the first small whiff of sibling rivalry we have ever seen from Claire in her 3 and a half years as a big sister.  Claire complained that we were screaming too loud, and we are always asking her and Molly to quiet down if they are anywhere near that loud.  (She had a really good point.  We were really quite loud.)  Claire also said, sourly, “I but you’re going to email everyone in the world!” and then left the room.  Later she could complain about having to go out in the hall with just Muffin and her last remaining fish to get some quiet.  We had a certain amount of recognizing that Claire uses the toilet many times a day, and nobody ever says anything about it, but when she first did it as a toddler, we were really excited for her.  Molly was feeling sympathetic and started a “Claire used the potty!” chant and dance.