friends

Check Mate

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Claire told us this story tonight over dinner…

During her gymnastics class at school today, Claire accidentally bumped into her friend Julian.  Claire and Julian get along great, and Julian’s parents have even told us “he has been sweet on Claire for years.”  Anyways, when Claire bumped into him, she followed standard school protocol and checked on him.  “Are you hurt?” she said.  “Yes”, Julian replied.  “What do you need?” said Claire, following protocol.  Julian thought for a second and replied, “I need you to stop checking on me!”  Then he “laughed so hard he cried”, according to Claire.

Anyways, this was supposed to be a joke of Julian’s, not anything mean.  But you could interpret it as sort of a mean joke, if you didn’t know these kids.  Taking on the role of amateur psychologist, I asked Claire how this exchange made her feel.  She thought for a minute and said, “It made me feel… weird.”  I swear, these kids are getting complicated.

Pump it up!

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Claire has officially been five years old for a few days now, but today it was time to celebrate with all her friends! With Claire’s birthday falling on the Monday after Thanksgiving, we opted to have the party the following weekend to try to get the biggest crowd for Claire. Although the initial response was low, in the end we had over 20 kids, mostly classmates, plus about as many parents, at the party. Plus all four of Claire’s grandparents were in town for the event. This gave the weekend a big, festive feel.
A picture break at Pump It Up

For the past few months, Claire had been communicating two key requests for her party. Her first request was to have the party specifically at Pump It Up!, her favorite bounce house, which had, among other amenities, a big colorful blow-up throne for the birthday girl to sit on. She had been dreaming of sitting on that throne for months. Claire also requested several times that we invite everyone from her class. Last year, in the wake of Molly’s birth and just moving to Austin, we had a small party with a few girls from her class. But this year, she wanted to make sure we invite everyone. Surely, anything less would be undemocratic! She really did not want to leave anyone out.
We scheduled the party for Saturday morning at 9:15, which was unconventionally early. But the party had a good vibe. The kids were fresh and rested. The parents were in good spirits too and were able to relax, socialize, and feast on coffee and bagels while the kids played.
Claire savors her time on the throne
The kids had a blast playing on the bounce houses, and then gathered for cupcakes and to sing Happy Birthday to Claire. Claire beamed on her throne. The only tense moment was when she had a little trouble sharing the throne with some eager friends, but she did relent and then had fun sharing the spotlight with her friends.
We went home and opened dozens of presents that day and next. Some highlights for Claire were various the Littlest Pet Shop and Polly Pocket sets, plus some real Annie shoes from Noni to go along with the outfit we had given her on her actual birthday. Many items went into storage to rediscover in the coming weeks and months. It’s a long time until another birthday!

Ballet Recital

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Here are some footage and pictures of Claire’s ballet recital this weekend. She takes a 45 minute lesson every Saturday at the YMCA with her friends Coco, Zoey, and Isa. This was the culmination of the last few weeks of class. The dance teacher said it was not really a recital, but she just wanted to show off what the kids could do because she was so proud of their progress. The teacher also said, much to everyone’s relief, that the recital would not last the scheduled two hours, and would instead take about 30 minutes.

During this recital, I also got a troubling text message from Kit, who was at the doctor’s office with Molly.

– Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Halloween 2010

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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.

Baby Buddies

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Today was our mid-year teacher conference for Molly. We had the conference at 7:00 am so that Kit could participate before going to work. Claire and Molly were the very first kids to be dropped off at school that day!

We had a good discussion with Molly’s lead teacher, Karyn. We all agreed that we need to keep an eye on some of Molly’s “gross motor” skills such as putting some weight on her legs rather than let them dangle. We also agreed that Molly is doing great cognitively and socially and is having a great time at school watching her bigger friends. We learned that Molly has buddied up with Hudson, the other littlest baby in the class. Hudson was born a couple of months after Claire, but was bigger than Molly from day one! Molly and Hudson like to lay next to each other while they play where they can turn to look and smile at each other.

After the conference, Kit and I went in to visit Molly before going to work, and sure enough, there she was laying with Hudson. So I snapped this picture of the cute pair.


Coco & Zoey

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One of the best things about our new house in Austin is that, by complete coincidence, we are just down the street from some friends of friends names Paulette and Richie.  Paulette and Richie are always having their adorable grandkids over to their house.  Coco and Zoey are about six months younger than Claire, but they are loads of fun.  Claire has been invited over many times to play on Sunday afternoon.  The afternoon is a dream for Claire, who gets to go nuts with the other girls.  There are games and books and snacks.  But mostly there is running around and yelling and just being silly.  It is probably the most fun Claire has all week.

Paulette and Richie are also very nice.  Paulette jokes that, since they live a half mile down our street, I should just pin a note to Claire and send her down on her own.

Panda on the Loose

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The new school year started today for Claire. She has graduated to the next class, and is now officially a Panda. This is good since Claire is now with her own age group. She had spent the first few weeks in the Colts classroom with slightly older kids since they had a random spot open just to get her through the summer.

Claire may benefit from having more girls in her new classroom as compared to the Colts, where there were only three girls to about a dozen boys. However, she will leave behind some friends, including her very favorite twins, Alex and Leo, who she seems to follow around and literally pull their arms towards her to make them play with her.

Claire’s new teacher writes a little summary of all the kids’ days, which is helpful. Apparently today Claire ate “some” of her lunch (just the muffin and bluberries), but she was too busy talking to do much eating. (One of her Colts teachers had also remarked that she “treats lunch time as sort of a social hour.”) Claire’s new teacher circled “cheerful”, “silly”, and “talkative” to describe Claire’s mood today. I am glad Claire had a good day, especially since she is a little sick. If I were to fill out the same form for tonight, I would have circled “cuddly” and “frustrated”.

Howdy, Austin

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At long last, we have moved to Austin!

Not long ago, Kit’s job search from Dallas was not going so well.  We were afraid Kit would be unemployed, and we would be forced to move to Richardson for the lower rent, where Kit would be a stay-at-home mom with a hard earned but unused MD and PhD.  Or we would move somewhere random and presumably cold (Duluth or Scranton come to mind) just to find a place that would hire her.  The job market out there is tough now, even for doctors!

But here we are moving to Austin, of all places, where Kit has landed a sweet job thanks to her friend Chrissy from the residency days. Chrissy recommended Kit to her group in Austin, and by some small miracle (actually a big miracle to us), they hired her.  We always had our eye on moving to Austin or San Antonio, but we never really thought it would work out.  But here we are with a good job lined up for Kit. We are very lucky indeed.

Even though we are happy to move here, Claire had to leave behind some great school friends (Katherine from her Dallas preschool was her best friend!) plus a great baby sitter who we only used once before we left.  Claire of course has a new bedroom that is smaller than her old one in Dallas, but it actually works better for her age.  She will be starting up at her new preschool soon, which we were also extremely lucky to get her into.  Many of our other preschool choices were unorganized and chaotic, and one seemed to be run by a teenage girl in a swimsuit with no shoes.  But by another miracle and some good timing, we got Claire into an excellent day care which normally has a two year waiting list.

So far to Claire, Austin has meant a lot of fun, especially in the water.  In the first weekend alone, we went swimming or splashing on three different occasions: Barton Springs, the splash fountain at Auditorium Shores, and Chrissy’s backyard for the Fourth of July.  You just can’t help but run out and get wet around here, especially with a little kid and temperatures over 100 degrees most days.

Now the real adventure begins as Kit settles into her new job, Claire settles into her new school, I move back to full-time working at home, and we all prepare for the new baby.  These are huge life transitions, and they will bring challenges for us all.  But for now, it looks like we have things on the right track.