Molly had her first ever trip to the beach today!
She was in Corpus Christi visiting her grandparents when they took an afternoon trip to the beach. Molly enjoyed playing in the sand and required a major bath and laundry service afterwards.
first
Merry Christmas 2010!
 |
| The girls hang out with trusty Grammy as we head off for some errands |
Merry Christmas 2010! As usual with a big event like this, a quick summary is going to have to suffice, or I will be here typing all day. There was a lot going on this Christmas, but this account is focused on the girls from my perspective.
Molly is still too young to grasp what all these decorations, music, and gift-wrapped items are all about. She was just happy to have all her grandparents in town again to celebrate whatever this is! And she even got a few presents out of the deal, mostly plastic sorting toys that make crazy sounds. This Christmas thing may be something to keep an eye out for in the future.
Molly wanted to show off for her grandparents and continued to take great strides in her standing and walking. She took a couple of steps several different times over the weekend. She’s not quite walking as such, but she is getting mighty close, and all the grandparents (and parents) were so proud!
Molly wanted to show off for her grandparents and continued to take great strides in her standing and walking. She took a couple of steps several different times over the weekend. She’s not quite walking as such, but she is getting mighty close, and all the grandparents (and parents) were so proud!
 |
| Claire wraps herself up as a gift |
Big sister Claire is now an old Christmas pro. Like Molly, Claire was also thrilled to have all four grandparents in town again, less than a month after her big birthday party. She had been anticipating Christmas for a couple of weeks, and was especially eager to find out what would show up in her stocking on Christmas morning. She did end up receiving a much anticipated candy cane, as well as a Magic School Bus chapter book called The Search for the Missing Bones. This book has a lot more works and and a lot fewer pictures than any of her books so far. Apparently Santa thinks Claire is getting close to reading age. Everyone received a different “Mr. Men” or “Little Miss” book, such as Mr. Funny or Mr. Loud (perhaps to fit our personalities?), which all we generally donated to Claire for further reading.
 |
| The new bike, compliments of Santa |
I don’t think Claire 100% realized that she should expect a big actual present from Saint Nick too. Well, the good man came through and brought Claire a beautiful pink bike — a real, heavy, rubber and metal bike with training wheels. Claire has officially outgrown the Big Wheel, although I am sure Molly will happily inherit it soon enough. We went outside into the blustery cold to try out the bike. Claire gave it some spins back and forth on the side patio. After getting used to the pedal brakes, she was off and rolling pretty well. Molly watched eagerly from the door window. Soon Claire requested that we try it out on the front street where she would have more room to open things up a bit more. Kit and I headed out there with her to the street. After one ride of maybe 30 feet, she hopped off her bike quickly. I thought wanted to she turn it around and come back, but instead she sprinted for the front door saying, “It’s toooo coooold!” That was it for the bike until a warmer day.
 |
| Molly meets Astronaut Claire |
Among other highlights, Claire also received a microphone for her singing, a Barbie (her first), a Leapster 2 educational game system, Melody Harp from me and Kit (which she summarily ignored without opening the box, but which I believe she will one day enjoy), and a full astronaut suit from her Uncle Tim. Pretty soon Claire was exploring around the house pretending it was outer space, and everyone had a turn trying on the crazy helmet.
 |
| Reading “A Butterfly Christmas” |
Of course, we all wanted Claire to understand that giving is an important part of the whole gift exchange too. Claire (and Grammy) gave me and mom beautifully framed pictures of her and Molly, which Claire designed decorated herself. I remembered about two days before Christmas that Claire should give something special to her grandparents too, so in a panic I picked up a you-decorate-a-butterfly kit at Target with three butterflies. Late on Christmas eve, had to drag a grumpy Claire upstairs to begrudgingly decorate these butterflies. This was going to be the worst, most uninspired kid present ever! But Claire rallied under the promise that she could keep one of the butterflies, and before long we had three nicely decorated butterflies: a blue one and a pink one for the sets of grandparents, and a purple one for Claire to keep. They were named Butterfly, Pretty Butterfly, and Pretty Pretty Pretty Butterfly, I think. Then I asked if she could do a picture or a story or something — anything — to go with the butterflies. She started out slowly but then worked into a groove. She dictated a story of three butterflies — a blue one, a pink one, and a purple one — while she drew an illustration of the story. We eventually ran out of room on both sides of the paper, so I re-typed it on the computer where it would actually fit and be more legible. We called the story “A Butterfly Christmas”. With Kit’s inspired wrapping, we ended up with a good present just in the nick of time.
