Molly came home from school in this outfit, a true celebration of unconventional expression, or just strange style, depending on how you look at it. She got her pants wet and got to choose new pants from her cubby. She chose these tights, which were sort of accidentally in there to begin with. The minute I walked in to pick up Molly, the teacher explained to me that Molly had chosen her own outfit.
(By the way, that is the same rainbow shirt that was featured over a year ago in another peculiar outfit. The shirt was a little too big at the time, but silly looking as always.)
Still feeling unconventional at dinner time, Molly chose to replace her stock dining chair with her own little red one, despite any discomfort is might have caused her. She stuck with this chair for the whole meal but quietly switched back to the normal chair the next day without a word from anyone.
Kit and I needed some nice shoes for an upscale fundraiser we were supposed to attend in a couple of days. The dress code for the event was “Dress to kill, but no tie required.” We puzzled over this a bit but agreed that we both needed new shoes to start. Running out of other times to shop, we dragged both girls to the local DSW shoe store with us on Saturday after Molly’s ballet / tap class. This massive store features aisle after aisle of nothing but shoes. It has historically been a place where the kids go pretty crazy from boredom pretty quickly.
I took Molly to the men’s shoes, and Kit took Claire. Molly was still dressed in her pink ballet leotard and tutu and armed only with a small purple teddy bear for her entertainment. She was pretty helpful in the shoe hunt at first. She gave me several shoe suggestions, most of which were flip flops or running shoes, but she was trying. Then Molly grew bored and started throwing said small purple teddy bear up in the air. It would land in another aisle or sometimes fall hidden in between shoes boxes. Molly loved this games and started hiding the teddy bear on purpose. Then Claire came over to join us and tried to entertain Molly, which was also good at first. But even Claire grows restless and bored in DSW very quickly. So she and Molly were making repeated trips to the water fountain at the back of the store. At this point, I was getting no shoe shopping done whatsoever. I was baby-sitting two tired, hungry, and bored little girls stuck in a large, boring shoe store for grown-ups
With the girls headed toward a peasant revolt, I just picked some reasonably attractive and well-fitting shoes and took the girls over to check on Kit. Kit had a pile of possible shoes beside her on the ground. Without getting into the details, Kit was not too happy with any of them. I honestly thought they all looked pretty darn good and was hoping she would pick one so we could get out of there and go eat lunch. But more choices kept coming. Shoes were reconsidered. We were not going to be leaving soon. To be fair, Kit was not taking an extraordinary amount of time to pick her shoes. It would have been okay except for the two restless little girls. Now in the women’s section, where the shoes come in more than two colors and shapes, the girls were no longer in revolt. There we just getting really wild and silly — too wild and silly. They were running around, trying on grown-up high-heals and hats (or were they bonnets?). They were giggling, getting louder, and wandering farther afield. Molly was within an inch of a loud scream and/or a bad trip in those way-too-big heals.
I was splitting my time watching the girls and suggesting shoes for Kit. At some point, I gave my full attention to Kit’s shoes for too long, I guess about 30 seconds straight. Molly was gone. But she was easy to find. She was the three-foot tall giggling ballerina bounding away from us down the next aisle. She was already 40 yards away from me (these are long aisles) and gaining speed. At first I approached her at a cool, fast walk. Then I realized that I had to actually run because she was running away pretty fast. She had made 40 yards in seconds, and I was not gaining on her. I was getting a little frustrated or scared, or both. I ran towards Molly at a pretty fast jog, not quite a sprint, carefully dodging the lady shoe shoppers. I caught up to Molly just before she turned a corner at the end of the aisle and swooped her up swiftly but gently with my arm. Luckily, Molly did not cry or scream, but she did kick her legs in the air as a show of protest.
When we got back to Kit and Claire, Claire was smiling and chuckling heartily. Fresh off Molly’s poorly advised escape attempt, I was a little angry with Molly and failed to see the humor. I asked Claire what was so funny. Claire said, over giggles, that my catching Molly was funny because she “just watched a big man chasing a little ballerina.” Now that she mentioned it, that did not hilarious. I wished I had seen it myself!
We ended up buying my shoes with one alteration suggested by Kit, but no shoes for poor Kit, who was forced to leave the store before she could make a final decision. We went straight to lunch at the close-by Indian restaurant Tarka, which Claire voted for even over the barbecue place next door with the free ice cream, because Tarka’s chicken fingers were “hot, salty, flavorful, and roasted.” I found that “roasted” part in particular hilarious. Turned out to be a sort of funny shopping excursion after all.
Last night at 3:30 am, Molly started to cry a tired, mournful cry. It started slowly and then built up with intensity.
