claire

Art Samples #1

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Another new recurring idea I just had for this blog is to show regular samples of the girls’ drawings every few months.  I recently got pretty quick with the scanner, so now I don’t mind scanning some art to include here and there.

Claire’s drawing has taken a jump in sophistication lately.  Her recent pictures now include large, complex scenes and a range of ideas and emotions (not just hearts/flowers/butterflies, although those are still quite prominent).  Some of her pictures even have a little bit of a story to them.  Here are a recent few samples, along with Claire’s explanation.

Drawn in Halloween colors, this is a picture
of a flower with a separate picture
contained within each of its pedals.
Plus a bunch of other stuff going on.

The boy has the jumprope.
The girl on the left wants it.
The girl on the right wants to help.
The girl on the right is so nice
that she has a cup of “bug food”
stuck to her head to feed the bugs.

I don’t actually know the explanation for this one.
But it is certainly fun and interesting.

This one is based on the cover art for
Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots,
an album by the Flaming Lips.
Claire likes the underdog girl protagonist Yoshimi,
but she also likes the robots
because they’re pink, and pink = good.
So it’s a toss-up.

I wanted to include Molly’s art too, but of course Molly just turned two and is not able to do art like Claire yet.  But Molly did recently create a sparse and provocative piece, which I like to call “One Star Sticker, and a Slight Footprint”.

Okay, so Molly is concentrating on other things right now besides art, like honing her talking skills and learning about the potty.  You’ve got to start somewhere, right?

Iowa

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Claire accompanied her mom to Iowa this weekend to attend a service for her late, great uncle (?) Jim, and to take part in an Alzheimer’s fundraiser walk .  Molly stayed back home with me, as she is still not quite ready for a fast-pased weekend trip, in and our of airports and hotels, like this.  And it’s a good thing she stayed home, because there were some late nights and no real nap times.  In particular, the well-planned return flight from Iowa got delayed by several hours.  Kit and Claire ended up ditching the last leg of their flight and driving home to Austin from Dallas, arriving home at 11 pm on Sunday night.  Claire was up for school at 6:30 the next morning.  That might have been sort of tough on Claire, but if Molly had been on the trip, it would have cut Sunday night’s sleep just about in half!

Anyways, I just wanted to briefly mark this trip, and the fact that Claire visited a new state, and the old family farmland in Iowa no less.  And Claire, as always, we super excited to go on a trip with her mom and fly in an airplane.  And she got to visit a butterfly house thingy.  I did not go on the trip, so I will just stick some of Kit’s pictures in here to tell the main part of the story.  (Kit and I tried on several to sit down and write this blog together, but time does not allow such frivolities.  Now I am writing it along a month later!).

Claire’s Interview #1

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Today in kindergarten, Claire did a school assignment called “My Favorite Things”.  Claire was given a small book and had to fill in her answer to various questions about her favorite things, plus add an illustration.  I’m not really up for scanning each page into the blog, but here is a sample page and the full text:

    My favorite food is: smoothe (smoothies)
    My favorite place to go is: the pool
    My favorite thing to do for fun is: jump
    My favorite color is: piek (pink)

It may be interesting to do some sort of regular “interview” in this blog, so look out for this type of thing again in the future.  They will all be available under the label “interview”.

A Book About Molly, For Molly

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As her present for Molly’s second birthday, Claire made a book for about Molly for Molly.  This was done with inspiration and the help of gramma Noni, who assembled the book, while Claire came up with all the words and pictures.  There is one thing about Molly per page, with an illustration for each.  The book reads:

    Molly likes vanilla yogurt.
    Molly likes her snuggy bear.
    Molly is giggling.
    Molly is funny.  She is having a crazy hair day.
    Molly is cute.
    I love Molly.

Here are a few sample illustrations.

Molly is funny.
She is having a crazy hair day.

Molly is cute.

I love Molly.

Favorite Books #1

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There have been a few random posts in the past about the girls’ favorite books at the time, such as Chrysanthemum and Knuffle Bunny.  Now I am going to make an effort to post their favorites regularly, about every 6 months.  It should be interesting to see how their favorites change over time.  So here we go…

Molly’s favorite book at the moment is Going to the Potty by Fred Rogers.

Molly loves to sit and “read” this book in her leisure time.  She is transfixed by the pictures of toddlers sitting on toilets, being praised and helped by their ostensible parents.  Molly is not quite yet starting toilet training, but they are talking about toilets, BM’s, etc. at school now, so it is a good subject.

Kit and I love this book too.  The book is 25 years old, and its pictures are badly outdated in a funny way.  The writing is quite entertaining, too, such as, “Some children wet or mess their pants now and then before they really get used to going to the potty.  Learning to stay clean and dry is one way to please you mom and dad and you!”

Molly is also especially enjoying Cuddle! and Corduroy, two very sweet and entertaining books.

Claire’s favorite book right now is our least favorite, Barbie: Princess Charm School, based on a movie of the same name.

