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.
She has been building little houses for them, grinding up and refrigerating food for them, and even making a park and pond for them in the backyard. She really believes in fairies. Or she may have a rational clue they are not strictly speaking “real”, but that is a secondary concern because fairies are just so magical and sweet.
Claire checked out a “non fiction” book about fairies from the school library. It tells all about the lives of “faeries”, as the book calls them, and Faeland, where they live. It is all quite convincing and cute, and it is fun to pretend along with Claire (even though she knows that I know fairies aren’t exactly real.)
Kit and I needed some nice shoes for an upscale fundraiser we were supposed to attend in a couple of days. The dress code for the event was “Dress to kill, but no tie required.” We puzzled over this a bit but agreed that we both needed new shoes to start. Running out of other times to shop, we dragged both girls to the local DSW shoe store with us on Saturday after Molly’s ballet / tap class. This massive store features aisle after aisle of nothing but shoes. It has historically been a place where the kids go pretty crazy from boredom pretty quickly.
I took Molly to the men’s shoes, and Kit took Claire. Molly was still dressed in her pink ballet leotard and tutu and armed only with a small purple teddy bear for her entertainment. She was pretty helpful in the shoe hunt at first. She gave me several shoe suggestions, most of which were flip flops or running shoes, but she was trying. Then Molly grew bored and started throwing said small purple teddy bear up in the air. It would land in another aisle or sometimes fall hidden in between shoes boxes. Molly loved this games and started hiding the teddy bear on purpose. Then Claire came over to join us and tried to entertain Molly, which was also good at first. But even Claire grows restless and bored in DSW very quickly. So she and Molly were making repeated trips to the water fountain at the back of the store. At this point, I was getting no shoe shopping done whatsoever. I was baby-sitting two tired, hungry, and bored little girls stuck in a large, boring shoe store for grown-ups
With the girls headed toward a peasant revolt, I just picked some reasonably attractive and well-fitting shoes and took the girls over to check on Kit. Kit had a pile of possible shoes beside her on the ground. Without getting into the details, Kit was not too happy with any of them. I honestly thought they all looked pretty darn good and was hoping she would pick one so we could get out of there and go eat lunch. But more choices kept coming. Shoes were reconsidered. We were not going to be leaving soon. To be fair, Kit was not taking an extraordinary amount of time to pick her shoes. It would have been okay except for the two restless little girls. Now in the women’s section, where the shoes come in more than two colors and shapes, the girls were no longer in revolt. There we just getting really wild and silly — too wild and silly. They were running around, trying on grown-up high-heals and hats (or were they bonnets?). They were giggling, getting louder, and wandering farther afield. Molly was within an inch of a loud scream and/or a bad trip in those way-too-big heals.
I was splitting my time watching the girls and suggesting shoes for Kit. At some point, I gave my full attention to Kit’s shoes for too long, I guess about 30 seconds straight. Molly was gone. But she was easy to find. She was the three-foot tall giggling ballerina bounding away from us down the next aisle. She was already 40 yards away from me (these are long aisles) and gaining speed. At first I approached her at a cool, fast walk. Then I realized that I had to actually run because she was running away pretty fast. She had made 40 yards in seconds, and I was not gaining on her. I was getting a little frustrated or scared, or both. I ran towards Molly at a pretty fast jog, not quite a sprint, carefully dodging the lady shoe shoppers. I caught up to Molly just before she turned a corner at the end of the aisle and swooped her up swiftly but gently with my arm. Luckily, Molly did not cry or scream, but she did kick her legs in the air as a show of protest.
When we got back to Kit and Claire, Claire was smiling and chuckling heartily. Fresh off Molly’s poorly advised escape attempt, I was a little angry with Molly and failed to see the humor. I asked Claire what was so funny. Claire said, over giggles, that my catching Molly was funny because she “just watched a big man chasing a little ballerina.” Now that she mentioned it, that did not hilarious. I wished I had seen it myself!
We ended up buying my shoes with one alteration suggested by Kit, but no shoes for poor Kit, who was forced to leave the store before she could make a final decision. We went straight to lunch at the close-by Indian restaurant Tarka, which Claire voted for even over the barbecue place next door with the free ice cream, because Tarka’s chicken fingers were “hot, salty, flavorful, and roasted.” I found that “roasted” part in particular hilarious. Turned out to be a sort of funny shopping excursion after all.
