claire

Readin’ and Talkin’

| patmcg

The kid and the baby, aka Claire and Molly, each demonstrated some significant progress today in their respective fields of reading and talking.

This morning, Claire had written out the random letters O-L-A-J-A on a piece of paper and decided to try to sound out the word. She had been learning letter sounds at school for the past several months and was feeling pretty comfortable with the letters now. She slowly and deliberately read it out: “Oooh la jah.” It was amazing to see her really read something. And this was definitely not a case where she just recognized a word from memory, like her own name. (Granted, she might have been referring to the small Spanish village of Santa Olaja de la Accion, but I am going to stick with the random letters theory.) I decided to go with the momentum and write out my name: P-A-T. She slowly read it out: “Paaat. That’s your name!” Definitely not a fluke.

Molly was impressed with Claire’s reading but did not want to be overshadowed, so she showed off a bit of her own hard earned new skill while getting ready for bed that night. Kit and I were chatting while putting Molly into her pajamas when Kit used the phrase “thank you” in the middle of a sentence. A few seconds later, Molly clearly said, or tried to say, “thank you” three times in a row. It sounded kind of like “tank wa, tank wa, tank wa”. We cheered and gave her a big hug. Molly beamed, and then started saying “Daddy” over and over. That is a pretty easy go-to word for her, along with her favorite “uh oh”. Molly tried to say “Mommy” but is still having trouble with that darn “mmm” sound, but she definitely tried. Molly also has trouble with the “nnn” sound as well and has not yet learned to say “no”, but I am sure that will be a future favorite.


Ballet Recital

| patmcg

Here are some footage and pictures of Claire’s ballet recital this weekend. She takes a 45 minute lesson every Saturday at the YMCA with her friends Coco, Zoey, and Isa. This was the culmination of the last few weeks of class. The dance teacher said it was not really a recital, but she just wanted to show off what the kids could do because she was so proud of their progress. The teacher also said, much to everyone’s relief, that the recital would not last the scheduled two hours, and would instead take about 30 minutes.

During this recital, I also got a troubling text message from Kit, who was at the doctor’s office with Molly.

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Halloween 2010

| patmcg

Halloween is upon us again. Just like last year, we joined Claire’s school friend Megan for Halloween festivities in their Mount Bonnell neighborhood. The neighborhood has an annual Halloween parade — actually, a loose gaggle of spooky kids and their accompanying parents, lead by ceremonial bagpipes. Immediately following the parade, the kids and accompanying parents fan out for tricks or treats.

This was technically Molly’s second Halloween, but it was the first one that Molly was actually awake and conscious for. Today, Molly found herself walking down the street among dozens of kids dressed up as cowboys, Sesame Street characters, princesses (including her sister), and of course Star Wars heroes and villains. They would go from house to house, knocking on the strange doors asking for candy. As Sally says in It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, “Are you sure this is legal?” Molly, who dressed as a pumpkin fairy (whatever that is), loved it. She stayed up late and had no dinner aside from some bread and strawberries while on the move. Ordinarily, this would be enough to make her rather fussy, but she smiled and looked around with wide eyes the whole time.

For her part, Claire, at age four, has become an old pro. Claire wore her running shoes and literally sprinted from house to house trying to (1) keep up with her friends, and (2) maximize her candy intake. Claire, who dressed up kind of like Sleeping Beauty, ended the night exhausted and sweaty with a bag full of several pounds of candy. Claire had some indecision on her costume up to the last minute this year. Several months ago, she mentioned that she wanted to be Snow White, then almost changed her mind to a butterfly princess we saw at a Pottery Barn outlet. Afraid she would later change her mind and want to be Snow White in the end, we persuaded her to stick with Snow White. She wore the Snow White outfit once or twice before Halloween and looked perfect. But she got cold feet the day before Halloween and changed to a generic pink princess outfit she had from her dress-up collection, declaring herself Sleeping Beauty. We are not sure why she abandoned the Snow White idea, but we probably pushed Snow White too hard. We were trying to avoid the exact situation we got in, switching costumes at the last minute, except in reverse! Oh, meddling parents! Still, both girls looked cute and had a really fun time.

Toss Up Talk

| patmcg

Molly woke up last night at 4 am to discover, to her astonishment, that she was vomiting. Of course, she probably had no idea what was going on, but her cries made it clear she did not like it one bit.

