Molly just started a web development course and created her very first web page.
The web page is called “All About Me”, is written in pure HTML, and says a lot about our little coder. 🤓
I helped her with an edit. She said, “Ohh ok thanks. I may be asking a lot of questions on HTML. I hope you dont mind!” So sweet! And of course I don’t mind. 😛
Molly’s loves pop music, and she decided to put together a playlist of all her favorite songs. Many of the songs are from the movie Trolls. She seems love Justin Timberlake and Anna Kendrick. Although Claire and I rag on her a little bit about those choices, it is a fine, lively pop playlist, and I’m proud of Molly for patiently organizing it in her mind.
America collectively gasped as Donald Trump was actually inaugurated as president of the United States. A miracle did not happen to stop this, and it did not turn out to be a big prank. Fulfilling an absurdist joke from The Simpsons, Trump is actually now our president. Otherwise calm and happy people took to the streets, and kids in Claire’s fifth grade class are riled up and talking about politics and now planning to run for office one day as Democrats. They are totally serious about this.
The girls went to an anti-Trump rally with their mom and a friend. Way to go, kids! It’s your first political protest. And you’re only kids! Gotta love the response people are having to this weird turn of history.
Molly, in first grade and ever the optimist, says we should give Trump a chance. “C’mon, guys! You never know. He could be alright.” She is adamant about this point. Wait and see how it turns out before judging, she says. I really do like her instinct. With any luck, maybe she’ll be right. But so far, it does not look good.
We made a quick trip to Houston this weekend to see my Dad for his birthday. Kit stayed home to study for some big doctor test coming up in August. We were in Houston for one full day and a morning.
Highlights included ice skating at Memorial City Mall, Molly’s first time to skate. It took about 30 minutes for Molly to make her way around the edge of the skating rink while she held to the side on for dear life. On Claire’s turn, she didn’t fare much better. Both girls really liked the American Girl store across the hall from the skating rink.
Also, there were hours of swimming in the townhouse pool, featuring the big deep end and lots of sunshine (and lots of sunscreen).
We had chocolate pie and James Coney Island for my dad’s birthday. He and my mom went to the Astro’s game while the girls and I headed back to Austin.
Before we left, I managed to do a quick baseball home run session with Eric in the blazing sun at our old junior high. Eric’s five-year-old son, Luke, took a few solid swings but didn’t connect for a homer. When Eric and I were batting, Luke was in the dugout, safe from the flying hardballs. But we did have a couple of game delays when Luke yelled “Firefly!” and ran out into the field to chase a firefly. What a great little kid moment, even if it was someone else’s little kid.
This is a picture of Molly by her first real homework assignment. Her job was to put together a family tree. Molly was initially excited about the project but got tired of it after a while, as expressed in this picture. Our sparse family tree provided plenty of extra space to decorate with random stickers, which Molly carefully arranged.
Molly has decided to decorate the wall on her side of the room with posters. It started when the girls’ nanny Jackie helped Molly and Claire make a big crayon drawing of the own names. Molly and Claire both immediately wanted to mount it on the wall above their beds.
After this, Molly was inspired. She scrounged up some posters that came with some of her books, some of her favorite characters. There are the standard Disney princesses and The Pigeon. We’ve been really into the Mo Willems “Pigeon” books. They are short and really fun to read in silly voices. Molly even does an amazing little tiny voice for the little tiny chick in The Pigeon Finds a Hot Dog. Anyways, The Pigeon is a funny bird and a bit of a troublemaker. And now he takes his place along side the princesses on Molly’s wall.
Claire is sticking with just her name poster for now. I told Claire that in a few years, she and Molly would be putting up Justin Bieber posters. Claire was horrified. “Whaaat?!?! No way, Dad!!!” is all she could say. I hope she is right.
Molly has been dabbling with writing for a while, but she is taking it to a new level. The other day she asked for a sticky note and how to spell “ball”. Then she wrote “ball” on the notes and stuck it to the well above a beach ball. She said she wanted us all to remember there was a ball there.
She also wrote her name on a piece of paper, although I forget for what purpose. I think she is gearing up for pre-K in the fall.
This the very first My Little Pony video created by Claire! She had worked on the concept for a few days and decided to jump in and do it this afternoon. Claire’s first lesson learned is to try to find a way to keep her arms out of the camera view as much as possible.
Update (June 20, 2014)
Amazingly, this video has now has 2,071 views! There are 8 thumbs up and 10 thumbs down. Claire was a little bumbed about the down votes but has mostly moved on to her newer videos.
By comparison, my own videos for my little app company struggled to get over 100 views.
Update (October 8, 2014)
Wow, this video is up to 66,167 views! We still have no idea how this video got so popular, except that it is the twelfth video listed on youtube when you search for “my little pony pool party”. Being number 12 on youtube is pretty damn good!
Awkwardly, this video is actually on my own youtube account and is by far my own most popular video. I have 89 subscribers now thanks to Claire’s video. Judging by their icons, most of my fans are My Little Pony enthusiasts.
Claire officially lost her first tooth today. That bottom-middlish tooth had been loose for almost two months but finally let go at school today during lunch. Apparently it comes out as Claire was eating a pear in the cafeteria with her friend Harper. Claire stared run-walking to find a teacher and almost got in trouble with the cafeteria monitor. Claire was very proud of her missing tooth.
The tooth stayed in Claire’s school desk the first night but came home the next day where it slept under Claire’s pillow in a special tiny pillow of its own to help the Tooth Fairy could find it. When I woke Claire up the next morning, the very first thing she did was check her Tooth Fairy pillow. In it, she found her tiny little tooth had been traded for a special half-collar coin. That was a special coin from the Tooth Fairy, who will probably end up slipping a plain old dollar bill in there on later teeth. Claire was surprised it was a silver half dollar coin, thinking half dollars were normally gold. Still, she really likes her “only silver” coin.
McG Kids 