Today Claire was making her usual proclamations, such as “Muffin is furrrrry!” or “Cheese is yummy!” when I picked her up and held her in my left arm. After a few seconds, she said, “You’re comfy, Daddy.”
Besides feeling a little bit like a sofa, I couldn’t ask for a better compliment.
Claire has been going to Grace during the day for over two years now. She loves Grace like another mom, and she is often upset to leave Grace at the end of the day. But once she gets home, Claire knows she is with her own family and does not ask for Grace.
Recently, however, with only about one month left in Atlanta before we move to Texas, Claire has occasionally started saying things at home like, “I miss Grace!” or “I want Grace!”. This is strange timing. We have not actually talked to Claire yet about moving, as it is supposed to be too early for a kid her age to understand. But maybe she is picking up on some subtle clues anyways. Maybe these kids are smarter than they act.
Claire has a history of being rather scared of ants. Sometimes we would sit on the white-painted wooden steps in front of the house, playing or just hanging out. On those bright white steps, a little tiny ant showed up easily, and Claire never seemed to miss one. She would yell, “annnnttt!” and frantically scramble up or down the steps, away from the minuscule intruder. Eventually her fear was moderated, and she would generally just avoid any ants she saw, gradually with less and less trepidation.
Now it is the ants who should be afraid.
Tonight Claire noticed a little ant crawling on the table during dinner. She said in a loud but not panicked voice, “ant!” Kit and I, out of habit, were reassuring her it was not going to hurt her, and there was nothing to be afraid of, as the ant crawled closer to her plate. Claire kept staring at it intensly, and then — whack! — she brought her hand up and down quickly and smashed the ant on the table. The fierce strike immediately stopped the ant, and Claire went back to eating her pizza.
I was a little horrified, actually. I don’t normally squash insects unless they are really being a nuisance. I am not sure where Claire even got the idea to smash it; from all the older boys she hangs out with, I guess. Nonetheless, I was also strangely impressed by her power and coordination. Claire normally sort of fumbles with soccer balls and runs around in circles giggling. But this toddler can take care of business if she needs to!
Claire likes to sing her own little songs about different people now. She’ll pick a person and sing a little song. Sometimes it even sounds pretty good. Normally her songs go like this one about Muffin.
We are in the middle of selling our house in Atlanta right now. “Fantastic Renovated Bungalow with Finished Basement!”, anyone? So far, no offers. There are 22 houses for sale in our little neighborhood of Woodland Hills, so it is going to be tough.
Anyways, someone had arranged to look at the house this evening, and we all had to clear out of the house between 5:30 and 6:30. So Kit picked up Claire from Grace, I dropped Muffin off at our friend Melissa’s house, and we all met up at Chick-fil-A where we could turn Claire loose on the playground for a while. They were having some sort of kid’s night there, and the place was crawling with kids. Claire played a “spin the wheel” game, where in reality she won a Cinnamon Cluster, but thankfully they gave her a little toy cow with a sign reading “Eat mor chikn” instead.
As we ate dinner, a really big guy in a cow custume started wandering around the place waving at the kids. At first, Claire was a little scared of the six-foot-tall walking cow, as I think any sane person would be. But she did wave back at him, softly saying, “Hiiiii.” Besides that, it was mostly an arms-length situation, and the cow went on his way to pester some other kids.
After gnawing on some more chicken nuggets, Claire got her courage up and hopped out of her chair without a word. She waddled across the crowded restaurant all by herself straight for the giant cow. I was hoping the cow would not accidentally step on her. He did not, and in fact he crouched down and waved at her. Claire then stepped forward and hugged the cow’s large legs. After a lot of staring and waving between the cow and Claire, the situation bizarrly turned into a dance-off! The cow stomped his foot, then Claire stomped her foot. The cow wiggled his arm, then Claire wiggled her arm. Eventually Claire took the lead, doing some light hopping and then some hilarious rear-end wiggling, some serous getting-down. The giant cow matched her step for step. After that it went back to some waiving and stomping, and then I had to escort Claire away from the gigantic cartoonish cow to give other kids a chance to play with him.
Claire made another break for the cow a few minutes later, but by then it was getting late and we needed to do some errands before heading home. Sadly, we did not have all night to watch our daughter dance with a giant cow. Wow, that is a really weird sentence. But we were very proud of Claire for being so brave as to go after that “silly dancing cow”, as she would recollect later before going to bed.
Claire was in her room looking at a pile of her books before bath time this evening. Then she brought a big board book into the bathroom where I was drawing her bath and getting everything ready for bedtime. She asked me to read the book, and I said sorry, not right now, I am busy. She threw the book down and started crying. Usually she gets a little annoyed, but not that upset, when I tell her I’m busy. So I asked her what was the matter. She looked down, with tears in her eyes, and said in a quiet voice, “I’m too little to read it.” It was so sweet and sad. Then Kit showed up and read the book to her and cheered her up. I am afraid Claire has a pretty long wait before she can read books “all by her own self”, as she says, but it is nice to see she is motivated.
Claire has started to ask some rather interesting questions about the world.
For example, you may recall that she likes to pretend to be working at a fast food drive-through, sticking her head out and saying, “You want a combo? You want cheese?” It still cracks us up. Lately, she has extended this game to sit-down dining, holding a notepad and crayon in hand, saying, “You want bar-b-que? You want Diet Coke?” Anyways, the other night at dinner Claire said, “Combo? What’s that? I’ve never seen a combo.” It must seem funny to her. Every time you ask for a combo, you get a hamburger, fries, and a drink instead. But what the heck is a combo? It must be some kind of food. Does it taste good?
Claire also noted recently that she has never seen a dinosaur. This is a pretty remarkable observation. She has seen most of the other animals we talk about, at least at the zoo or the aqauarium. She has seen elephants, lions, meerkats, whales, sharks, birds, and countless other fun animals. But what is with these reclusive dinosaurs? There is no dinosaur display at the zoo. I told her that is good because they are awfully big and fast and scary, to which she agreed, “Yeah!” and did a big roar sound. I also told her they have a dinosaur skeleton on display at the airport, but that did not especially interest her.
She also seems to be grappling with the seemingly arbitrary distinction between girls and boys. This topic came up during dinner when her school friend Nathan was mentioned as being a boy. “Girls and boys. What’s that? That’s silly!” This one I could not readily explain other than to say that they’re all just kids. But she has a good point. Why do you have to specify someone’s gender every time? You might as well use different words for kids with different colored hair.
It is a strange and confusing world indeed.
The last couple of months have really gotten away from Kit and me. It has been sort of a perfect storm. Being chief resident at Emory takes up lots of Kit’s time on top of her regular demanding work. Plus she is constantly studying for various massive tests to complete her residency. My job at Verizon got out of hand trying to deliver an especially difficult project (“Option 4 IP Provisioning Automation for MLFR”) under tough circumstances. And we are trying to get our house cleaned up and remodeled to sell this spring, as well looking into our upcoming living situation in Dallas. Fortunately, we had many visits and a ton of help from the grandparents, which really helped save the day. My parents came to Altanta and watched after Claire for the better part of a weekend while Kit and I scrambled about. And among many other things, Joyce even painted our whole kitchen all by herself.
McG Kids 