Kit and I were somewhat skeptical about the whole Barbie thing initially a few months ago when Claire first discovered it, but we were pleasantly surprised with the relative quality of movies like Twelve Dancing Princesses.  But Princess Charm School, which Claire picked from the Scholastic catalog from school, and which we assumed was alright, is pure drivel.  In the book, Barbie is a hardworking waitress who is picked by lottery to attend the prestigious Princess Charm School, where “girls were trained to become princesses and Lady Royals”.  Most of the story involves the backstabbing treachery of a snobby, jealous teacher.  Eventually, Barbie joins her slightly-skanky friends and overcomes her obstacles by simply inheriting the throne of Queen of Gardania.  Hurray for monarchy!  Wait, what the… ?  The book pays lip service to hard work and honesty, but in the end it is pretty clear that really the best thing is to be the queen’s pretty daughter.  When we read it, Kit and I do our best to draw some helpful conclusions and perspectives from this book.

Claire just loves this book, though, I guess for the drama and the visuals.  For example, she told me that this page is maybe the prettiest thing she has ever seen.

This page definitely scores big on its overall pinkness and fairy-related content, big points for Claire right now.

Other current favorites include The Hair of Zoe Fleefenbacher Goes to School, which Claire checked out from her school library, and Ruby the Copycat, both of which are about a girl’s struggle in school and ultimate redemption.  These fine books may be helping to soothe Claire’s kindergarten jitters.

Kindergarten Jitters

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Claire having a good moment at school.

Claire has had a tough couple of weeks since starting kindergarten.  It’s strange, because she actually likes her teacher a lot.  And the other kids are fine.  And she is doing okay while in school, for the most part.  The teacher did ask her not to wear her new Twinkle Toes shoes because they are distracting her.

For one thing, Claire says she does not like Extend-A-Care.  She is the only kid in her class who goes to Extend-A-Care.  Extend-A-Care itself seems okay when I pick her up, but apparently, every other student in her class else has a parent or a big sibling or nanny to pick them up right after school (this is amazing to me).  Claire is 1 of 22 who goes to Extend-a-Care, and she is all by herself when the kids split up to go home at the end of the day.  I can understand how that would be a bad feeling.

And Claire is definitely “off” at home in the evening.  I think she is exhausted from the early mornings and the new environment and all the new rules.  By the late afternoon and evening, she is really wiped out.  In the evenings, Claire is always at the extremes.  She either mumbling or screaming, acting silly or crying, wiggling around or laying down flat on the floor, cuddling up to you or running away.

These have actually been some of the toughest weeks we have ever had with poor Claire, who is also asserting herself, you could say.  She has discovered the joy of not doing what we ask her to do, even if it is something she has done 100 times before.  She is basically rebelling, and she is driving us a little crazy, I must admit.  But mostly we feel bad for her.  She is struggling through a big transition, and hopefully with some patience and understanding, we can help her through it.  I sure hope so, anyways.  🙂

Ponyo

| patmcg

If there is a single song which defines this time period, it is the Ponyo song, hands down.  Claire loves the movie Ponyo, as do Kit and I.  But Claire and Molly really love the theme song, Ponyo On the Cliff By the Sea, sung by by Frankie Jonas And Noah Cyrus.

This all came about when I made a movie-themed CD for the girls to listen to in the car.  The CD had the Ponyo song and a few others including a couple from some Barbie movies.  Claire was pretty happy about this, especially the Ponyo song.  And after a few listens, Molly was nuts for the song.  I think its cheerful melody and squeaky voices play well to the budding toddler set.  Literally every time we get in the car now, Molly says, “Pono please!” (the “y” sound is still a little tricky for her).  When the song ends, or even when it takes a momentary lull, Molly says, “More Pono!”, putting her fingers together to sign “more” for emphasis.  Sometimes she even gets quite perturbed when the song is not immediately restarted.  we must have heard these words hundreds of times by now…

Ponyo, Ponyo, Ponyo fishy in the sea.
Tiny little fishy, who could you really be?

Ponyo, Ponyo, Ponyo magic sets you free.
Oh, she’s the little girl with the round tummy.

Molly has even learned to sing small pieces of the song, usually just a syllable or two at a time, but she gets the right sounds and the right timing.  This is officially the first song I have heard Molly sing, at least on her own.

After a couple weeks of this, even Claire was getting sick of the song, and I was tiring of it too.  But not Molly, she is all about the Ponyo song.

It’s Kindergarten!

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Today, Claire entered the brave new world of kindergarten!

The morning went pretty smoothly.  Claire has been waking up around 6:45 for a few weeks now, so that put her on kindergarten time right off the bat.  Claire was in a good mood and ready to roll.  We were out of the house in plenty of time and at the classroom at 7:35, 10 minutes early.  Grammy and Granddaddy were in town, which was good for Molly, who has been waking up between 7:30 and 8:00 most days.  She got to sleep in and have a nice slow breakfast with her grandparents while Claire, Kit, and I were wading through the mass of kids and cars up at Claire’s new elementary school.

One of the nice things about the new early 7:40 drop-off time is that Kit can drop Claire off at school pretty regularly and still get to work on time.  Kit is excited to see more of Claire regularly in the mornings. I am excited too since I will not have to rush around town quite as much on those mornings.

