fun

(Re)discovery Green

| patmcg


Kit was on call this week, and her mom came up to help out in case things got crazy like they did last time. I took the opportunity to take Claire to Houston this weekend to see my parents while Kit, her mom, and Molly stayed back in Austin. Claire was really excited about the trip and kept asking when we were going to Houston. In particular, she wanted to get back to Discovery Green, where were were rained out by a sudden thunderstorm last time we visited.

This time the Discovery Green visit was without incident. I could tell you exactly what we did, but maybe pictures would tell a better story.


Twelve-Pound Bunny Rabbit

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Since her first crack at solid foods, Molly has been finding rice cereal a little dull. She mostly just plays with it, and is has not been very interested in consuming lots of it. Our pediatrician had recommended moving Molly on to vegetables pretty quick after dipping her proverbial toes in the pool with rice cereal, so we decided to go with carrots as her second food.

Kit’s parents were in town, and the weather was finally sunny and spring-like, so we went out for lunch at Freddie’s, which features outdoor dining and a playground. It was at Freddie’s that Molly tried her first carrots. She gobbled them right up and really seemed to enjoy them. She even cried in protest when the next spoonful was not quick enough in coming. I doubt Molly would have even touched boring ol’ rice cereal at Freddie’s, with all of its distractions, but these carrots sure did the trick.


Sing-Song Sister

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This morning, Molly was having an especially fun time watching her big sister Claire. She as just laughing and grinning at Claire. So Claire decided to put on sort of a show for Molly to get some extra grins. She got up on a step stool next to Molly’s changing table and started hopping and dancing and singing a silly sort of song without any real words, like “La la la la, fa la la dee dee da!” Molly went hysteric with giggles! They kept this up for a while, with Claire dancing and singing and Molly laughing. Finally, Claire tired out a bit and decided to take the music down a notch. She sang her favorite song, Hark the Herald Angels Sing, all the way through to Molly. It was a really nice rendition of the Christmas classic. Molly liked the song too, but she did not giggle and grin as much as before. I think she wanted more hopping and senseless singing.


290 Express

| patmcg

Taking advantage of our new closer proximity to Houston, Claire and I made a quick road trip to see my parents this weekend. We left Kit back in Austin for some seriously overdue R&R. Kit was reluctant to let us go and wanted to talk on the phone a couple of times each day. She was usually waking up or falling asleep from a nap whenever we talked to her, so apparently the forced respite was a good idea.

Claire and I got to Houston in no time. We entertained ourselves in the car by listening to audio books, namely The Cat in the Hat and How the Grinch Stole Christmas, selections inspired by her recent fascination with another Dr. Seuss story. On the way back, Claire fell asleep for about half the trip and estimated that the whole trip took about 10 minutes.

We had some good adventures during our one-night visit to Houston. Claire got to play with my mom, briefly visit Discovery Green downtown, escape a sudden and unexpected rainstorm downtown, go out to eat in soaking wet clothes, consume an entire ear of roasted corn, dry off, go swimming, dry off again, and fall sleep on a giant inflatable bed.

“I want to go back to Houston!” she would say more than a few times after getting home. Yes, Austin has a lot to offer, but two things it will not give you are her grandparents and (at least this summer) a good fun rainstorm.

Howdy, Austin

| patmcg

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.

Goin’ for Ice Cream

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Here is some more footage thanks to the new Flip Video camera. Claire has her leg cast off, but she it still walking a little funny on the left leg.

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Riding the Rails

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Today is a funny day, a single work day sandwiched between Christmas week and New Year’s Day. I was planning to send Claire off to Grace for the day, who had last week off, but it turns out Grace is still in Florida visiting her family, and does not plan to be back in Atlanta until Tuesday. So I unexpectedly have Claire for the day. After all the recent hustle and bustle of the holidays, and all the recent travel, and working on the house, I am going back to an old routine — just me and Claire, taking an unplanned day off. Losing the day to unexpected circumstances is tough, with so many things to do and so little time. But that is to worry about later; today Claire and I are going to have some fun with our day off!

I was initially thinking of going to the zoo, but it was foggy and cold and wet, so spending a lot of time outdoors did not seem ideal. But I felt sort of couped up and wanted to get out on some sort of adventure, preferably something new. With Claire’s continuing fascination with trains, I thought it would be fun to take the MARTA train somewhere. Something about zipping around the city on the train in the fog on New Year’s Eve sounded fun and adventurous. It seemed like a very Curious George type of thing to do.

But where would we go? We finally decided on Underground Atlanta because it was right by the main downtown MARTA station, and it had plenty of fun stuff for Claire to see, including, according to the web site, “caricature drawings and fortune telling, homemade candy, delicious dining and souvenir shopping.”

So I packed up a small survival and dining kit (diapers, wipes, a drink cup, a bib, a fork, and some snacks), and we headed out to Lindberg Station. As we hopped on the train, Claire gleefully yelled, “All aboard!” We grabbed the only free seat, with Claire sitting on my lap, next to a sort of rough looking guy with greasy hair, hunched over sleeping (or pretending to sleep). The train car was largely full of middle aged women all dressed in the same goofy black and yellow outfits, as if for some sort of Georgia Tech pep rally. As we headed into town, the train filled up with more and more Clemson fans. I guess there was a football game today, but fortunately things did not get too tense between the GT and Clemson fans. One of the GT ladies said something about a parade and pointed at the rough guy next to me, jokingly saying, “We should put him on charge.” She looked at me and said, “I hope he doesn’t wake up mad.” This was just funny, not scary; that guy looked harmless enough, and besides, he was way smaller than me. Once the train cleared up a bit, though, we did move to a more “comfortable” seat. During the ride downtown came the requisite Claire comments and compliments from all the GT ladies, with Claire introducing herself to our neighbors and saying, “MARTA train” over and over with a big smile.