Pretty soon, the whole family was awake and gathered around poor Molly. While Kit held and comforted Molly, I got some paper towels to clean up Molly, Kit, and myself. Claire, who was suffering from “walking pneumonia” and had missed the prior day of school, was very interested in what was happening and asked how she could help. Claire and I quickly removed Molly’s stained sheets, wiped down her plastic-covered mattress, and put on a fresh clean sheet. We sent Claire to the guest bedroom to sleep while Kit and then I held Molly until morning.

We kept Molly home from school the next day. Molly’s teacher called me in the morning to ask if Molly was okay. She said she had visited Claire’s classroom and saw Claire was in school, so she figured Molly was sick (oops, I should have called). She said Claire told her excitedly that Molly threw up in the middle of the night.

Molly spent the day at home with me mostly sleeping, drinking Pedialyte, not eating, and acting groggy. Her fever spiked to 102.

When I picked up Claire, with Molly in tow, Claire’s friends on the playground were excited to hear about Molly’s misadventure. After I explained to them what had happened, each of the cute little girls, each dressed in a cute little dress, proudly shared their own unique story of vomiting. One had vomited all over the carpet at night as a baby. One had vomited on the kitchen floor and got to watch a movie while her mom cleaned it up (it took quite a while, I am told). Claire got to tell everyone how she had vomited on the stairs while racing up to our bedroom. There was a debate about the best place to vomit, with “outside” being the consensus. Molly, who I was holding during all of this, enjoyed the animated conversation and, for the first time that day, smiled a great deal.

We headed home to try to get a little solid food down Molly and wait for Grammy to drive up and help with the crisis. Trusty ol’ Grammy would save Molly from being taken care of by a random temporary nanny and/or me from taking a third day in a row off from work.

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Roomates

| patmcg

We had been tossing around the idea of Claire and Molly sharing a room since we moved into the new house. Claire had been unexpectedly excited about the idea. She seemed to love the idea of sharing a room so she and Molly could “keep an eye on each other” during the night. And she liked the idea of being “roommates” with Molly. We liked the idea of opening up a guest room for all the hardworking grandparents.

Today we finally took the plunge. Kit is off this week for an all too rare vacation, today the kids’ school is closed for a teachers’ work day, and Claire is still gung ho about sharing rooms. So today was dedicated to merging all of Claire’s stuff into what had been Molly’s much larger, poorly appointed room.

Among other activities, Kit worked with Claire on a special new sign for the new shared bedroom door. “Claire and Molly’s room” it said, featuring a photo of the sisters together and the letters E and G, their middle initials, included at Claire’s insistence.


We did have some friction over where to place Claire’s bed. Kit had a very sensible arrangement picked out, with Claire’s bed and Molly’s crib on opposite walls. Claire really really wanted to stick her bed in the middle of the room right next to Molly’s crib! It was a ridiculous arrangement by any normal standard, but I talked Kit into going along with it temporarily to ensure that this little experiment started off on the right foot. I did not want Claire to sour of sharing a room with Molly before they even started.


We put Molly to sleep first, an hour or so before Claire. As we got Claire ready for bed, she proudly explained how she would look out for Molly during the night. She explained to us that she would be the closest one to Molly if she had any trouble (crying, etc). “Who do you think is closer? Someone here in the room with Molly?” she said using her fingers to illustrate her position in the house near Molly. “Or someone way over here in your bedroom?” she said, holding one finger a couple of inches away. We agreed that Claire would be closer. “Yep”, she said proudly. She also explained that Molly would be in better hands now since three people would be looking out for her at night. “What is a bigger number: two or three?” she beamed.

Kit read Claire her bedtime story in our bedroom and then took her into the darkened room where little Molly was sleeping. It was quiet at first, but after a while, Molly started crying, as she has been doing a lot lately, apparently due to some new teeth coming in. I gave Molly a few minutes, but the noise got worse, and then it turned into talking and giggling. I went to check out the scene, standing semi-hidden in the doorway. Claire was patting Molly on the back, sweetly saying “it’s okay, little baby”. Molly, who must have been surprised and delighted to suddenly have her sister there talking to her, sat up and started talking and giggling back at her big sister. Claire ate this up, and leaned in for giggles and hugs. That was it, I had to step in and end all the sweetness. It was time to sleep! I gave Molly some teething gel and told Claire her job was to help Molly get back to sleep by laying down and showing her how a big girl goes to sleep. Claire took her duty very seriously and did as suggested. Kit would check on the girls later from the doorway and exchange hand signals with Claire indicating they loved each other and everything was going okay. After another period of giggling and flirting, mostly on Molly’s part, the girls were asleep.

When I checked on them I before going to bed myself, they were both asleep in exactly the same position, both laying on their right side at the same angle with their little arms sticking out the same way. What a pair!

