McG Kids
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 Art #3
And here is Molly’s art and other creations from the last several months.
Claire Art #3
For a while, I’ve been posting the girls’ art to the portfolio section of this blog. But the portfolio is tedious and cumbersome to manage, so I’m going back now to doing the art as a regular blog. While Kit and I were in London, Joyce scanned our big backlog of the girls’ art. Here is a bunch of Claire’s art and other creations from the last several months…
Off to London
Kit and I both turned 40 in the last year, and it was our 15th wedding anniversary. So we decided to celebrate with a week trip together. Grammy kindly and bravely agreed to watch the kids wile Kit and I ran off to some corner of the world for a week.
Kit and I decided to make the most of this unique opportunity to go pretty much wherever we wanted. We decided early on to go international. California, New York, Florida, etc. all sounded great. But they also sounded like something we could do with the kids. After some vacilating about where exactly to go, we picked London, beating out Venice and maybe a Caribbean beach resort as the other final contenders.
It was a great trip. Some details and tons of pictures can be found on a separate post in the new non-kids section.
Back on the home front, Grammy and the girls held up very well while we were gone. They survived some flooding and the school carnival in Austin. We got a text message from the girls every day. Claire, in her messages, always wanted to make sure we were having a good time. Molly, who apparently thought we were in “Lindon”, went so far as to say, “I hope you come back.” (TODO: attach the messages.) Grandaddy stayed on the weekends to help out too, especially with the crazy school carnival.
As fun as our trip was, it was really great to see the girls again. Man, those girls are ridiculously cute and cuddly when you have not seen them in a while. They greeted us with a big “Welcome home!” sign, plus a happy birthday sign and homemade cake for my birthday. And there were lots of hugs. The girls got a treat too. They really liked the souvenirs we brought home from the British Museum: a glittery Union Jack notebook with matching pen, some “London landmarks” school supplies, some British chocolate coins, plus some leftover real coins.
It would be really fun to take the girls to England one day, but we’ll have to wait a few years to handle the long, cramped flight, the tedious lines at customs, and the jet lag. That would not have been fun for anyone right now. Hopefully we’ll get them to Florida or California one of these days, though.
Many thanks to Grammy for taking great care of the kids for us while we explored the world a bit.
The Last Diaper
Molly is down to her last diaper. Once this diaper is gone, she will only have the toilet (or her pants) available for her urine and BMs.
It has been a long and winding road getting this point, but Molly is finally pretty much using the potty now, and we do not feel the need to pay Target for any more diapers.
I have not written a whole lot about the long saga of Molly potty training because, frankly, it has been a confusing topic devoid of concrete milestones. There have been false starts, regressions, and slow progress that you don’t even notice until later. There was some traction way back in January and February. But progress has been fuzzy since then, and nothing could really be pinned down to a single event or milestone. Until now. The picture to your right is Molly’s very last diaper. Molly understands this and is even excited about it, at least for now.
Now it’s off to London with Kit while Grammy deals with the consequences for the next week on our behest. What timing! 😉
Oldishness
Tuesday Night Book Club
Although Claire enjoys snuggling together for a bedtime story, she also likes to mix it up sometimes. She likes to add an element of pretend drama to story time.
Her latest idea along these lines is Tuesday Night Book Club. Instead of reading a book in bed together, we pretend it is story time at Austin Public Library. I sit in a chair and read a story (currently Henry and Beezus by Beverly Cleary) while Claire sits on the floor and listens. She becomes a girl named Sally who was dropped off at the library for story time. Actually, Claire calls it “book club” since that sounds more grown up. I act the part of the story reader and say stuff like, “Thanks for coming out to the book club tonight, kids,” at the beginning and “Looks like your parents are here to pick you up” at the end. Claire encourages me to ask questions about the book. For example, “Why does Henry not want Scooter to know that Ribsy picked up all the newspapers on Klickitat Street?” Then Sally (Claire) raises her hand to answer the question. Claire uses her official public / school voice while answering the question. “Um, he doesn’t want to lose the paper route while Scooter is on summer vacation. He want to earn a dollar for his bike fund.” Claire asks that I put a blanket over my lap to make it more sleepy. Then the “parents” come for pickup, and it’s off to bed. It really does put a fresh new twist on bedtime stories.
