funny

Chicken or Sock?

| patmcg

Suppose, for the sake of argument, that you were given the following choices for dinner.

  1. A charcoal-grilled chicken with fresh oregano and cracked pepper seasoning, grilled onion, jasmine rice, and black beans
  2. A day-old used sock

For most of us, the choice would be easy, especially for the delicious chicken we picked up from Fresca’s.

However — and perhaps this should not come as a complete surprise — Molly chose option #2 tonight.  She passed up the fresh chicken meal and opted instead to take off her left sock, wad it up, stick it in her mouth, and chew.  After a bit of convincing and struggling, we extracted the tiny sock from Molly’s mouth.  After removing the sock, Molly still refused to eat her chicken and hoped to put her sock back on, but it was too moist from saliva and needed to go into the laundry.  It is a good thing that we did not have ketchup out on the table tonight, or we surely would have had red-stained socks to clean, but I’m sure the sock would have been more flavorful.

Six Trips to School in One Day

| patmcg

The (relatively) calm days of summer vacation are coming to a sudden close this week.  Claire and Molly have been going to the same school this summer.  Claire ends summer camp this week and starts first grade next week.  Molly switches over to a new class at pre-school, right across the hall, but with brand new teachers and mostly new classmates.

This time of year is kind of crazy because of the confluence of summer-ending and school-starting events.  This week had two PINs (Parent Information Nights) and a school open house to attend in three days.  Plus the end-of-year parties and special events.  The girls came home this week with copious amounts of art and other stuff they had produced over the summer (Claire) and over the last year (Molly).  And of course, there are many handouts, checklists, and forms to deal with.

Meeting up at home on the last day of the school year
Meeting up at home after the last day of the school year. Claire is in her pajamas and water shoes, and the girls are surrounded by bags of their stuff from school.

But I think Wednesday best illustrated the zaniness of this time of year.  Claire went to school late, wearing a swim suit, and come home early wearing pajamas, water shoes, and new glasses.  Kit and I made a combined six trips to the girls’ school plus two doctor’s appointments in that one day.  Kit was on vacation, and I was working a regular day.  Here is how it worked out…

  • I took Molly to school at 8:00 am and came home to work as usual. (trips to school: 1)
  • Claire had to pick up her glasses today.  Kit took Claire to get her glasses right when the optometrist opened at 9:30 am, and then took Claire to school/camp late but in time for swimming. (trips to school: 2)
  • Kit and I both went back to school at 11:30 to attend Molly’s year-end lunch-time celebration. (trips to school: 3)
  • Claire has lately been having some “tricky breathing” and coughing, perhaps an asthmatic reaction, and we set her up with an appointment at 4:10 this afternoon.  Kit got Claire early from school (after Claire’s class had finished a summer-end movie screening of Happy Feet 2 in their pajamas) and took her to the doctor. (trips to school: 4)
  • In the mean time, I (sort of) finished work and went to pick Molly up at about 5:00 pm. (trips to school: 5)
  • We all met at home around 5:30, with Claire in her pajamas and wearing new glasses.  I ate dinner quickly and headed back to school for Molly’s Parent Information Night (PIN) at 6:00 pm.  In the mean time, Kit put the girls to bed.  (trips to school: 6)  

Kit’s night putting the girls to bed was definitely more work, while my time at the PIN was more boring and uncomfortable, sitting on the floor in a school room for 90+ minutes.

 

New Found Voice

| patmcg

Molly

For a few days, whenever we went out to the car to go to school in the morning, Molly would point at some bird poop on the front of the car.  “That’s gross”, she would say.  Sometime she would ask if I was going to clean it up.  I would respond that yes, I would get around to it some time, but it’s not at the top of the list right now.  Now Molly seems to have had enough waiting.  Today she asked me to have it cleaned up by her nap time.  I’m not kidding.  She said sweetly, “Can you clean up that bird BM today?”, then adding, “Before my nap time?”

The bird poop is still on the car, but Molly’s request is probably a good sign.  As noted earlier, Molly is now more prone to using calm words than crying or screaming or throwing a fit.  Her ongoing speech therapy, which she just completed, encouraged her to use words instead of just getting frustrated and mad.  Now she knows how to communicate her needs, aka ask for stuff, like cleaning the bird crap off your car before noon.  (I suppose it is good make clear and specific requests!)  Now that she has better words, Molly is apparently a lot more confident and less frustrated in school.

Molly enjoys her new-found voice at home too, and she has a lot to say.  Molly has asked me to pull the car over — immediately, as in right now — so that I can get one of her toys that fell to the floor.  She has complained bitterly that the new decorative plate does not go on the new glass table.  It was not there before, after all.  She has recently accused our dog Muffin of taking and hiding some of her stuffed animals.  Molly has stated earnestly that Claire’s old shiny, black shoes do in fact fit her, even as they fall off her feet while she stumbles around.  Claire, for her part, has mostly escaped Molly’s new assertiveness so far, although the sisters did have a big argument over who got the pink plate for dinner the other night, and who got the purple one. Molly won the pink plate on a coin toss.

