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.

Shower Time

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Inspired by her after-swim rinse in the shower at Deep Eddy Pool this morning, Claire has decided that she is a big fan of showering.  So much so, in fact, that she asked if she could take a shower instead of a bath for bedtime tonight.  I had actually wondered at what age Claire would want to switch from baths to showers, and I supposed it would be somewhere around ten years old, but now she has that beat by half.

This is a major change for Claire, who in the past could hardly stand any water on her head or face.  And now she is making major leaps in the area — literally.  At Deep Eddy today, Claire enjoyed repeatedly jumping into the pool, with water splashing around and sometimes over her face and head.  This was followed by said shower in the surprisingly fresh and clean, open-air public changing room (featuring a courtyard of tropical plants).

What may have helped pushed Claire over is her twice-weekly swim lessons at summer camp.  Learning to swim with her long-time friends seems to be helping her develop a new boldness with water in general.

Anyways, Claire went ahead and took her first real shower tonight, the whole nine yards, including a shampoo.  She did not have any help from me except getting the water running at the right temperature, and some help with the shampoo. The only mishap was when she accidentally swallowed a little bit of shampoo, but she quickly recovered by spitting it out and rinsing with fresh water.

As a side note, Claire is always a little lawyer at bedtime, and a rather capable one at that.  Her goal is to push off getting ready for bed as long as possible.  Tonight after announcing she would take a shower instead of a bath, Claire asked if she could have a few extra minutes to play since we wouldn’t have to wait for the bath to fill up.  Well played, Claire…well played.

Knuffle Molly

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Molly’s favorite book right now is Knuffle Bunny: A Cautionary Tale.  Today alone, we read it to her six times, and each time she asked for more.  She loves this book.

Molly loves big books with lots of fun pictures, and this is indeed a big book with lots of fun pictures.  But she also seems to enjoy the actual story, which she can probably relate to.  In the story, a toddler girl named Trixie goes on an errand with her dad and ends up with a personal crisis on her hands which only she sees and which she tries desperately to communicate to her dad.  Trixie screams and cries and yells things like “AGGLE FLAGGLE KLABBLE!”  She is frustrated and sad but doesn’t have the words to tell her dad what is wrong.  Eventually, they figure it out, and in a toddler happy ending, Trixie says her first words ever.

Trixie is a good stand-in for Molly, who spends a fair amount of her time frustrated and unable to tell us (bone-headed) adults exactly what is wrong.  Molly’s version of “AGGLE FLAGGLE KLABBLE!” is “AGGIE!”  She’ll yell “AGGIE!” or sometimes “HAGGIE AGGIE!” adamantly, over and over, often pointing at something which either cannot be specifically located or has no inherent meaning to us.  That said, one time during a bath, we successfully narrowed “Aggie” down to a bottle of Claire’s strawberry-scented shampoo.  But Molly did not want the shampoo when I offered it to her.  In fact, she tried to slap it to the ground.  What did she want us to do with it exactly?  Further, “Aggie” is a mercurial term; once you have it pinned down to a bottle of shampoo, it changes into something else, such as “something on the shelf over there, dammit!”  The thing on the shelf cannot be specifically located, though, and besides, from our perspective, nothing on said shelf can possibly have anything to do with anything.  But that is just our crusty old adult logic, I guess.  Maybe that stack of paper on the shelf is the key to Molly’s happiness.  Maybe she wants to build a paper airplane or write a thank you note… Maybe a thank you note to Mo Willems for writing Knuffle Bunny, a book that really “gets” frustrated toddlers.

As a side note, Molly’s other favorite books at the moment are The Pout Pout Fish and Go Away, Big Green Monster.

Fresh Lettuce

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A couple of months ago, during the more spring-like growing season, Grammy brought some lettuce seeds up here to plant with Claire.  They planted the seeds in a container in the back yard, and before long, the lettuce was off and growing.

Now that it is hot and dry, the lettuce is just starting to wilt and die back.  So last night I asked Claire if she would like to try eating some of her home-grown lettuce with dinner.  She said yes, and was pretty excited about it.  So I went outside and cut some lettuce off to serve up as a basic lettuce salad with our ravioli.   It looked pretty nice, actually.  I even made a big deal about how fresh the lettuce was. “Fresh lettuce, coming up!”  Claire is not a big salad eater, and not really into salad dressing, so she just went for a tentative bite of the stem.

From the look of her face, the lettuce did go down so well for Claire.  Even after adding dressing and croutons.

At first I thought Claire just wasn’t used to the (rather mild) taste lettuce, but when I tried some myself, I had to admit it was really bitter.  Even with a generous amount of ranch dressing and croutons, the bitterness still fought its way through.  It tasted like something you’re not supposed to eat.  I hope I haven’t ruined Claire on salads!