Bedtime Madness #2
The latest tide of bedtime madness had ebbed some in recent weeks. Molly basically moved, voluntarily, into the guest room, where she set up camp on the floor. She has blankets and pillows surrounded by books, magazines, and a little sketch pad. She quietly puts these to use while staying up until about 10:00 or 10:30 every night. At least Kit and I can get something done around here after 8:30 now. And Molly may realize she just can’t handle being in the room with Claire at bedtime without causing trouble. She is just not tired enough to go to sleep at 8:30 or 9:00, even though she gets up at 6:30 every morning. The two-hour nap at school doesn’t help matters.
Claire missed having Molly in the room the last few weeks and would try to convince her to come back for another try, but Molly has decided she belongs in the guest room for now. Claire has gotten over being scared and gets to sleep quickly by 8:30 or 9:00. So basically, Molly is awake up to two hours past her older sister. There is just no good way to deal with that.
So last night Molly sheepishly said she wanted to try sleeping in the room with Claire again. We all said “great!” and moved Molly’s stuff back into her bedroom with Claire. All was quiet for the fist 30 minutes. Then Molly was in Claire’s bed talking quietly with her. I was afraid Molly would keep Claire up (as she is like to do), but Claire said she would tell Molly when she wanted to go to sleep. Seriously, Claire needs her sleep. I talked to Kit, and we decided to relax and let them be and maybe it would be fine. I went for a run.
When I got back 30 minutes later, Kit said things had gone badly. Molly had grabbed all of Claire’s stuffed animals and thrown them across the room. She had taken Claire’s iPod Shuffle and wouldn’t give it back. There was crying and screaming. Molly was back in the guest room with all her stuff. Claire was deep asleep by herself in her room.
Claire just wants someone to sleep in the room with her, maybe a little chit chat before bed. Molly just wants to not sleep and, further, to keep Claire awake. She has actually told us that is her intention. It’s back to the guest room for Molly tonight, like it or not.
Molly Turns Four!
Molly is now officially four years old, just like her favorite TV character, Caillou. When Molly woke up this morning and we said “Happy Birthday!”, she looked a little confused and said, grumpily, “It’s not my birthday. It’s Kamile’s birthday.” Kamile is her friend who had her birthday party on Sunday, while Molly’s party was on Saturday. It’s a little confusing to Molly why we would have her party one day, then her friend’s party the next day, then Molly turns four the next day. We must have our dates wrong!
A few minutes later while getting ready for school, Molly looked at herself and said, “But I’m not any bigger. My feet are the same size. And my whole body.” This was cute and almost straight out of a Caillou episode. After some explanation of both the date and her not being any bigger, she seems to get comfortable with the idea of being four.
Molly had also been marking her fourth birthday as the day she would give up diapers completely. She has mostly learned to use the toilet now, and she said diapers are babyish and she wanted to put them in the trash when she turned four. We later talked her into donating the unused diapers to a friend. Molly has backed down from this self-imposed deadline, though. She is going to wait until she runs out of diapers instead.
Molly chose to have her party as a bounce house, so we set it up at Pump It Up! in North Austin. Since Molly recently switched schools, we were afraid we would not get a big crowd at her party. We invited her whole new class, some favorites from her old class, and some other friends from work, etc. With siblings, we ended dup with 24 bouncers. It was a good party, and we were happy to meet some of the new (to us) parents in Molly’s class.
Molly’s presents included a Skuut balance bike from Kit and me. Molly called this her “scooty patooty” bike. She got some plastic “Sofia the First” jewelry that Claire got at Target. Claire was a little sad that Molly was not very excited about the shiny necklace and earrings that Claire paid $5 for from her own allowance. Molly got an awesome “M” cape from Noni, which she often asks to wear and which she keeps with her at bedtime. Other presents are mostly books, puzzles, dolls, and hands-on art sets.
Happy birthday, Molly!
McG Kids 