Anyways, the classroom was already awfully crowded with excited kids and parents when we showed up.  Claire was familiar with her classroom and her new teacher from an open house the previous Friday, which she enjoyed but had been a little scared to be left there alone.  Kit and I explored the classroom with Claire and helped her find her desk.  Before we knew it, the final bell was ringing and the teacher was subtly shooing the parents out of the room.  Claire seemed nervous and a little clingy but held herself together as we left.  Kit did not have quite as much luck holding herself together and teared up a bit a we walked down the hall away from the classroom.  I did not expect to feel sad myself — just excited — but I did feel a little lump in the throat as we walked away like we had 1000 times before in daycare.  But this was different than daycare.  Elementary school was so much bigger, and bustling with the rush of nearly 900 students arriving at exactly the same time.  After the tardy bell rang, and all the kids were in their classes, the halls got quite very suddenly, filled only with somber parents hurrying off to work.  There was also a fair number of “exercise moms”, breezy moms donned in jogging gear who stayed to chat with each other for a while.  I think I heard two of them making plans to meet for coffee.  We did not have exercise moms at daycare since it was populated entirely by working parents.

Grammy came along to pick up Claire in the afternoon.  Kit would, much to her regret, not be able to pick Claire up in the afternoons except when she was on vacation.  Anyways, Claire is the only kid from her class in extend-a-care.  Even though it goes on until 5:30, we picked her up around 3:15, largely out of impatience to see her and to hear about her day.  When we saw her in the cafeteria, Claire looked red and nervous and unhappy.  Claire would later explain that she liked kindergarten and had a fun day in class.   She liked her teacher, who was really nice and not mean at all.  But she was confused about going to extend-a-care, and she was scared that we would not be able to find her.  She was really scared that she might just be left there.  That must have been a terrifying feeling for a kid.  I was a little surprised this was an issue since we had picked her up every day without fail from daycare, I had explained extend-a-care to Claire ahead of time, but I guess it was still weird getting separated form her classmates and taken off to the cafeteria.  Of course, I assured Claire that me or Mom would always come get her every day, and we would find her no natter where she was.  And she could always ask a teacher if she was confused or lost for any reason.  This seemed to help, but it was a tough ending for a big day.

Claire’s teacher, Ms. B, sent out a nice note to all the parents that evening, starting…

Congratulations on surviving your first day of Kindergarten:):)  We had such an amazing and busy day!  Time flew by and as many of the monkeys said, ‘I’m hungry’, ‘I’m tired’, and the best ‘I never knew Kindergarten lasted so long!’.  As I’m sure you are noticing your child is probably exhausted.  Please be sure they are getting plenty of sleep because we will continue to be super busy the rest of this week…

She ended her note with a well crafted hint to not storm the classroom too early like we did today.

See you tomorrow at 7:40 (my door will be shut until then to prepare for the day).

Besides the extend-a-care hiccup, it was a good start to “real” school.

Kindergarten Reservations

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On Monday, Claire will start kindergarten, thus kicking off what we hope to be a solid 13-year career in Austin public education.  Including Molly’s future career, this is the start of 16 years of getting people to school on a strict schedule at 7:45 am.  No more wandering into day care between 8:00 and 9:00, depending on how things are going that morning.  And then there are all the many, many days off, which will no doubt turn into many, many babysitters, grandparent visits, and summer/winter/spring-break camps.  Okay, enough about my own reservations about this whole process… Let’s move on to Claire’s!

Actually, Claire is pretty excited about kindergarten but has two main reservations.  The first is missing her friends at day care.  Claire is well aware that she will not see most of her daycare friends again, and it makes her a little sad.  I know this because she told me, “I know I won’t see my day care friends any more, and that makes me sad”.  (I am very insightful.)  One daycare friend is luckily coming to Claire’s elementary school, but in a different classroom.  The rest of the old friends gradually faded away over the last weeks of summer camp back at day care.  Claire was just about the last of the core friends left by the end of the summer.  It was really a sad process to watch even from a relative distance.

Claire’s other reservation is that “In kindergarten, you have to listen really well.  If you don’t listen, you get in trouble.  I’m afraid sometimes I won’t listen”, she said tentatively.  I’m not sure where this fear comes from, I guess a “warning” about big, mean kindergarten from a teacher or a fellow student back at day care.

Here is another one… Claire is excited that she will learn to read in kindergarten.  I told her one night as we were reading before bedtime that she will learn to read some books all by herself in kindergarten.  She won’t have to always depend on Kit and me to read everything to her.  She liked the idea, but she emphasized that she did not want to read to herself for bedtime.  She still wanted her Mom and Dad to read to her every night.  Kit and I assured her we would not stop reading to her once she learned to read to herself.

Judging from today’s open house, Claire is also somewhat afraid of being left at kindergarten and not being picked up.  This morning, all kids and parents were invited to come see their classroom and meet their new teacher.  Claire liked the open house but kept a close eye on me and Kit to make sure we weren’t leaving her there.  Today Claire would get to come home and play with Grammy, who was in town for a few days, but Monday it would be a different story.  Claire understood she would stay at school without us next week, but she was not ready to be left there alone just yet!