Among other presents, Claire and/or Molly also gave at least one grandparent as well as me and Kit the customary gift of a nasty cold. This is price we pay for togetherness, I suppose.
Whew! So much more happened, but I don’t want to prattle on much more for your sake and mine. One a side note, Kit spent most of Christmas week bogged down in an insanely busy week at work while also dealing with negotiations related to her company being sold. I cannot say much more, but she was mostly gone or asleep right up until Christmas eve, and she was exhausted through the weekend. Personally, I am feeling exhausted too, partly from work and normal life, but also from having hosted three big events within the last month: Claire’s birthday, Thanksgiving, and now Christmas.
Claire for her part is excited about the next big holiday after Christmas. I was thinking it was New Year’s Day, but Claire tells me it is Kwanzaa, which starts the day after Christmas.
(Well, so much for a quick summary, but this was the best I could do.)
First step!
Molly took her first official step (that I know of) today when I dropped her off at school. I was chatting with her teacher out n the playground where they go in the mornings, and I had to put Molly down to get something from my bag. I expected her to just sit down when I let her go like usual, but this time she kept her legs straight and just stood there by herself looking up at me. She stayed there standing nice and steady for a long long time, maybe more than a full minute. (It is hard to judge these things since I was standing there in shock with my jaw wide open.). Finally, Molly decided she wanted to come to grab onto my pant leg for support, but she did not want to sit down and crawl only a foot or so to make that happen, so she tentatively and slowly stepped towards me! The first step was successful — she did not fall, and she stayed up for another step. She took a tumble on the second step, but it was amazing to see her first real step.
Here is some video a couple days later in the same spot standing (but not walking) for a much, much shorter period of time. These moments are like the Sasquatch — impossible to catch on film!
– Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Finally, the real Star Wars
Claire has been curious about Star Wars for some time now, especially with the boys in her class playing and discussing Star Wars every day. She has actually been somewhat confused by the whole thing. What is “R3D2”? Is Han Solo a good guy or a bad guy? Is Darth Vader a person or a robot?
At long last, some of the mystery was folded back tonight, her last day as a four-year-old, as chance would have it. Claire finally got to see (some of) Star Wars! The original Episode IV, aka Star Wars: A New Hope, happened to be on TV just before dinner. Normally we turn off the TV for dinner, but tonight we let it run and even rearranged the TV so that we could watch during dinner as a special treat. You just can’t pass up the original Star Wars falling right in your lap like that!
From past experiences, we thought Claire might be frightened by the movie, and Kit went to great lengths to explain that what she was seeing was not real. We talked a lot about how the director would say “cut!, and they would stop filming. Then everyone would change out of their costumes and go have coffee together, even the storm troopers and the good guys.
Claire was at times little scared by the movie. She continued to be frightened whenever Darth Vader appeared, even if he was just standing there. But mostly she was engrossed by the movie. Her eyes were glued to the TV all the way to the end. She said Princess Leia was beautiful, and we stressed that she was also brave. Claire liked when the good guys stole storm trooper uniforms so they could sneak around the Death Star unfettered. “They fooled the bad guys!”, she was quite fond of saying. When the movie was over, she asked us to record it so she could watch it again, but we told her it was a special or “sometimes” movie, and the next morning it was back to watching Arthur.
Scoping Out School
Kindergarten is still almost a year off for Claire, but we thought it would be fun to drop by her upcoming school and play on the playground to help warm her up to the idea. The school is rather big for elementary and has over 160 kindergarteners enrolled, so we want to ease Claire into it gradually.
Anyways, we all had a great time in the nice weather on the playground. While Claire was introducing herself to some of the other kids hanging out, Molly also had a great time. She got to ride around in a pink, plastic, rather bumpy, little car. The faster and bumpier we went, the more giggles from Molly. She also got to dig around in some dirt and rub it on her face. What a day!
Readin’ and Talkin’
The kid and the baby, aka Claire and Molly, each demonstrated some significant progress today in their respective fields of reading and talking.
This morning, Claire had written out the random letters O-L-A-J-A on a piece of paper and decided to try to sound out the word. She had been learning letter sounds at school for the past several months and was feeling pretty comfortable with the letters now. She slowly and deliberately read it out: “Oooh la jah.” It was amazing to see her really read something. And this was definitely not a case where she just recognized a word from memory, like her own name. (Granted, she might have been referring to the small Spanish village of Santa Olaja de la Accion, but I am going to stick with the random letters theory.) I decided to go with the momentum and write out my name: P-A-T. She slowly read it out: “Paaat. That’s your name!” Definitely not a fluke.
