King Tut is visiting Houston, and we made a special family trip to see him, and perhaps even better, see my parents.
Due to Spring Break traffic and a severe downpour, it took us seven hours to get the kids and make it to Houston. Usually it’s about a three-hour trip, but we spend a few extra hours stuck in traffic in torrential rain on Highway 71 and Interstate 10. We made it to Houston a couple of hours past the girls’ bedtime, but everyone was in good spirits and happy to see Noni and Grandpa Phil.
Ostensibly, we made the trip to see Tutankhamun: The Golden King and the Great Pharaohs at the Museum of Fine Arts. When we got the tickets a few weeks ago, Claire’s interest in ancient Egypt was at its peak. Since then, her interest has waned some, mostly in favor of dolphins and puppies. When we pulled up to the museum on Saturday morning, Claire said, in a joking tone, “I don’t know why we have to go see this King Tut thing. You thought I was interested to see it, but really it’s Dad who’s interested. I mean what’s the big deal? He’s dead.” This really cracked me up.
Once inside, we waited in line for the big show. There was a short introductory movie narrated by Harrison Ford, and then the exhibit doors magically swung open. The crowds slowly entered and began to examine the ancient treasures with quiet awe. Within the first minute after entry, Molly had broken the near silence with loud crying and yelling. She really wanted the museum sticker on my shirt, but I could not let her have it since it served as my proof of admission. She got frustrated and began screaming. So I headed with her to the exit, which was all the way through the large exhibit. By the time we got to the exit, Molly was calmed down, and we did the exhibit in reverse. There were some really cool things. Some of Claire’s favorites were the ancient toilet seat used by the pharos, and the ancient cat coffin. She also liked King Tut’s bed, a colossal state of him, a small decorative coffin used to preserve his stomach, and an equally disgusting reproduction of the Tut’s remains. I am happy to say that Claire was pretty engrossed after all. We have no pictures of the exhibit since they were strictly forbidden.
The main attraction for this trip was really the grandparents. It had been a longtime since we had been to Houston as a family. We mostly stayed around the house to maximize face time between the girls and their Noni and Phil. Claire had woken up very early Sunday morning and went down to get Noni. She and Claire drifted in and out of sleep until 7:00 or so and then got up and hung out until the rest of us got up. This is Claire in her element… hanging out on a lazy weekend morning with a grandma. As interesting as King Tut was, this kind of morning was probably even more fun for Claire (not to mention Kit and I, who got to sleep in a little). We got home on Sunday afternoon, where our tired Claire fell asleep on the couch watching Finding Nemo, thus accomplishing her first nap in years.
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!
Claire celebrated her 6th birthday today with about 20 friends at Jumpoline Park. According to their website, “Jumpoline Park is for everyone who is seeking excitement and entertainment while exercising.” It was actually a lot more fun than they make it sound! Who cares about exercise? These kids just love to run and jump! Basically, this place is one gigantic trampoline, or at least a bunch of big trampolines spliced together. It is hard to describe, so some pictures will have to suffice.
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| It doesn’t look like much from the outside… |
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| But there is lots of fun to be had on the inside. |
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| Here’s Claire with Coco, Zoe, and Hannah. Almost every picture from the party was a blur. |
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| Cupcake time. The monkey theme came from Claire’s kindergarten class mascot. |
Oddly enough, Claire’s Uncle Tim, who lives in Washington DC, recommend Jumpoline Park to us. He said some friends of his had visited Austin and discovered this crazy giant trampoline place. So we went to check it out and quickly estimated that it would be perfect for Claire’s birthday party.
We invited all of Claire’s kindergarten class plus a few “old” friends from preschool and the like. I think we’re getting pretty good at these big kid’s parties now, at least when we can rent out a facility like this. I have heard “horror stories” about hosting a party at your own home, with 20 kids running around tearing the place apart. But this party went really well and was not too tough to pull off, even right on the heals of Thanksgiving (as always!).
Grammy helped with the preparations and was on duty as the official Molly watcher at the party. She spent most of the party protecting Molly from bigger kids in the little bounce-house obstacle course. Without Grammy, I am pretty sure we would have lost track of Molly, as in “Where is she? Oh no, I thought you had her…”
There is not much more to report, but I do like to make a note of some presents since it might be interesting later. Claire is opening two presents a day, and so far she has made out with…
As her present for Molly’s second birthday, Claire made a book for about Molly for Molly. This was done with inspiration and the help of gramma Noni, who assembled the book, while Claire came up with all the words and pictures. There is one thing about Molly per page, with an illustration for each. The book reads:
Molly likes vanilla yogurt.
