Art champion!

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First place picture

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.

Way to go, Claire!

How Easter Began

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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”…

Spa Night

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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.

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Bedtime Helper

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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.)

Peacocks!

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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.

Ouwee!

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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!”

Pushing for Underwear

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Molly loved her undies so much, she wanted to wear nothing else.
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.

Math Quiz

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Claire decided that it would be fun to ask me some math questions while driving her and Molly home from school today.  What could be better?  It started out easy enough.  “Ziggy has 6 bananas.  Joe gives Ziggy an apple.  How many pieces of fruit does Ziggy have?”  On answering 7, Claire declared, “Great job!  You get a sticker when we get home!”  If I did not know that Claire was pretending to be an encouraging teacher, I might have thought she was being very sarcastic.

Then Claire tried to confuse me.  “Fifty has 70 cents.  Fifty gives Leo 3 cents.  How many cents does Fifty have?”  I tried to confuse her back.  “Hmm, so Seventy has 50 cents, right?”  It did not work.  Claire reiterated that someone named “Fifty” had 70 cents.  I said the answer was 67, but Molly was adamant that the answer was actually 90.

Finally, Claire just about stumped me.  “What is 100 divided by 2000?”  That was not easy to answer while driving down the freeway.  I told her it was .5, and she said “Yes!”.  Then I thought about it more and said .05.  Claire deferred, “Sure, whatever you said.  I think you’re right.” Maybe I didn’t have to think about that one so hard after all.  Do I get another sticker when we get home?