We’ve all been enjoying Just Dance Kids on the Wii. It’s a pretty good workout too. It was a Christmas present to the kids last month.
fun
Finally, a Sleepover
Finally, after many months of patiently asking and waiting, Claire got to host her first sleepover. Claire had spent the night at her friend Maddie’s house a while back, and now we got to return the favor. We ordered pizza and watched A Dolphin Tale. The girls stayed up little late, about 10:00 or 10:30, with Claire telling Maddie “scary stories that weren’t that scary.” Maddie is accustomed to sleeping in somewhat later than Claire. However, Claire convinced Maddie that they should get up at 7:00 am since sleeping in late amounted to “wasting precious play time”.
We set up the “sick bed” for Molly in our room to avoid messing up Claire and Maddie’s scene (and to avoid a madhouse with Molly in there). The sick bed is the portable, inflatable mattress we use when someone is vomiting, etc. and needs to stay in our room. Molly saw the bed and asked who was sick. Kit said that the mattress was the “fun bed” tonight. Molly liked it. She got to arrange the covers and pillows just so, taking a lot of care with it. She was very cozy and seemed to enjoy sleeping in our room. It took her over an hour to fall asleep, although that is normal for Molly.
The kids played the next morning until Maddie’s parents got her around noon. There were some challenges in the morning with not sharing the Wii, etc. and maybe some homesickness on Maddie’s part, but overall we just had a quiet morning. Claire’s friend Harper had suggested that Claire “order donuts” for breakfast. I asked Claire what that meant, and she said she didn’t know, but Harper usually “orders donuts” when she has a sleepover. Is there a donut delivery service I am not aware of? Anyways, I ran up to Howdy Donut and waited in line for 20 minutes to get some pretty great donuts and some really awesome sausage kolaches (one each per person).
So it was a nice, cozy sleepover with an old friend. Claire loved the idea of a sleepover and is already planning her next one. She is actually randomly inviting girls she is sort of friends with, and who have never ever been to our house to play before, for a sleepover just because their mom is there. That is how much she loves sleepovers.
Wii Night
We recently rediscovered the Wii. Yes, welcome to 2007!
Anyways, the girls are old enough to enjoy playing the Wii now, and we occasionally let them go nuts with it. This normally happens on a non-bath night when we sometimes have a little time in our hands (what!?!?) after dinner, thanks in large part to Molly’s new school being so convenient.
The girls love Wii Sports Resort and its games such as dog frisbee, kayaking, bicycling, and Claire’s favorite: plastic sword fighting. Claire and I have both stated emphatically that we want to live on the fabulous Wii Sports Resort island. Molly, for her part, loves going crazy with the Wiimote and nunchuk. She likes the biking since you basically just wave the controls up and down as fast as you can.
But if you do turn the girls loose on the Wii, be prepared to have some worked up, possibly over-excited girls for bed time. Still, everyone has so much fun, it’s worth it.
Summer Break 2013
A few quick notes from summer 2013.
This was Claire’s break between first and second grades. Only Claire’s schedule changes for the summer so far. Molly does not have a summer break, being a full time pre-school student.
We decided to try out several different camps this summer for Claire to see what worked best. Some full day camps, some half day with a sitter the rest of the day, some in between. We basically have to experiment since up until now we mostly just used the good ol’ day care.
Over the summer, Claire’s weeks were split up like this:
- Four full day camps
- Four half-day camps, usually morning with a sitter after lunch
- Most of the camps were art-oriented, at Claire’s request, with a week of gymnastics, a week of cooking, and a week of science.
- Two weeks of vacation with the family to see family in “both Washington’s” — Washington DC and Washington state
To be honest, I think the summer was a little tough on Claire, who went from camp to camp on an irregular schedule and did not get to see a lot of her friends, some of whom were out of town for cooler climates or otherwise out of touch.
I know the summer was tough on me. The camps all started at 9:00 or 9:30, while my daily call for work was at 9:00 am. So I would drop Claire off an immediately get on a meeting on my cell phone for the drive home to work. And I would have to pick Claire up at odd times in the middle of the day (12:00, 1:00, 3:00, whatever). This is on top of Molly’s pick up and drop off at different times and places. This got old week after week.
On the plus side, Claire and I had a little time together each morning after dropping off Molly and before her camp started. We would get breakfast and do a little studying to help keep Claire sharp over the summer break. We would have a Smoothie and a bagel at Panera and then have Claire read or do some writing. That was pretty sweet.