Molly was impressed with Claire’s reading but did not want to be overshadowed, so she showed off a bit of her own hard earned new skill while getting ready for bed that night. Kit and I were chatting while putting Molly into her pajamas when Kit used the phrase “thank you” in the middle of a sentence. A few seconds later, Molly clearly said, or tried to say, “thank you” three times in a row. It sounded kind of like “tank wa, tank wa, tank wa”. We cheered and gave her a big hug. Molly beamed, and then started saying “Daddy” over and over. That is a pretty easy go-to word for her, along with her favorite “uh oh”. Molly tried to say “Mommy” but is still having trouble with that darn “mmm” sound, but she definitely tried. Molly also has trouble with the “nnn” sound as well and has not yet learned to say “no”, but I am sure that will be a future favorite.
Halloween 2010
Halloween is upon us again. Just like last year, we joined Claire’s school friend Megan for Halloween festivities in their Mount Bonnell neighborhood. The neighborhood has an annual Halloween parade — actually, a loose gaggle of spooky kids and their accompanying parents, lead by ceremonial bagpipes. Immediately following the parade, the kids and accompanying parents fan out for tricks or treats.
This was technically Molly’s second Halloween, but it was the first one that Molly was actually awake and conscious for. Today, Molly found herself walking down the street among dozens of kids dressed up as cowboys, Sesame Street characters, princesses (including her sister), and of course Star Wars heroes and villains. They would go from house to house, knocking on the strange doors asking for candy. As Sally says in It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, “Are you sure this is legal?” Molly, who dressed as a pumpkin fairy (whatever that is), loved it. She stayed up late and had no dinner aside from some bread and strawberries while on the move. Ordinarily, this would be enough to make her rather fussy, but she smiled and looked around with wide eyes the whole time.
For her part, Claire, at age four, has become an old pro. Claire wore her running shoes and literally sprinted from house to house trying to (1) keep up with her friends, and (2) maximize her candy intake. Claire, who dressed up kind of like Sleeping Beauty, ended the night exhausted and sweaty with a bag full of several pounds of candy. Claire had some indecision on her costume up to the last minute this year. Several months ago, she mentioned that she wanted to be Snow White, then almost changed her mind to a butterfly princess we saw at a Pottery Barn outlet. Afraid she would later change her mind and want to be Snow White in the end, we persuaded her to stick with Snow White. She wore the Snow White outfit once or twice before Halloween and looked perfect. But she got cold feet the day before Halloween and changed to a generic pink princess outfit she had from her dress-up collection, declaring herself Sleeping Beauty. We are not sure why she abandoned the Snow White idea, but we probably pushed Snow White too hard. We were trying to avoid the exact situation we got in, switching costumes at the last minute, except in reverse! Oh, meddling parents! Still, both girls looked cute and had a really fun time.
Independence (from toothlessness) Day
Kit was holding Molly while waiting in line for some coffee before heading out for a very short jaunt to the lake to get Molly at least a little outside time today. Kit was just standing there talking to me when she said, “Ouch!” Someone had bitten her finger. That someone, of course, was our little Molly, who had sprung her first tooth! It’s a tiny little number in the center of her bottom gum. It’s not much to look at, but apparently it can do some damage, as Kit’s finger will attest.
Busy Body
Molly has been so busy! She is learning to move herself around and is so excited about it.
She recently started “army crawling” (todo: link or video), and today at school, for the first time, Molly sat up all by herself! She also pulled herself up using the edge of a little table. I heard about this from Molly’s teacher when I picked her up today. Molly especially gets a real workout everyday at school, where, unlike at home, it is safe enough for her to crawl around wherever she wants.
Here are some sample daily notes from her teachers:
Date: 5/26/2010
Disposition: Busy, determined, happy
Activities: Worked her way into bottom book shelf for teether -> got out by herself! Speed-scooting around the room. Trying to pull up on ducks.
Date: 5/27/2010
Disposition: Busy, focused, cheerful
Activities: Played outside -> chewing on & waving shovels. Laid on her back squealing @ the trees! Army crawled under the sorting table to get blue bucket.
Date: 6/10/2010
Disposition: Active, determined, happy
Activities: “Real” army crawling w/ both arms! Reaching for & batting @ elastic bands under high chairs. Sweet smiles!
McG Kids 