This weblog tracks my kids’ early years. Each entry is a snapshot from their childhood.
Please pardon any type-o’s, misstatements, or factual irregularities. This blog is written by an often dazed dad, normally after 11 pm when he should really be in bed if he had any sense. Even the basic quick edit is not a regular practice here.
Molly is interested in biking and doing pretty well with the training wheels. We’ve been going to the Town Lake trail and letting Molly ride her bike while Claire and I walk. Claire has more or less given up on biking for now. I’m waiting for some sort of peer pressure to kick in and inspire her, but she may be driving before she can bike!
I’m trying to get the girls more interested in sports. We play a little basketball, but the girls can’t even throw the ball all the way up to the hoop, so it’s not that fun. They don’t really enjoy soccer. But one sport that is “taking” at least a little is baseball, or wiffle ball. Claire loves to bat! And she’s getting better at throwing too. Catching is a big challenge, right now, though. Still, it’s a start. Molly tends to enjoy the throwing and catching. Together, these girls make a pretty good baseball player!
Last year’s trip to Schlitterbahn as a family of four was a little tricky since Molly and Kit couldn’t swim. Claire and I swam around having fun while Kit basically babysat Molly in the kiddie pools.
So this year, we planned a Schlitterbahn trip with just Claire and a friend and me. Kit and Molly had their own special day at Donut and Taco Palace, followed by puzzles at home, then dinosaur bone digging at the Austin Nature and Science Center, and finally watching the Shaun the Sheep Movie at the theater.
Unfortunately, Claire’s chosen friend, Nadia, broke her arm a couple of days before the trip to Schlitterbahn. With such short notice, it was hard to get a replacement friend, so it was just Claire and me. Claire loved Kristal River and the Torrent, both circle “river” types of rides, which we did at least 20 times. We spent the whole day at Schlitterbahn, from 9:30 am to 5:30 pm.
It was a day of many unexpected free things too. At the Schlitterbahn ticket gate, a lady randomly gave me a free ticket that she didn’t need, worth about $60. A guy we shared a picnic table with gave us some free drinks from his cooler. We got a free tote from the Schlitterbahn locker guy. And P. Terry’s gave us a free milkshake that they had extra.
We met up with Kit and Molly at home around 6:30 and traded stories before getting the kids showered and off to bed after a full blown day of fun!
Summer break 2015 has come to a close. School starts on Monday. Claire and I were reflecting that summer break is such a strange amount of time, 11 weeks. It is just enough time to get settled into a routine and then get jarred out of that routine again when school starts back up. It’s too long and too short at the same time.
This year we went with a full-time summer nanny. With both Claire and Molly off of school, and a lack of enthusiasm for summer camps from Claire, a summer nanny made more sense than a bunch of camps times two different kids. So the girls hung out with Anna most of the day, and our after-school nanny Sarah took over for the 3-6 pm shift, although there was a to of adjusting week by week.
The girls love to just hang out at home and spent most of their days doing just that. Claire and Molly have a really good thing going and can play with each other for hours both inside and outside in the rain. They mostly play with MLP and LPS (My Little Ponies and Littlest Pet Shop), making up story after story. They often record their stories on Claire’s iPad, which she bough with her youtube funds. They also watch some TV and youtube, and work on projects. Molly occasionally gets out the Legos or Marble Run, and Claire makes miniatures or shoots some video footage of her own. Claire did manage to get a couple of videos done, including this one that she worked really hard on. The girls also spent many, many afternoons at the public pool. Sadly, most of Claire’s friends were out of town for much of the summer.
This girls did have other big plans for the summer and made a poster full of fun ideas to do. However, they didn’t make much progress on the ideas. They only tackled a couple of them. They seemed to settle into a summer rut and didn’t really expand beyond their comfortably routine after a while. Well, that is summer, I guess. It will be good for them to get back into the school routine.
Here is the first episode of Claire’s new video series. She worked hard on the concept, script, and sets. She did much of the editing herself, and some with my help, in iMovie on her iPad. Just, Claire is the rare 9 year old who can edit her own movies.
This time of year is challenging for child care. Claire and Molly are still on summer break, but our summer nanny is done for the summer and back at college. So the kids are left with “random nannies” from a service plus our reliable afternoon nanny, Sarah. We had two morning-of nanny cancellations this week to make things even more complicated.
This week’s nannies were Nicole, Kristen, Ashley, Mayli, and Sarah.
Claire and Molly don’t seem to mind having a different person coming to take care of them every day. My hat is off to them for their openness and adaptability.
here are some pics from our bi-annual trip to Anacortes, Washington to sail with Kit’s parents aboard the Molly Claire. This year they planned a special trip for us to Victoria, Canada, which was a fun and beautiful destination. This was both girls’ first international trip. The biggest perk of Candid? Kinder Surprise eggs are legally available unlike back home.
Claire has been learning to ride a bike for about 4 years now. Or at least, we have been trying to get her to ride for that long, and she reluctantly tries for a while until we run out of time or she outgrows her bike. We have asked various nannies to give it a try over the summers, with no luck. We’re making one more push this summer on Claire’s bike #3.
So on Sunday morning, we hit the track at the local middle school where everyone around here goes to learn to ride a bike. I had gotten Claire a new (used) bike that actually fits her current size, and she was at least willing to give it a spin. No training wheels any more for Claire; they just don’t make them for her size bike.
It turns out that riding a bike and teaching someone to ride a bike are very different skills, and you don’t automatically know how to teach someone to ride a bike when you become a dad. Strange, right? I figured we’d just go for a modest victory, at least some small progress. So I ran along with Claire and held her bike steady by the seat as she peddled along the flat sidewalk. I told to peddle faster since it’s easier to balance that way. We got up to a good speed, and then I let go for a couple of seconds without telling her. Then I caught on to her seat again before she had crashed and told her she had done it: she had balanced on her own for two seconds! Claire was very proud. We did it again, and she asked me not to tell her when I was letting go so she didn’t get nervous. She did three seconds this time before she started to wobble, and I caught her seat again. The last thing we needed right now was a bloody knee or broken arm, so we called it good there for now.
Meanwhile, poor Molly was trying out her inherited little bike with the training wheels. She asked us not to tell anyone that her bike had training wheels so they would still think she was cool. I don’t think the two joggers and one dog walker nearby thought any less of her for her training wheels, but we did not mention it to them to honor Molly’s wishes.
While I was running with Claire, Molly managed to crash her bike on the grass. But she was unscathed, slightly amused, and ready to keep going. I had her pose for a picture (above). Then Molly got to ride around the 1/4 mile jogging track once with her little bike. Molly enjoyed riding her bike more than Claire did. With her attitude, she might learn to ride on her own before her older sister. A little sibling rivalry might spark Claire’s interest in biking?
But Claire is making progress with her three seconds of self-powered riding and should be proud for just getting out there and trying it.
McG Kids 