Since most of the public pools are only open when school is out for summer, I resolved to take advantage of the limited swimming time we had available. The plan was to take the girls swimming every Friday after school/work. We always went to the little circular pool at West Austin Park. We packed a picnic or picked up something from a drive through (not as much fun!) then swam for an hour or so before heading home to see Kit and go to bed. This was a fun time for us all, except it got a little frustrating for Claire at times since I had to be 100% “on” Molly, who cannot swim, so I could not really play with Claire or even just swim with her. I did not have any free hands or attention while trying to keep Molly alive and what not. I basically stood there holding Molly while Claire entertained herself. I think Claire liked the picnic best or those rare moments when I could actually play with her too. Anyways, the goal was to do the swimming thing every Friday, which turned out to be 4 or 5 times total, with traveling, guests, other engagements, etc. often intervening.
So there you go — a sunny, fun-filled, stress-free summer! Well, it was sunny anyways. And intermittently fun and stress-free.
Draggin’
Claire is out of school for two weeks for winter break, and Molly’s school closes early, at 4:30 instead of 6:00, around the holidays. So have been getting back home with the girls before 5:00, over an hour before a normal week day. This extra hour makes a huge difference! We cook together, play, or just hang out. The normal weekday involves nothing but rushing to get dinner on the table and then get right to bed.
Molly and Claire are really enjoying the extra time. They have so much fun just goofing off with each other. I caught a little video clip of one of their games, a kind and gentle dragging game. Originally Claire and Molly wanted to drag Molly by her neck, but they took my advice and adjusted to the torsop-based approach as shown here.
Austin City Limits
Claire has been going on a field trip every Friday for summer camp. She has hit the zoo, parks, museums, a restaurant kitchen, and even a recording studio. But all the parents were the most excited about this week’s field trip to the Austin City Limits theater, which in just the next few weeks will host the likes of Crosby Still & Nash, Tony Bennett, Norah Jones, and the Go-Go’s.
Claire took special interest in the Willy Nelson statue and enjoyed a picture of Arcade Fire, her favorite modern rock band (thanks to the music from the Hunger Games).
At the ACL theater, apparently the kids got a back-stage tour and a short performance by an unnamed guitarist who played a few silly songs, including a mixed up version of “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star”, like “Twinkle twinkle little star, how I wonder what you pizza.” And then all the kids wold roar that he got the words wrong. It sounded pretty funny.
Anyways, here are some pictures.
Sea World!
Leading up to the final days of kindergarten, we revealed to Claire our plans for a fun trip to celebrate Claire finishing her first year of elemenrtary school (and Kit’s week off). We would go to Sea World in San Antonio. The timing for this trip could not be better, since Claire has shown great interest in dolphins and other sea life lately. “I am so going to feed the dolphins!”, she said, when we told her about the trip. We showed her a pamphlet of Sea World, and she kept looking at it and saying, “Awesome!” Claire was excited enough that she created a picture at school about the upcoming trip. Claire was also pretty excited about going to San Antonio in general, remembering a fun trip to the zoo there last year.
Not only was the timing perfect for Claire, but it was also perfect for Molly. There is a “Bay of Play” at Sea World which, we all agreed, Molly would be super excited about, because it was themed on Elmo, and very favorite character, and Sesame Street in general. But we did not tell her about Elmo and his Bay of Play until we were at Sea World and she could see it. If we told her earlier, Molly would likely expect to see it right then and there and end up confused or disappointed after repeating “I want Elmo!” a number of times.
Anyways, the trip was indeed “awesome”, as Claire would say many more times. At this point, I am going to drop into bullet points in an attempt to avoid an overly verbose and time-consuming travel log, or at least to help you skip over bits as appropriate.
- The Hotel
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Molly gaping at the hotel lobby Perhaps the biggest hit of the trip for Claire and Molly was the hotel, an Embassy Suites about a 20 minute drive from Sea World.
- Molly spent as much time as possible in the lobby gaping upwards at the eight stories of hotel balconies magically hovering above her. The hotel even had a “swimming pool” right in the lobby. Actually, this “swimming pool” was a decorative fountain, but to Molly that is all semantics. She was thrilled to discover later that there was a real swimming pool in the hotel that we were willing to take her for a swim in. This was a nice chance for Molly to finally get into a swimming pool herself after watching Claire do swim lessons all spring. Molly loved it, but she did not want to splash around too much. She just liked to be held, grinning widely, in the water.