Molly likes her snuggy bear.
Molly is giggling.
Molly is funny. She is having a crazy hair day.
Molly is cute.
I love Molly.
Here are a few sample illustrations.
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| Molly is cute. |
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| I love Molly. |
I have been trying to avoid long posts, and I have found that posts about travel and holidays are nearly impossible to keep short. They can quickly get out of hand, resulting in long, rambling posts (and much lost sleep on my part). I was reminded of this just recently.
That said, it is worth noting that Molly took her first trip to Houston this weekend, to see my parents. Claire, of course, came along too. It was a busy and fun trip. We accidentally overcommitted on Saturday’s plans, which included two play dates, lunch out, and swimming. Molly’s favorite activity was probably sorting hair bands into a little plastic bag, which she did for at least an hour.
Molly also made her first trip to Corpus Christi recently, to see Kit’s parents. I managed to keep that post short too, which was especially easy since I did not actually go on that trip.
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| Claire spent most of her flying time drawing with her fuzzy green pen. |
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| Claire travels back to a 1979 TV commercial for lunch. |
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| Claire runs from a Sand Person |
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| A “real” Sand Person, as a matter of comparison |
Claire continue to complain and was not acting like herself the rest of the day. She eventually settled into an unusually quiet mood and seemed somehow uncomfortable. Only later did we put it together that she was probably sick and exhausted and just gathering enough strength for me to drag her around town. Poor thing. Anyways, we did manage to meet up with Kit for lunch.
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| We did manage to see some of Kit. |
Still not realizing Claire was probably sick, I took her to the local children’s museum in hopes of lifting her spirits. It kind of worked.
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The next day, we took the 90-minute drive to Taos to see the 1000-year-old pueblo. I explained to Claire that when pilgrims landed in American, this village was already here, and it was already hundreds of years old. That actually did impress Claire, who responded with a genuine, “Wow! Really?” The drive to Taos was scenic, and it was a good chance for Claire to sit and rest up. At Claire’s behest, we played “Max and Emma” for almost the whole drive up and back. This is a game where Claire is a girl once year older than Claire named Emma, and I am her little toddler brother named Max. Occasionally Emma reverts to a baby, but usually she’s older. The game is mostly about talking funny, and she especially like when little Max badly slurs his “S” sounds because he’s a toddler. She’ll also give me ideas to riff on, such as, “Pretend you think those rocks are giant meatballs and you want to eat them, and you get really upset because you can’t…” Anyways, that got us to Taos.
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Claire wanted to take a picture of her camera.
But she first made sure it was okay, with the picture rules and all.
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We made friends with a couple of village dogs and chatted with some storekeepers before buying some small pottery for Kit. Claire loved to hang out at the river and was fascinated by all the insects, mostly ants, crawling around the common dirt area. There was even a gigantic ant carrying a whole dead caterpillar back to it’s clam-sized hole all by itself. Right around that point, the fascination turned to fear, and we carefully hopped around the insects all the way back to the car. Then it was a stop by the modern town of Toas for some souvenir shopping and lunch.
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| Claire was pretty droopy by this point. |
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But she did her best to put a good face on it.
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Then it was back to Santa Fe. On the drive back, you guessed it, more Max and Emma.
Let me just wrap this thing up with a few final highlights…
We were able to sneak Kit out of town during an extended lunch break for a quick trip to the closer-by pueblo of Tesuque. It was good to show Kit some of the countryside north of Santa Fe and some pueblo goodness.
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At Tesuque, we found a real-live tumble weed,
which looked better tumbling around on the ground.
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| I think this was called “Devil’s Rock”, or something like that. |
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| The girls hang out with trusty Grammy as we head off for some errands |
Merry Christmas 2010! As usual with a big event like this, a quick summary is going to have to suffice, or I will be here typing all day. There was a lot going on this Christmas, but this account is focused on the girls from my perspective.
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| Claire wraps herself up as a gift |
Big sister Claire is now an old Christmas pro. Like Molly, Claire was also thrilled to have all four grandparents in town again, less than a month after her big birthday party. She had been anticipating Christmas for a couple of weeks, and was especially eager to find out what would show up in her stocking on Christmas morning. She did end up receiving a much anticipated candy cane, as well as a Magic School Bus chapter book called The Search for the Missing Bones. This book has a lot more works and and a lot fewer pictures than any of her books so far. Apparently Santa thinks Claire is getting close to reading age. Everyone received a different “Mr. Men” or “Little Miss” book, such as Mr. Funny or Mr. Loud (perhaps to fit our personalities?), which all we generally donated to Claire for further reading.
