molly

Peacocks!

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Today while the kids were at school and I was working from home, we had some surprise visitors in the backyard.  Around 9:00 am, without warning or explanation, two peacocks suddenly appeared in our backyard.  They would stay there, hanging out on our back porch, just outside my office, until evening.  I emailed the neighborhood email distro, and eventually found out that they were (sort of) a neighbor’s pet, “A much as you can own a bird”, the neighbor said.  They had been trying to round up the peacocks for a while, and after a botched attempt by someone named Quentin to capture the large fowl, another attempt would be made the next day.

When Claire got home on the bus in the afternoon, I decided not to mention the peacocks right away and let her discover them herself.  A few minutes after being home, Claire came up to my office and said, “Dad, sorry to bother you, but this is important.  You won’t believe this.”  And then slowly and seriously, she said, “There are two peacocks in our backyard!”

We went out and took pictures of the birds, making sure not to let Muffin out.  As I noted in the neighborhood email, “I would like to avoid breaking up a peacock / dog fight.”  Claire would name the white peacock Caramel Dream and the colorful one Captain Chubbles.  Later, Molly got to see the peacocks too.  Molly was not quite as fascinated with them, but she did note that someone must have “painted” the colorful one.

Just Kit’s luck, the birds finally flew/hopped away over the neighbor’s roof minutes before Kit arrived at home.

Ouwee!

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Molly used to say “Ouwee!” when she got hurt.  She prefers it to a simple “Ouch!” — it has more impact.  But recently, the phrase “Ouwee!” has morphed into a more general complaint, sort of like other people might say, “Ugh!”.  It no longer has anything to do with getting hurt.  Or maybe it just has to do with feelings getting hurt.

This has become a slight problem at times.  For instance, the other day I changed Molly’s clothes in the changing room after her swim lesson.  Everyone in the swim school could hear Molly yelling, “Ouwee!” behind the closed door when she became upset about putting on her diaper.  When we came out of the small enclosure, a friend of ours looked concerned and said, “Is she okay?”.   I said something lame like, “Oh yeah, she does that all the time” and hurried off.

It doesn’t take much to prompt an “Ouwee!” from Molly.  Yesterday, Kit literally sneezed and Molly yelled “Ouwee!”

Pushing for Underwear

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Molly loved her undies so much, she wanted to wear nothing else.
Molly loved her undies so much, she wanted to wear nothing else.

The other day, Molly’s teacher called me at home in the middle of the afternoon.  This is usually a bad sign.  A mid-day call from school is reliably preceded by vomiting, fever, both, or some other type of trouble at school.  Molly’s teacher sounded a little upset or nervous, so then I knew it was trouble.  But it was not as bad as I had feared.  Molly had just thrown a fit at school over her pre-nap toilet duty.  She had stubbornly refused to sit on the toilet for the second day in a row, and this time Molly was especially furious and indignant about it.  Not only has she refused to sit on the toilet, but she had also disrupted the class and made it hard for her classmates to get their rest.  Molly is only three years old and still given to bursts of uncontrollable emotions.  This one was bad enough, though, that the teacher had to essentially send her to the principal (school director).  This was not the first time that Molly has been sent to the principal for being disruptive.  Still, it was not meant as a punishment.  They just had to get Molly out of the classroom to restore order and to help Molly calm down.  Apparently Molly and the school director had a nice calm talk in the hallway where they found Moly’s happy place again.  At some point, Molly stated that she would rather just wear diapers because it is easier; she doesn’t have to stop what she is doing and go to the bathroom.  She can just go whenever she wants to.

It was right after Molly’s loud outburst that Molly’s teacher called me with a trembling voice, imploring us to do something.  She said this toilet thing was getting to be a real problem, and was there something we could try at home?  After some discussion, I agreed that we would get Molly some underwear and let her try going diaper-less at home as much as possible this weekend in hopes of sparking interest in the toilet.

So this is how we officially began a push on Molly’s toilet training.  Claire and I rushed to Target the next morning and picked out (among other things) some Tangled (Rapunzel) movie underwear.  Molly was very excited to try out her underwear!  She adored the princess on her underwear.  The smallest size that Target had, though, was 4, which was pretty baggy on Molly.  Still, it did the trick for now, while Kit ordered 3T undies from Amazon.

Molly did had a “leak” in her underwear and did not like the itchy sensation on her legs.  She has so far been very positive about sitting on the toilet, but aside from some initial success a while back, she has had no recent success in putting her urine on the toilet.  Molly’s teacher says her attitude is much better at school, and order is restored.  So at least that part of the mission is accomplished.

Winter Trip to Houston

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The girls and I made  a weekend trip to Houston over the President’s Day weekend.  The girls had three classes between them on Saturday (Molly swimming and ballet, Claire art) so we headed up in the late afternoon after the classes were done.  it was a fun but quick trip.  We mostly chilled out, and visited my old haunt, Hedwig Park.  The girls were not ready to come back home on Monday!  I’ll let the pictures tell the rest of the story.

Molly Uses the Potty!

Video | | patmcg

Part of Molly’s bedtime routine is to sit on the toilet for a while.  She actually loves her toilet time.  She pulls up a step stool with a stack of books and sits on the toilet and looks at her books.  Normally we have to put an end to her toilet time after a few minutes because she is just relaxing but not getting ready for bed.  But tonight while Molly was browsing books on the toilet, I went off for a minute to check in with Kit.  When I got back to Molly, she was yelling, “I went to the potty!  I made urine!”  Now, Molly has been known to have an active imagination at times, but I did not get the sense she as making this up.  She was grinning ear to ear and super excited.

I congratulated Molly on her fine toilet work.  After wiping and washing hands, we went back to tell Kit and Claire.  Kit screamed really loudly with delight and started jumping around.  Molly got super excited too and started doing the same.  Personally, I was excited too, but my ears were literally ringing from all the noise.  Molly was so proud, though!  She said she wanted underwear now, and she thought Santa would know she used the toilet.

Claire, who was in a grouchy mood, initially tried to be excited but get a little irritated, maybe from the noise and/or maybe a little hint of sibling rivalry.  This was the first small whiff of sibling rivalry we have ever seen from Claire in her 3 and a half years as a big sister.  Claire complained that we were screaming too loud, and we are always asking her and Molly to quiet down if they are anywhere near that loud.  (She had a really good point.  We were really quite loud.)  Claire also said, sourly, “I but you’re going to email everyone in the world!” and then left the room.  Later she could complain about having to go out in the hall with just Muffin and her last remaining fish to get some quiet.  We had a certain amount of recognizing that Claire uses the toilet many times a day, and nobody ever says anything about it, but when she first did it as a toddler, we were really excited for her.  Molly was feeling sympathetic and started a “Claire used the potty!” chant and dance.

Bookmark Emergency!

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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.

New Year Magic Charlie Brown

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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.

Inside Out and Backwards Molly

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mcgkids28-20130104Somehow 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!

No, it’s really just Molly

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The girls tend to get worked up at night, reaching their peak of silliness and pure volume right before going to bed.  We had always thought of this as the girls “working each other up”.  However, this theory was accidentally put to the test this week when Claire was off to stay with Grammy & Grandaddy in Corpus Christi for a few days of winter break.  As the evidence clearly demonstrates, it is not “the girls” who get worked up.  Molly does it just fine all by herself.  In fact, she may go crazier without Claire than with her.