One area where we still have verbal deadlock is the “but I do/don’t want to” stalemate.  Sometimes we ask Molly to do something like come upstairs for bedtime, and her response is, “But I don’t want to”, often said calmly, and as if that should settle the matter on the spot.  We’ll repeat that it is time for bed, and she replies — again — that she does not want to.  (I mean, these big, dopey grown-ups just don’t listen!  Did they not hear me the first time?)  Acknowledging that Molly does not want to go to bed sometimes helps, but not always.  These situations still often lead to Molly crying and screaming.  We’re making progress, but we’re not out of toddlerhood just yet.

Molly the Astronaut

Video | | patmcg

Claire got out her space suit today for fun.  Molly, of course, wanted to give it a shot too, although the costume was way too big for her.  Luckily, we caught the silliness on video.

The best part is near the end, when Molly trips, but she is okay.

Mucus and Ketchup

Video | | patmcg

We had gone out to Poke-e-Jo’s Barbecue for dinner, where Molly enjoyed chicken tenders with ketchup — lots of ketchup, as always.  She also had a runny nose, and by the time we drove home, her face was covered in both mucus and ketchup.  Even Molly thought it was gross and funny.  I did not get a picture of her face at the time, since I was busy wiping it down, but here is Molly reviewing the day with us at bedtime.

Speaking of ketchup, Molly is still crazy about it.  It helps almost any food go down.  Apples?  Yes.  Raisins?  Yes.  Cheerios?  Of course.  And why not dip your macaroni and cheese in it?  That last one almost made even me gag.  But it gets the food down, and Molly is growing, so she gets to figure out later that this is gross.

The Day of Urine

| patmcg

I was fortunate enough to miss the following series of events since I was off working hard on my side project.  But from Kit’s description, here is what I am to understand Kit and her parents endured this Saturday…

At some point during the usual Saturday morning hubbub of getting the girls fed and Claire off to swimming class, our dog Muffin slipped into the guest room, where Kits parents were staying, and peed all over the bed.  So they got that cleaned up and started a quick load of laundry for all the urine-soaked sheets and bedding.  The comforter, which was new, had to be sent off to dry cleaning.

The morning’s plan was to take the girls to a birthday party directly after swimming.  The party involved water balloons, so they would need to wear swimsuits and, in Molly’s case, a swim diaper.  So Molly, who had been playing outside in the warm morning sun, and accordingly drinking a lot of water, was wearing a swim diaper when she stared to yell, “Pee!  Pee!  My leg!  My leeeeeg!”  And sure enough, urine was running down her leg and on the floor, apparently due to both the volume of water consumed that morning and the peculiarity of the swim diaper.  Kit picked up Molly to help clean her up and then discovered that Molly’s urine had spread all over her own pants.  Another load of laundry was started, and Molly received a fresh swim diaper.

Swimming and the birthday party went fine until the very end of the party.  Kit had been trying to gather up both girls to leave at the end of the party, a process which can take some time to get both girls off to the car at the same time.  Finally when walking out the gate, Molly’s face appeared stricken, and sure enough, there was a little trail of pee on the ground around here.  So it was back inside for another diaper and yes, at home, another load of laundry.

After started, checking, and changing laundry at home, Kit went upstairs and laid down in Claire’s bed to get a few minutes of peace.  I am not sure why she laid down in Claire’s bed — maybe she was too tired to make it all the way back to our bedroom.  Either way, you might guess now what Kit discovered in Claire’s bed.  Yes, dog urine.  Muffin struck again, this time at Claire’s bed.  Surely Muffin skipped peeing on our own bed only because it was too high for her Muffin to jump onto.  And another load of laundry was started.

Claire’s bed was not dry of urine and bleach in time for bed, so she had to sleep in our bed, which may have been a nice bonus for Claire.  There was no bonus for anyone else.  Muffin may have made her point, if only we knew what it was.  We may never know.

Pease Parking

| patmcg

Molly was playing around with her little car in the back yard with her mom.  Molly was arranging the car by the bikes when Kit said, “You’re parking your car.”  Molly replied that she was “Pease Parking the car.”  It seems that Molly is even as fond of Pease Park as Claire is.

Molly's little car packed full of stuff.
Molly's little car "Pease Parked" and packed full of stuff.

 

Claire and Little Sister Annie

Video | | patmcg

Claire and Molly have a good time in those precious unoccupied times after school or on the weekends.  They often run up to their room and come up with some silliness, which this time, for once, I captured on video.

If you are curious about the sound in the background, it is the audiobook of “How to be a Pirate” by Cressida Cowell.

How Did You Sleep?

| patmcg

After waking Molly up from her nap today, Kit asked her, “How did you sleep?”  Molly’s response was to say, “Like this!” and fold her hands together beside her head, like a pillow, pretending to sleep.  Yes, Molly is right, she did sleep that way, didn’t she.  I mean, how else would she sleep?