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| The new bike, compliments of Santa |
I don’t think Claire 100% realized that she should expect a big actual present from Saint Nick too. Well, the good man came through and brought Claire a beautiful pink bike — a real, heavy, rubber and metal bike with training wheels. Claire has officially outgrown the Big Wheel, although I am sure Molly will happily inherit it soon enough. We went outside into the blustery cold to try out the bike. Claire gave it some spins back and forth on the side patio. After getting used to the pedal brakes, she was off and rolling pretty well. Molly watched eagerly from the door window. Soon Claire requested that we try it out on the front street where she would have more room to open things up a bit more. Kit and I headed out there with her to the street. After one ride of maybe 30 feet, she hopped off her bike quickly. I thought wanted to she turn it around and come back, but instead she sprinted for the front door saying, “It’s toooo coooold!” That was it for the bike until a warmer day.
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| Molly meets Astronaut Claire |
Among other highlights, Claire also received a microphone for her singing, a Barbie (her first), a Leapster 2 educational game system, Melody Harp from me and Kit (which she summarily ignored without opening the box, but which I believe she will one day enjoy), and a full astronaut suit from her Uncle Tim. Pretty soon Claire was exploring around the house pretending it was outer space, and everyone had a turn trying on the crazy helmet.
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| Reading “A Butterfly Christmas” |
Of course, we all wanted Claire to understand that giving is an important part of the whole gift exchange too. Claire (and Grammy) gave me and mom beautifully framed pictures of her and Molly, which Claire designed decorated herself. I remembered about two days before Christmas that Claire should give something special to her grandparents too, so in a panic I picked up a you-decorate-a-butterfly kit at Target with three butterflies. Late on Christmas eve, had to drag a grumpy Claire upstairs to begrudgingly decorate these butterflies. This was going to be the worst, most uninspired kid present ever! But Claire rallied under the promise that she could keep one of the butterflies, and before long we had three nicely decorated butterflies: a blue one and a pink one for the sets of grandparents, and a purple one for Claire to keep. They were named Butterfly, Pretty Butterfly, and Pretty Pretty Pretty Butterfly, I think. Then I asked if she could do a picture or a story or something — anything — to go with the butterflies. She started out slowly but then worked into a groove. She dictated a story of three butterflies — a blue one, a pink one, and a purple one — while she drew an illustration of the story. We eventually ran out of room on both sides of the paper, so I re-typed it on the computer where it would actually fit and be more legible. We called the story “A Butterfly Christmas”. With Kit’s inspired wrapping, we ended up with a good present just in the nick of time.
(Well, so much for a quick summary, but this was the best I could do.)
Molly woke up last night at 4 am to discover, to her astonishment, that she was vomiting. Of course, she probably had no idea what was going on, but her cries made it clear she did not like it one bit.
Pretty soon, the whole family was awake and gathered around poor Molly. While Kit held and comforted Molly, I got some paper towels to clean up Molly, Kit, and myself. Claire, who was suffering from “walking pneumonia” and had missed the prior day of school, was very interested in what was happening and asked how she could help. Claire and I quickly removed Molly’s stained sheets, wiped down her plastic-covered mattress, and put on a fresh clean sheet. We sent Claire to the guest bedroom to sleep while Kit and then I held Molly until morning.
We kept Molly home from school the next day. Molly’s teacher called me in the morning to ask if Molly was okay. She said she had visited Claire’s classroom and saw Claire was in school, so she figured Molly was sick (oops, I should have called). She said Claire told her excitedly that Molly threw up in the middle of the night.
Molly spent the day at home with me mostly sleeping, drinking Pedialyte, not eating, and acting groggy. Her fever spiked to 102.
When I picked up Claire, with Molly in tow, Claire’s friends on the playground were excited to hear about Molly’s misadventure. After I explained to them what had happened, each of the cute little girls, each dressed in a cute little dress, proudly shared their own unique story of vomiting. One had vomited all over the carpet at night as a baby. One had vomited on the kitchen floor and got to watch a movie while her mom cleaned it up (it took quite a while, I am told). Claire got to tell everyone how she had vomited on the stairs while racing up to our bedroom. There was a debate about the best place to vomit, with “outside” being the consensus. Molly, who I was holding during all of this, enjoyed the animated conversation and, for the first time that day, smiled a great deal.
We headed home to try to get a little solid food down Molly and wait for Grammy to drive up and help with the crisis. Trusty ol’ Grammy would save Molly from being taken care of by a random temporary nanny and/or me from taking a third day in a row off from work.
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McG Kids 