We got off at Five Points across the street from Underground Atlanta. and didn’t get 10 steps onto the sidewalk before Claire saw something she liked. There were about 10 pigeons cruising the sidewalk among all the pedestrians, hunting and pecking for food. Claire liked to see real birds up so close, and she insisted that we stay for a good 15 minutes just watching them, laughing whenever they flew around a little bit.

I finally dragged her across the street, and there was more great stuff to look at. They were setting up for the big peach drop, which is Atlanta’s version of New York’s big apple drop in Times Square. There were food stands and lights and generators everywhere. Claire was almost constantly saying, “What’s that?” as we walked along. The camen the big wide stairs into the Underground, which was another prime attraction. We walked down each step, probably 100 of them in all, Claire enjoying every step. Awaiting us at the bottom of the stairs was a big bouncy moonwalk, like the one Claire had loved at the Kit’s pathology picnic a few months ago. I steered us clear of the moonwalk, as I knew we would not get a step further if Claire discovered it.

Inside the Underground were more wonders. We saw big colorful balloons, lots of CHristmas lights, life-sized paintings of Dora the Explorer and Mickey Mouse, a big wooden train, and lots of little kid-sized rides, including a school bus, a fire engine, and a tug boat. I wasn’t sure if Claire would be hungry yet, at it was only 11:30 or so, but when we checked out the food court, Claire said, “Daddy, let’s have some dinner.” So we split some lasagna and pizza, which Claire ate very, very slowly as we watched all the people around us.

It was getting late (in Claire terms), so we gradually worked our way back to the MARTA station, dodging pony rides and mini-carousels along the way, stopping for one last look at the street pigeons on the way back. The train was delayed, so I had to hold an increasingly tired and grumpy Claire at the platform for 15 minutes. We looked at the MARTA system map for entertainment, and Claire pointed out where she thought Mommy was.

The train ride back was different than the one down. Instead of colorfully dressed football fans, almost everyone on the train this time was dressed in dark winter coats, with dark hoods and hats, looking sort of glum and serious, or just tough. And then there was Claire, in her little pink pants and yellow jacket, happily taking her own seat on the aisle next to me. The train was pretty quiet. As the train took off, Claire said — no, yelled — “Here we gooooooo!” with pure glee. I could see some of the stone-faced passengers crack a bit of a smile. Then Claire started talking to the guy in the seat across from her, who looked like a tough hip hop artist along the lines of Dr. Dre or Big Boi. She said, “He’s happy!” The guy smiled and said hi. Claire sort of made friends with him, and he was very nice about it and said, “Is she always this happy? She is one happy kid.” Eventually Claire turned her attention back to me and said, “You’re pooping” over and over. I saw some of the people around us cracking smiles again. We finally got off the train, saying goodbye to all of our unlikely friends, waving as we walked away, fetching a couple more smiles for good measure.

We had a good adventure today, worthy of Curious George, but fortunately lacking the disasters that normally accompany George. Yes, another forced day off, and another good one at that.

Moonwalking

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Claire had one of her funnest days in memory today.

First off, Grammy Joyce is in town, which always means a fun day for Claire. Grammy is recently retired and can dedicate most of her time to playing, reading, cuddling, and just goofing off with little Claire. Grammy is not quite as familiar with dumb words like “busy” and “later” as Mommy and Daddy are, and she does not tend to get distracted, tired, or irritated. Plus she’s just lots of fun. So the morning was mostly dedicated to playtime.

Around 11:00, Mommy, who is a Chief Resident, had to meet co-chiefs Chrissie and Shelby in McKoy Park in Decatur to prepare the 2nd Annual Picnic in the Park for the Emory pathology department. This was a project the three of them had been preparing for the last several weeks. Grammy and Daddy stayed at home and fed Claire a nice lunch and hung out for a while. After that, it was off to McKoy park to join Mommy’s festivities.

Ordinarily, a picnic in a park with all those people and kids and swings and grass would be pretty darn good. But this was an extra special picnic, because it had a moonwalk! We weren’t sure Claire was even old enough to handle this, but she took to it like, well, a kid to a big bouncy playroom. I could explain how much fun Claire had on this thing, but why don’t you just see for yourself (Grammy is also a dedicated documentarian).

By the time we dragged Claire away from the moonwalk, maybe an hour later, she was pretty worn out from all the fun. She spent the rest of the picnic drinking lemonade, socializing with her old pals like Kelly and Baby Luke (Chrissie’s kid), and eating watermelon and grapes on Grammy’s lap while I enjoyed lots of delicious BBQ ribs.

But Kit had to work. She stayed and took care of the picnic after the rest of us headed home. She and Shelby and Chrissie got to have their own well-earned fun while waiting for the moonwalk guy to come reclaim his big, fun toy. They had the moonwalk all to themselves, and put it to good use. They also provided snowcones to random kids in the park who lined up by the rented snowcone machine, thinking it was just a public service. It looks like Claire was not the only one who had a fun day.

Last Day of Pool

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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.