Here is Claire’s poem about Muffin. She is studying poetry in school and seems to enjoy it.
Who’s that standing there
with white fluffy hair?
Big black eyes.
Tail swishing back and forth wildly
like an angry flock of seagulls.
dog
The Day of Urine
I was fortunate enough to miss the following series of events since I was off working hard on my side project. But from Kit’s description, here is what I am to understand Kit and her parents endured this Saturday…
At some point during the usual Saturday morning hubbub of getting the girls fed and Claire off to swimming class, our dog Muffin slipped into the guest room, where Kits parents were staying, and peed all over the bed. So they got that cleaned up and started a quick load of laundry for all the urine-soaked sheets and bedding. The comforter, which was new, had to be sent off to dry cleaning.
The morning’s plan was to take the girls to a birthday party directly after swimming. The party involved water balloons, so they would need to wear swimsuits and, in Molly’s case, a swim diaper. So Molly, who had been playing outside in the warm morning sun, and accordingly drinking a lot of water, was wearing a swim diaper when she stared to yell, “Pee! Pee! My leg! My leeeeeg!” And sure enough, urine was running down her leg and on the floor, apparently due to both the volume of water consumed that morning and the peculiarity of the swim diaper. Kit picked up Molly to help clean her up and then discovered that Molly’s urine had spread all over her own pants. Another load of laundry was started, and Molly received a fresh swim diaper.
Swimming and the birthday party went fine until the very end of the party. Kit had been trying to gather up both girls to leave at the end of the party, a process which can take some time to get both girls off to the car at the same time. Finally when walking out the gate, Molly’s face appeared stricken, and sure enough, there was a little trail of pee on the ground around here. So it was back inside for another diaper and yes, at home, another load of laundry.
After started, checking, and changing laundry at home, Kit went upstairs and laid down in Claire’s bed to get a few minutes of peace. I am not sure why she laid down in Claire’s bed — maybe she was too tired to make it all the way back to our bedroom. Either way, you might guess now what Kit discovered in Claire’s bed. Yes, dog urine. Muffin struck again, this time at Claire’s bed. Surely Muffin skipped peeing on our own bed only because it was too high for her Muffin to jump onto. And another load of laundry was started.
Claire’s bed was not dry of urine and bleach in time for bed, so she had to sleep in our bed, which may have been a nice bonus for Claire. There was no bonus for anyone else. Muffin may have made her point, if only we knew what it was. We may never know.
“Doggie”
Molly has been fascinated with our dog Muffin for weeks. Muffin is always there as Molly sits in her high chair and drops (actually, throws) her unwanted food on the floor. Molly has actually gotten pretty good at throwing her sippy cup at Muffin, but Muffin gladly braves the possibility of suddenly being pelted on the head for the possibility some spare bread, cheese, or sometimes better.
Lately, Molly has been trying to say “doggie” as she watches the fuzzy dog on the floor. She always seems to get stuck on the “G” sound, and it usually comes out as “daddy” even though she is clearly pointing at the dog. But Molly seems determined to say this tricky word more than any other right now, and she keeps pointing at Muffin’s picture in a little book we have (from Grammy) and trying to say “doggie”. Until yesterday it still normally came out as “daddy”. But no longer. Yesterday she got it several times, as you will see (actually, hear) at the end of this short video.
Nurturing Side
Claire still loves Reese’s trains and dinosaurs, but she is also discovering her girly nurturing side lately.
She has been trying to change her Raggedy Ann’s clothes and diaper. Unfortunatley, Ann’s clothes are sewn on, so it is impossible in actuality to change her diaper. But she seems happy enough pretending to change it, mumbling, “change diaper…” or “clean up…” as she fiddles with the doll.
Sometimes she tries to dress her little plastic dolphin bath toys up in her own cloths, saying things like “How cuuuute!” or “He’s snuggly!” Of course, these dolphins are about 3 inches tall, so even a toddler’s little shirt dwarfs them. Speaking of her dolphins, she has named them too. The orange one, the first one of the bunch that we got out her, is named Thomas, after Thomas the Train. The other two are named Henry and James, who are also train names. She is very consistent about the naming. Thomas is always the bright orange one, James is the dull orange one, and Henry is the green one. She has even started to wash her dolphins during her own bath. I give her a washcloth, and she gently scrubs the dolphins with it one at a time, saying, “Let’s clean him up.”
Claire also loves to feed dog treats to Muffin. They both get a real tickle out of it. Claire holds the treat out for Muffin and waits for her to grab it with her mouth. She still seems a little scared that Muffin will bite her hand, so she usually lets the treat go when Muffin opens her mouth, dropping it on the floor. But especially when she makes a successful delivery, she giggles and jumps around. Both she and Muffin could do this all day.
Actually, Claire’s nurturing side has take a slightly odd turn as well. She has a Thomas the Train board book with a raised plastic face on the front. If you press it’s nose, the book plays a little song. Claire has recently adopted this book as her little baby to take care of. She likes to dress it — the book — in clothes, pretend to feed it with a bottle, and will sometimes put it to sleep. This is sort of bizarre to watch, but I guess it makes sense since the book sort of resembles a doll, with its little plastic face. In fact, it is the closest thing that Claire has to a doll besides her stuffed animals. I thought dolls only made sense for four or five year old girls, but I guess not. Perhaps it is time to gt Claire a doll.
Last Day of Pool
Today the Garden Hills Pool, our favorite summer weekend hangout, closed for the year. Forget about Labor Day; this is the real end of summer.
The last half hour of operation every year, the pool hosts a dog swim. People bring their dogs and let them go nuts in the pool before they drain it. Kit and I had wanted to check this out for the last couple of years, but we never managed to actually get over there. Since today was our last chance ever to see this, we finally made it, and I am glad we did. The weather was perfect, finally not too hot, and a bunch of wet dogs were running around and swimming and barking. And a bunch of wet kids were doing the same thing (minus the barking, fortunately). It made me want to jump in too! But this was just a quick visit in the evening, and we did not bring our bathing suits. Anyways, it was a fine way to close out the summer.
McG Kids 