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.

Inside Out and Backwards Molly

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mcgkids28-20130104Somehow Molly ended up wearing this outfit to school today.  She picked it out herself, and she was so proud.  While getting dressed, Molly indicated that she wanted to wear bloomers with her leggings, and skip the skirt.  Oh yeah, and the bloomers go on the outside.

This outfit is a physical testament to Molly’s contrariness.  She loves things to go different than how they are supposed to go, especially clothes.  She often likes to wear her shoes backwards, intentionally swapping left and right shoes.  One time she asked to wear her shoes backwards, meaning with the front on the back.  Alas, it did not work.  Molly often wears bloomers to bed.  The other night, she wanted to wear them backwards.  She even started to say she wanted to wear them upside down but, on visible reflection, stopped herself.  She has learned enough to realize that, like the shoes, would not work.  Darn physics!

No, it’s really just Molly

Video | | patmcg

The girls tend to get worked up at night, reaching their peak of silliness and pure volume right before going to bed.  We had always thought of this as the girls “working each other up”.  However, this theory was accidentally put to the test this week when Claire was off to stay with Grammy & Grandaddy in Corpus Christi for a few days of winter break.  As the evidence clearly demonstrates, it is not “the girls” who get worked up.  Molly does it just fine all by herself.  In fact, she may go crazier without Claire than with her.

Draggin’

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Claire is out of school for two weeks for winter break, and Molly’s school closes early, at 4:30 instead of 6:00, around the holidays. So have been getting back home with the girls before 5:00, over an hour before a normal week day.  This extra hour makes a huge difference!  We cook together, play, or just hang out.  The normal weekday involves nothing but rushing to get dinner on the table and then get right to bed.

Molly and Claire are really enjoying the extra time.  They have so much fun just goofing off with each other.  I caught a little video clip of one of their games, a kind and gentle dragging game.  Originally Claire and Molly wanted to drag Molly by her neck, but they took my advice and adjusted to the torsop-based approach as shown here.

 

Christmas 2012

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Minimalist post, only pictures… 🙂

Robot Night Dance

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After enjoying the crazy holiday light show at Mozart’s, the girls were feeling a little frisky walking back to the car.  They are not usually out walking around when it is completely dark outside.  Somehow they stated doing a crazy robot dance in the light of Kit’s phone, and this is what we ended up with.

Newtown

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On Friday, there was a terrible massacre of 20 first-grade kids and 6 teachers at a school in Newtown, Connecticut.  (That sentence is so awful it was actually hard to write.)  Claire’s excellent 1st grade teacher sent out the following apt message to the class parents.

[quote]Dearest Parents,

As I prepare myself for the school morning, I feel compelled to say something in regards to Friday’s tragedy.

I think when things like this happen, we all respond with a similar thought pattern: “That could have been my child.” Being that these students were first graders makes this tragedy somehow more poignant and raw for us. I have repeated the previous thought over and over in my mind this weekend, followed by, “That could have been my students. That could have been me.” Last night I dreamt of one single message: “Be the light.”

I would be remiss to believe that evil doesn’t exist in a real way in our world, that really bad things happen to good people for senseless reasons, but I want to acknowledge the truth that love and light live in greater proportions than darkness.

So…love more, do good, contribute to the greater consciousness, and turn on as many lights as possible…everyday.[/quote]

Vomit

Video | | patmcg

Molly woke up up vomiting the other night.  She vomited all over herself, her blankets, her mom, me, and her stuffed animals.  Molly had caught a stomach bug going around that would eventually get 14 of the 16 kids in her class, and 2 of the 3 teachers.   Molly would spend a couple of days at home recovering, and it was her first time to use the “sick bed”, an inflatable bed that we get out when people are vomiting and cannot be trusted to keep their real beds vomit-free.  Claire had used this several times before, but this was Molly’s first shot.  As bad as she felt, Molly was thrilled with the sick bed and all the attention and fussing over her.  Claire, too, was pretty excited to be up in the middle of the night helping out.  For the next few days, Claire and Molly would tell anyone who would listen about the night of vomiting, and Molly in particular would have a big grin on her face when telling the tale.  Claire would say, “Oh, Molly’s just bragging.”

We did not take any pictures of the action on the night of vomiting, but we did get this sweet moment the net day when Claire took it upon herself to entertain Molly with a book in her sick bed.

Claire Turns 7!

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Claire turned seven years old today!

Sadly, I am actually going back and writing about it late at night months later.  I will leave it mostly to the pictures, mostly.  We had Claire’s party at her indoor swim lesson facility, Elmer Swim School.  Claire was really into this idea, and it was fun for everyone to go swimming in late November!  This was all on the weekend after her birthday.  On Claire’s actual birthday, we took her out to Jason’s Deli, her perennial favorite.

Whew!

Video | | patmcg

This blog, among many other things, took a back seat while I finished up my first iPhone app, Santa Scan.  The app should be fun for kids around Christmas.  When I finally showed it to Claire, she loved it even more than I thought she would.  She went crazy when she finally found Santa and heard him say, “Ho ho ho!”  Claire became a little obsessed and kept yelling, “I can’t believe I heard Santa on Daddy’s phone!”

It was a tough push to get the app submitted to Apple, and I had spent the previous three weekends and a late night almost entirely dedicated to the app, while Kit and/or her mom watched the kids and generally took care of things around the house.  I could have never finished the app in time for Christmas if it had not been for their extensive help with the kids.

You can follow news of the new app on the Round Trip Software website or on Twitter.