- Claire also liked the fountain and swimming pool. She tossed a quarter in the fountain and also got to swim twice. Claire said it was the fanciest hotel ever, and it made it seem like we were rock stars.
- Claire and Molly were also amazed by the free drinks in the lobby for happy hour. Claire asked, unbelievably, “Are the drinks really free?” Yes, that includes pink lemonade and popcorn! And we all enjoyed a hearty breakfast before heading out to Sea World the next morning, except for Molly, who had a little milk and dragged some cheerios through her ketchup.
- Kit and I took pains to explain that we don’t always stay in a place as nice as Embassy Suites, but in this case it really made sense to have a separate living room due to the sleeping situation (with the girls turning in around 8 pm and Kit and I not wanting to sit around in the dark from then until our bed time).
- Sea World
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Molly feeding a dolphin We started out at Dolphin Cove. We explained to Claire that we weren’t sure if we would be able to feed or touch the dolphins, and she said, “Then what are we supposed to do? Just stare at them?” This pessimism gave way to joy when we saw the pool, full of dozens of dolphins, swimming gracefully around, coming up to the sides, and playfully jumping out of the water. We ended up feeding the dolphins too. We bought about a dozen sardines (or something similar) to feed them. Claire ended up skipping the actual dolphin feeding, though, partly because the sardines were gross and slimy, and partly because, I assume, she did not want to get bitten by a dolphin. Molly did manage to feed a dolphin, though, dropping a sardine right into its eager, wide open mouth. Molly sat on the side of the pool waving and saying, cheerfully, “Hey buddies! I’m Molly! I’m a little lamb!”, identifying her class at school. The dolphins seemed to appreciate this introduction, or at least the sardines that came with it.
- We briefly checked out the sharks, which of course, were really cool, although we had to run to catch the Shamu show.
- The Shamu show was really cool, and wet. Claire wanted to sit in the “splash zone”. Kit stayed with Molly out of splash range. Molly is brave about dolphins but somewhat skittish about getting splashed. The whales started doing jumps and flips and hopping out of the water to say hi. It was pretty amazing. And from our angle, you could see the whales way down under water after a big jump. Claire worked her way up to the very front row of the splash zone, although I convinced her to pull back to about the fourth row with the warning, “We could get really soaked up here.” Through most of the show, we did not get wet at all. Then the show’s announcer said, “These whales sure can make a big splash!”, and right when he said “splash”, the whales went to town on our section. This was no accidental spill-over from the show. This was three whales, heads down in the water, fins above, intentionally and repeatedly throwing as much water our way as possible. Everyone in our section screamed, myself included. Claire got pretty soaked. Somehow I escaped the worst of it, apparently fleeing pretty quickly once I noticed the giant wall of water coming my way. Claire and I were laughing like crazy. Pretty soon the whales had moved on to other sections, and Claire was yelling loudly down towards the trainers, “Make them do it again!”
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At the sea lions We also enjoyed a dramatic performance entitled Cannery Row Caper, performed mostly by sea lions. Claire got to ask questions to one of the human actors after the show. Then we grabbed some sardines and fed and admired the playful sea lions for some time. I would personally have named them “sea dogs” since their faces look like a dog, but that is just me, I guess. Seriously, though, they don’t look anything like lions.
- At last came the Bay of Play, where Molly got to meet Sesame Street’s Zoe in person. Zoe was no Elmo, but she was still pretty cool. I guess Elmo was on lunch break.
- Claire had her own fun at Bay of Play, where she rode her very first roller coaster, a small kiddy coaster, but still a coaster. We thought Claire would be terrified to ride on it, but she was eager to try it. She ended up really enjoying the quick ride and said it was “not scary, not even a little bit.”
The roller coaster - A very tired and bedraggled dinner out at TGI Friday’s and a quick swim at the hotel finished us for the day. The girls fell right asleep after their bath, unlike the night before. Kit and I were not far behind.
- The Riverwalk
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Molly running the Riverwalk Saturday morning gave me, Molly, and Claire a chance for another quick swim while Kit kindly packed up in the room. We managed to save about 45 minutes to visit the Riverwalk on the way back to Austin. We strolled about a half mile on the less crowded part near Municipal Auditorium. This was Molly’s first visit to the Riverwalk, and Claire’s second (the first time, she was about Molly’s age). We took lots of pictures, sat on lots of cool benches and stone overhangs, admired ducks and turtles, waved at passing boats, ran, walked, and finally made it back to the car. I told Claire that the Riverwalk was one of my very favorite places, and Claire said that it was her favorite place.