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Trailer parkin’ it

| patmcg

With the nice weather, everyone in a good mood, and a little time on our hands today, we decided to go out for lunch South Austin style. We went to the South Congress Ave. trailers to eat. It was a little awkward feeding Molly out among the wind and crowds on a picnic table, but everyone had a good time, as you can see.

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Cake Gun

| patmcg

Tonight Claire was talking about guns for some reason, saying that we are never supposed to play with them…. Not pretend guns, not real guns. I am not sure where she picked this up since I have not really had a gun safety talk with her before, but she was adamant about it, and I fully supported her position.

Then she did change her tune bit and said, holding out her finger, “But I have a nice pretend gun. This one shoots birthday cake.” She then paused and added, “And it doesn’t make you dead.” That last part sounded kind of scary, but it really was a nice sentiment phrased in a uniquely four-year-old way.

Tough Questions

| patmcg

Tonight, when putting on her pajamas, Claire pointed at her nipples, one finger on each, and said, “What are these for?” Surprised, I started saying nervously, “Uh, I don’t know… Er, uh….” Then I decided it was harmless and might actually be interesting for Claire to know that they are used to feed babies. So I told her. Claire’s mouth nearly hit the floor. She was absolutely astonished. I might as well have told her that they are secret beaconing transmitters for aliens.

She was stunned for a few seconds, then said, “Did you say they are used to feed babies?” I confirmed that she had heard me correctly. She followed, “Can I feed a baby?” I assumed she was thinking of Molly. “No, sorry. Kids’ ones don’t work. Only grown up mommies.” She was a little disappointed, but more confused. “Why do kids have them, then?” I tersely explained that they are just there for later, when she is grown up. I thought this would have confused her more, but she kind of smiled like it all made sense now. She then went on to conclude that she is probably the only kid in her class with nipples. I argued this contention, but she was so proud that I did not really push the issue. Then we moved on to brushing her teeth before she could ask the next question, which I presumed was going to be, “Why do daddies have nipples?”, to which I would have no viable answer.

A few minutes later, Claire’s last question before going to sleep was, “Are earthquakes real?” Oh boy. We had been reading a book — a really nice kid’s book — that had a bed fall through the floor at night when an earthquake struck. Still, I had to spit it out. “Yes, sometimes there are real earthquakes.” It’s almost as if I had just told her that dragons are real or Darth Vader could come walking through the door. She started to panic a bit. I followed up quickly, “But not around here. We almost never have earthquakes in Texas. Maybe just teeny tiny ones you barely notice. They don’t make beds fall through the floor.” She felt better but made me promise — promise — that we would never move to an earthquake city. Never ever. I told her we would never move to an earthquake city.

And then I slinked out of her bedroom before she could find something else to ask me about.

Star Wars, the fairy tale

| patmcg

Claire has never seen Star Wars, not even a little bit of it. But she is quite curious about it because most of the boys in her class play Star Wars and talk about it a lot. Yes, over 30 years after the original movie came out, it is still the king of boys’ playtime.

Not having seen it, Claire is trying to piece together the world of Star Wars from little tidbits of information here and there. She doesn’t even know what most of the characters look like. For a while she would ask me basic questions. Is Star Wars real? Is Darth Vader a bad guy? What is Chewbacca exactly? All she knew about Chewbacca was that he was furry and could be described as a “waking carpet”. I had to pull up a picture of Yoda on the computer because Claire did not really understand my description of him. I told Claire that Yoda was green, about her own size, 1000 years old, wrinkly, and he talked kind of backwards. Seriously, what’s so confusing about that?
Tonight during bath time, Claire made up her own saga — fairy tale, actually — of Star Wars. I was Luke Skywalker, and she was my kid. She talked really weird, not English or anything, and so did I. Darth Vader was coming to get us. Claire had magic powers and could turn herself into any princess or fairy except Princess Leia. When Darth Vader got close, Claire turned herself into a fairy, and she offered to turn me into any fairy I wanted. I just said, “Okay, uh, thanks.” We both used our fairy powers to float up into the sky where Darth Vader could not get us. When we went into her bedroom after getting her dressed, she pointed down at the floor and said Darth Vader was down there. She stuck her finger on the floor and said, “Ouch! He bit my finger!” When I walked across the room to hug her, she said, “You’re stepping on Darth Vader!” I could not tell if she was happy or upset about that.
Then Kit came to read Claire her bedtime story, and I went shopping at Target. There, passing the toy department, I saw countless Star Wars toys lining aisles. I almost — but did not — buy something for Claire to help her straighten out her Star Wars story.