Anyways, it was great to grown some of our own food, and I am glad the lettuce survived this far.  Maybe next year we’ll try tomatoes or oranges or something.  Or hot dogs.  Oh wait, now that would really ruin her on hot dogs.

Hugs All Around

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When Claire’s class comes in from the playground at school, they pass through the “activity room”, which is a shared, open space that different classes use throughout the day for things like gymnastics or just some indoor play time.  Apparently today, as Claire and her friends came through the activity room, they discovered Molly in there with her class.  Claire ran over and gave Molly a big hug.  Several of Claire’s friends also thought that looked like a good idea, and maybe they should give Molly a hug too.  Eventually,  Molly’s teacher had to seal off an area around Molly to protect her from the horde of hugging friends.

“No more hugs, people!  Nothing to see here!” I imagine the teaching saying.

Molly does have many fans among Claire’s friends, but she usually doesn’t have to deal with them all at once.

Pes, Love, Citn

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For her Mom’s birthday this year, Claire created a large picture of a princess. She spent all of her morning TV time on it. The princess is framed by glitter stickers. The picture is inscribed with some words that Claire spelled phonetically without any help, and with varying degrees of technical correctness: peace (“pec” or “pes”), love (which she had already learned to spell), and kitten with a creative but nearly dead-on phonetic spelling.


Claire also created a large sign with some spelling help that reads, “HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOMMY!”


Thinking kindergarten

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Claire had an exercise at school today that involved listing “what makes me excited about kindergarten, and what makes me nervous about kindergarten!”  Claire illustrated each item with a little picture.  Claire is excited that her classmate Lyla will be there and about doing homework.  There it is for the record… excited about homework.  She is nervous about making new friends and “because it will be tricky in kindergarten”.  I have mentioned the early kindergarten start time to her, but it may not have hit her yet, or else she would have listed being nervous about getting to school every day by 7:40.  At least I would have listed that one.

Tough Time, Sweet Picture

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Claire has been picked on more than usual the last few days. For starters, on the drive home from school, Molly has been scratching and pinching Claire. Claire is always in the back seat saying, “No, Molly! Stop doing that!” When I look back, I sometimes see Molly’s hand grasping at Claire, fingers outstretched towards Claire’s shoulder. Claire says that scratching and pinching is “non-negotiable” and is talking about moving her car seat away from Molly.
Then, yesterday, our dog Muffin peed all over Claire’s bed. We have no idea why she picked Claire’s bed, but there it was, soaked through the comforter, both sheets, several blankets, and a pillow.  Claire had to sleep in the guest room while her blankets were in the washer.  Claire was a little concerned that Muffin would sneak into the guest room and pee on her while she was sleeping.
And today, just before I picked her up from school, Claire had a run-in on the playground with a kid named Henry. Claire and Henry have had an ongoing love-hate relationship.  Apparently today, one of Claire’s “Croc” shoes came off during a race. Claire tried to put it back on, but Henry tried to grab it from her. Then he called her some sort of mean name and kept grabbing at her shoe. Then he scratched at Claire’s arm, ruining her very favorite temporary tattoo that she has been wearing for about two weeks. When I arrived, Claire’s friend Renee had rushed to her aid and comfort, I was told later that her friend Jack had somehow gone after Henry. Anyways, Claire was mad and was chasing down Henry and telling him that he should treat others the way he wants to be treated.  I was proud of the way she stood up for herself but did not yell or hit or otherwise attack Henry back.
When we got home, Claire said that she had been having some tough days, and she was going to draw a picture of what tomorrow would look like. Tomorrow was going to be a very good day (dammit!). Here is what she came up with.  Claire asked for my help to spell the words.
You can’t read some of the faint print.
Basically one girl says, “Hey, can I play too?”
The others say, “Sure!” and “Yeah!”


Little Baker Molly

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Molly has been pretty good about entertaining herself lately while I make dinner.  Tonight as I was chopping tomatoes, Molly waddled through the kitchen.   She was wearing a winter hat that resembled a baker’s hat, and she was carrying a bag of uncooked pasta in her arms.  She looked up at me without stopping, smiled, said “Hey”, and proceeded to wander around the corner with her pasta as if she were off to make her own dinner.  I still don’t know where that pasta ended up.

Writing for Real

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Claire has been trying to master her reading and writing skills, and is making steady, incremental progress on both fronts. I can actually show you the writing part.

For a while, Claire was happy to put any sort of letters on her pictures. These were either super-secret, encrypted words, used for national security… or just random letters. Sadly, we’ll never know for sure.

Now Claire is writing her first real, actual words, as seen here.
Sometimes she asks us for help to write out something more involved, for instance Rapunzel, let down your hair! to accompany a drawing of a very long-haried girl. I could not scan that one because she gave it as a gift to her friend Maddie, who can read.