Claire entered her school’s optional art contest a few weeks ago. The assignment for the art contest was to create a picture of the Austin skyline or a local landmark. The contest started the week before Spring Break and was due the Thursday after Spring Break. For her subject, Claire picked the University of Texas tower. Claire kept wavering on actually doing the project. She always had something else to do, and it was in danger of becoming another homework-type struggle if we pushed it too hard. So we just gently reminded her about the contest every couple of days, even going so far as to say she could just skip it since it’s just for fun. Over Spring Break, we sent Claire off to Corpus Christi with a photo of the UT tower and the official contest paper. Claire came home with nothing.
Then, two nights before her art submission was due, Claire decided to focus on it. She got far on her initial ideas but ran out of time the first night. On the second — and last — night, Claire got into a really good groove after dinner. She asked, “Does it have to look exactly like the tower?” to which we said no, you just have to be able to tell it is the tower. Claire got excited and started adding bright new colors to the tower itself and imagined details around the base of the tower. She worked hard on it up to and past bed time, giving up her nightly story time to finish the picture. She got to bed 30 minutes late but with an awesome picture to take in the next day.
We found out today that her picture won first place for first grade! Claire was so proud and excited. As a prize from the school, she received a compact art kit, containing paint, colored pencils, oil pastels, and more.
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”…
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.
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.)
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.
Molly used to say “Ouwee!” when she got hurt. She prefers it to a simple “Ouch!” — it has more impact. But recently, the phrase “Ouwee!” has morphed into a more general complaint, sort of like other people might say, “Ugh!”. It no longer has anything to do with getting hurt. Or maybe it just has to do with feelings getting hurt.
This has become a slight problem at times. For instance, the other day I changed Molly’s clothes in the changing room after her swim lesson. Everyone in the swim school could hear Molly yelling, “Ouwee!” behind the closed door when she became upset about putting on her diaper. When we came out of the small enclosure, a friend of ours looked concerned and said, “Is she okay?”. I said something lame like, “Oh yeah, she does that all the time” and hurried off.
It doesn’t take much to prompt an “Ouwee!” from Molly. Yesterday, Kit literally sneezed and Molly yelled “Ouwee!”
Molly loved her undies so much, she wanted to wear nothing else.
The other day, Molly’s teacher called me at home in the middle of the afternoon. This is usually a bad sign. A mid-day call from school is reliably preceded by vomiting, fever, both, or some other type of trouble at school. Molly’s teacher sounded a little upset or nervous, so then I knew it was trouble. But it was not as bad as I had feared. Molly had just thrown a fit at school over her pre-nap toilet duty. She had stubbornly refused to sit on the toilet for the second day in a row, and this time Molly was especially furious and indignant about it. Not only has she refused to sit on the toilet, but she had also disrupted the class and made it hard for her classmates to get their rest. Molly is only three years old and still given to bursts of uncontrollable emotions. This one was bad enough, though, that the teacher had to essentially send her to the principal (school director). This was not the first time that Molly has been sent to the principal for being disruptive. Still, it was not meant as a punishment. They just had to get Molly out of the classroom to restore order and to help Molly calm down. Apparently Molly and the school director had a nice calm talk in the hallway where they found Moly’s happy place again. At some point, Molly stated that she would rather just wear diapers because it is easier; she doesn’t have to stop what she is doing and go to the bathroom. She can just go whenever she wants to.
It was right after Molly’s loud outburst that Molly’s teacher called me with a trembling voice, imploring us to do something. She said this toilet thing was getting to be a real problem, and was there something we could try at home? After some discussion, I agreed that we would get Molly some underwear and let her try going diaper-less at home as much as possible this weekend in hopes of sparking interest in the toilet.
So this is how we officially began a push on Molly’s toilet training. Claire and I rushed to Target the next morning and picked out (among other things) some Tangled (Rapunzel) movie underwear. Molly was very excited to try out her underwear! She adored the princess on her underwear. The smallest size that Target had, though, was 4, which was pretty baggy on Molly. Still, it did the trick for now, while Kit ordered 3T undies from Amazon.
Molly did had a “leak” in her underwear and did not like the itchy sensation on her legs. She has so far been very positive about sitting on the toilet, but aside from some initial success a while back, she has had no recent success in putting her urine on the toilet. Molly’s teacher says her attitude is much better at school, and order is restored. So at least that part of the mission is accomplished.
McG Kids 