This was certainly not the first time Molly had woken up crying in the middle of the night. The last time she woke up crying, she was about to vomit. The time before that was actually pretty scary. She had decided to sleep on the floor next to her bed and somehow ended up stuck laying on her back directly under her bed. Her crying was muffled by the bed above her, which made the scene all the more scary. She was really upset and took a while to calm down. After that, she started sleeping on top of her bed again every night.
So back to last night. Kit and I ran towards the sound of Molly’s crying. Molly was standing in the dark on the step stool at the sink in the girls’ bathroom, crying loudly. We asked what was wrong. Over her cries, Molly managed to say, “I need a bookmark!” and then burst into tears. Kit and I looked at each other puzzled. I actually had to step into the hallway to cover my laughter. We then ran off to find something to pass as a bookmark. We gave Molly a scrap of note paper, and she went right back to her bed happily and stopped crying. When we asked if she needed anything (like to be tucked in or a hug) Molly said “No, get out of here.”, not in an angry way, but just to say, “No, I have it covered from here.”
We may never know why she needed that bookmark so badly, but it was definitely a bookmark emergency.
Last fall, around her third birthday, Molly discovered the joy of television, but only if it was a Charlie Brown show. Now in the new year, she is still locked on Charlie Brown. Kit recorded the New Year special, “Happy New Year, Charlie Brown!” a few weeks ago. Molly loves this show and always calls it, “Magic New Year Charlie Brown.” As such, she seems to think that the character Charlie Brown is actually named Magic Charlie Brown, perhaps from mis-parsing her previous favorite, “It’s Magic, Charlie Brown!”, apparently interpreting the title as “It’s that guy named Magic Charlie Brown.” At first, we corrected Molly on the name of the show, but now we all sort of enjoy calling it “New Year Magic Charlie Brown”.
Molly had a nanny recently, and while I was working, I heard Molly ask to watch “New Year Magic Charlie Brown”, to which her nanny replied, “What’s a Magic Charlie Brown?” After attempting in vain to explain that Magic Charlie Brown is on the big black thing on the wall (the TV), Molly eventually gave up and moved on to playing puzzles with the confused nanny.
Molly still refuses to watch any television show that does not involve Charlie Brown and the gang. I have to admit, we are all kind of hooked on the various Peanuts holiday specials, whether in season or not.
Claire got to eat her bowl for dinner. The bowl was made of tortilla chips and contained pureed black beans. Claire was excited enough to specifically ask me to blog it. She said that the bowl was really delicious and joked that it saved the restaurant from doing dishes.
Somehow Molly ended up wearing this outfit to school today. She picked it out herself, and she was so proud. While getting dressed, Molly indicated that she wanted to wear bloomers with her leggings, and skip the skirt. Oh yeah, and the bloomers go on the outside.
This outfit is a physical testament to Molly’s contrariness. She loves things to go different than how they are supposed to go, especially clothes. She often likes to wear her shoes backwards, intentionally swapping left and right shoes. One time she asked to wear her shoes backwards, meaning with the front on the back. Alas, it did not work. Molly often wears bloomers to bed. The other night, she wanted to wear them backwards. She even started to say she wanted to wear them upside down but, on visible reflection, stopped herself. She has learned enough to realize that, like the shoes, would not work. Darn physics!
Claire and I were talking about the summer ending and fall, and eventually winter, coming on. I told Claire the days would get cooler and maybe wetter, and it would get dark earlier in the day. After a while, it would even be dark when she wakes up and dark well before bed time, even before she comes home from school.
“That sounds pretty nice!”, Claire said hopefully. Then after a pause, “But not really nice.” That is as good of a summary of winter in central Texas as I have ever heard.
Kit had the idea to take pictures and generally track today as sort of a “typical Sunday”, if there is such a thing, for the blog. I liked the idea. I’m going to keep the words short and let the pictures do the talking, except to say that these pictures make it look like we live of life of diversion and leisure. I can assure you, we do not. This happened to be a really fun, nice day with the girls. This weekend also involved me and Kit juggling kid duty while the other one went into work (including my secret project), and by general fatigue and sometimes grumpiness on everyone’s part. Still, a nice day like this goes a long way towards recovering from the rigors of a busy work/school week, and we are lucky to have these girls to make days like these possible. (Do you really think that Kit and I would have made cake pops and gone to the playground if it was just the two of us?)
Two funny highlights that popped out were (1) the cake pop filling that looked like cat poo and which Claire got me to eat, and (2) Kit commenting over dinner that the watermelon was “gamey”, which was just hilarious because it was oddly sort of true but also not (being watermelon and all).
Claire swings herself almost into the trees
Claire enjoying a cake pop
Molly enjoying a cake pop
Kit and the girls making cake pops
One of the cake pops really looked like poo
Claire played some drums and harmonica
Molly helped water the Asian jasmine
A morning trip to Mozart’s for bagels and fruit drinks
McG Kids 