- Somehow we managed to stay on schedule for a lunch at the “real” EZ’s on New Braunfels Ave and get Molly home to Austin in time for her nap.
Well, this blog entry ended out pretty verbose after all. And this was only a 2-night trip!
Capital 10k
As she had a few years ago for the Peachtree Road Race, Kit convinced me to go run in the Capital 10k fun run today. I only registered yesterday at the “last-minute” registration at the convention center. I was not really in shape to run the full 6 miles, and our morning was squeezed for time, so I decided to take advantage of the fact that our house was almost exactly along the half-way point of the course. The plan was for Kit and the girls to drop me off at the starting line, drive back to our house, and wait for me in the crowds along Enfield Road. I would run the first half of the race, bow out at our house, and get on with the day. This was a good plan. Only later would I find out that our house, besides being almost exactly half way through the course, was also located almost exactly at the highest point on the course. So I would be running mostly uphill for 3 miles. Believe me, that last stretch burned!
Anyways, Kit and the girls were a welcome sight at that highest point. Claire, as always, had made some friends, and the girls had managed to borrow some pom-poms from someone nearby. I decided that I did, in fact, want to exit the race at our house and suggested maybe next year I could run the whole thing, when I was better prepared and we hopefully did not have haircuts and furniture shopping to deal with that same morning.
Ah, Winter Break
This being Claire’s first Christmas in elementary school, she is enjoying her first extended break in a long time. Molly’s pre-school is only closed for a couple of days for the holidays, but Claire has about two weeks off. Here are some of the ways that Claire has kept herself busy while off of school…
She spent the first couple of days in Corpus Christi with he Grammy and Grandaddy. Claire was very excited to take the trip down there without the me and Kit (Grammy and Grandaddy picked her up in Austin and drove her down there). Not having been there for the visit, I can’t say much about it, but Claire appears to have had a very good time baking, playing, reading, and entertaining guests. I think Claire did not want to come back home, and when Grammy returned home after Christmas, she said she really felt like something was missing (Claire). It was odd having Molly to ourselves without Claire at home. It was quiet around the house, and it reminded us of the old days when Claire was a toddler before we had Molly.
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| Heading out to Corpus |
Claire spent the next week here at home with a sitter. Claire and Cassie got along well, although Cassie seemed quiet and only spoke about three words the whole week (yes, I am exaggerating, but not by much). Claire and Cassie spent the mornings working on art projects, including making necklaces and bracelets from some bead sets she had received for her birthday back in November. The two were as quiet as a mouse downstairs while I worked in my office upstairs. They never so much as turned on the TV.
Every afternoon at 1:00, Claire had a one-on-one swimming lesson. Claire had just started to really swim at the very end of the summer this year, and then all the pubic pools shut down for the summer (while it was still over 100 degrees outside). This week was a chance to keep Claire a little bit practiced on swimming without waiting until next summer. Claire ended the week swimming way better than she ever has before, swimming 15 feet out and 15 back by herself. Claire also practiced “falling” (jumping) into the pool and getting herself safely to shore as well as diving under water to pick up rings from the bottom of the pool. It was amazing what five half-hour lessons with Hannah Jo did for Claire’s swimming skills (and confidence). As a side note, once or twice, I took Claire out for lunch at Taco Cabana before swimming, and she learned to love flautas after I convinced her to just try one.
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| Swim lessons |
After swimming, Cassie normally took Claire to Pease Park for a couple of hours. I would drop them off, and they would walk back home. Claire apparently made different friends with each trip to the park and invented some pretty crazy games. The weather was absolutely perfect every day this week, right around 70 degrees and sunny. There was no sun screen, bug spray, or heart exhaustion to worry about when venturing to the park. You could just stay out there all day and never break a sweat or get a chill. After getting back from the park, Claire was pretty wiped out and would sit in her bedroom with Cassie and read books for an hour or so before Cassie took off.
It almost sounds like a perfect day to me… swimming, the park, Mexican food, hanging out. I would personally trade the arts and crafts for some computer games (Battlefield 3, anyone?), but I would even make necklaces if that were a required part of the package. We wanted to get Claire some rest for her holiday break, but we might be wearing her out with all this fun!
McG Kids 