molly

Molly Turns 3!

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Molly proudly turned three years old today!.

Molly had been looking forward to her “happy birthday” for a few days now, always making sure to point out that my own birthday was next in line (in a month) and that her friend Kamile was also turning three.

On first waking up and coming downstairs, Molly just stood there and admired the giant Sesame Street “Happy Birthday” sign hung up in the living room.  She would eventually discover the dozens of little round cardboard “coins” of Sesame Street characters that came with the party decorations, laying on the glass table in the living room.  She had a special little plastic bag with her name on it to collect them all.  That seemed to be enough to make Molly’s birthday pretty darn good right there.

But that was not all.  We set aside the whole morning for fun with Molly.  We had hoped to take her to a bounce house or trampoline park, but being Sunday, they were closed for the morning.  So we let Molly choose between going to Pease Park to play, staying around the house to play, or going to Mozart’s on the lake to feed the turtles.  After initially leaning towards staying home and playing, Molly chose Mozart’s.

We would end up going to her friend’s birthday party in the afternoon, which was weird timing in a way, but which was also perfect because the party was at the Austin Children’s Museum, which is juts about Molly’s favorite place to go.  I should also mention her presents for posterity.  I may be leaving something out, but Molly ended up with a “Create a Story” magnetic board (which Claire ended up loving even more than Molly), some great books from Toot & Puddle and Dr. Seuse, a puzzle, a Lego Duplo farm set, and a Dora View-Master.

One other note, Molly loves to imitate Claire, and has inadvertently done it again today.  Like Claire on her own third birthday, Molly was sick on her big day too, intermingling moments of joy with moments of grumpiness.

On to the pictures…

Sunday

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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).

Twenty Something?

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After picking up the kids from school today, we went to the old standby for dinner, Jason’s Deli.  We have gone to Jason’s countless times after school, and Claire invariably orders the hot dog kid’s meal, while Molly gets the kid’s cheese pizza.  But tonight, Claire tried something a little different…the salad bar.  I did say to Claire, who is normally voracious after school, “So, just to be clear, your entire meal is going to come from that salad bar.”  She asked if she could get both the hot dog and the salad bar, but alas I told her that she did have to choose just one, and she went with the salad bar.

So this was Claire’s very first salad bar.  Okay, so that is not a huge milestone, but perhaps mildly interesting.  The funny thing was seeing Claire eat her salad, with no dressing, with bottled water for her drink, her clean haircut, and wearing her new glasses.  The whole scene made Claire look strikingly like a health-conscious 25-year-old woman on her lunch break.  This from the kid who usually stuffs down a hot dog and ice cream.  See for yourself…

Claire and her saladClaire on lunch break from her new advertising job?

Molly, for her part, went to great lengths to demonstrate the crucial fours years that separate her from Claire.  Molly threw a shoe on the ground and refused to put it back on, dumped her booster seat on the ground, got out of her seat to walk around, tried to jump off of her seat, and ate only a little bit of pizza, of course with ketchup on it.

Chicken or Sock?

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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.

Back to School

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Claire started first grade today, and Molly switched over to a new class, the Robins, across the hall from her old class, the Little Lambs.  Here’s a quick snapshot of each at this morning’s drop off in their new classrooms.

Six Trips to School in One Day

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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

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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.

Noni’s birthday

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The girls’ paternal grandmother, aka Noni, aka my mom, is turning 70 this month.  To celebrate, we took the girls for a weekend trip to Houston.  My brother Tim and his wife Cindy fly in from Virginia.  My mom seemed delighted to have everyone together in the same house, if only for one night.

We had about 24 hours together.  All we did was hang out in the house and at the pool.  There was lots of swimming.  We topped it off with a great birthday feast at Harvest Grille. The girls had lots of fun swimming and playing with Noni’s special toys and crafts.  Molly even enjoyed her new inflatable travel bed (no more Pak ‘n’ Play!).  It really was great getting everyone together, and the car trip was not too bad this time around either.

Below are some pictures.  One of Noni’s friends took some family pictures on Sunday morning, trying to beat in the August sunshine.

Birthday feast

Noni and the girls

Molly asleep on her new travel bed

Want to watch TV? No? Really?

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I had a loose plan to record the girl’s favorite TV shows and movies every few months, thinking it would be fun and maybe silly to look back at what they used to watch.  I am happy, I think, but a little confused, to say that there is not much to report.

Molly still has no interest in the TV.  She just does not care to sit still and watch some silly show when there are so many things to mess with around the house.  We have actually tried to get her to watch a little TV, with fairly disastrous results.  Why would we want her to watch TV?  We thought she would like Sesame Street, due to her fondness of Elmo, and maybe  get some small educational value out of it.  And yes, the idea of Molly sitting still, not messing with anything, for 30 straight minutes was appealing.  But alas, she has outsmarted us and will not have any.

Even Claire’s once fine interest in TV has waned.  She does not really watch TV shows, opting mainly for movies.  So I guess she is a film snob.  She will usually pick a movie and watch it over and over in bits and pieces.  The first time, she is absorbed, if it is a good movie.  The second time, still fairly absorbed.  Then her interest fades but she keeps kind of watching until she just doesn’t care about it enough to watch any more.  Sometimes we rent a movie at the RedBox when we want her to spend a little time on the couch settling down.  Since she no longer naps, this is our best bet at something resembling real rest time for Claire during the day.  But she has even turned up her nose at fresh rentals lately.  We rented The Muppets (her choice) last weekend, and had to return it the next day unopened.  Claire has even actively declined the use of her DVD player on the last two trips our of town.

Claire Pease Park splash pad
Claire doing something apparently more fun than watching TV.

Like Molly, I guess there is just too much more interesting stuff going on for Claire to sit down and watch a long movie.  Still, Claire does watch some movies.  She likes to have her current movie on briefly during breakfast before school.  Sometimes I skip turing on the TV, and she usually does not say anything.  And there is valuable little time in the evenings after school.  Claire watches some TV (movies) on the weekend, but preferably if someone else will sit with her while she watches to talk about the movie or just act silly.  She seems to be a social watcher.

I should note that we have never had strict time limits on Claire’s TV watching.  In the past, when she used to watch more TV, we would occasionally encourage her to do something else if she had been watching for a long time.  Not so much like, “Get off your lazy keyster and go do something productive!” but more like, “Do you want to help cook dinner?”   Personally, I think strict time limits may backfire by making TV seem more alluring and valuable to kids.  All I know for sure is that Claire does not especially value watching TV unless someone is sitting next to her cuddling and talking about it.

Anyways, Claire’s current favorite movie is Bye Bye Birdie, which she watches occasionally, thanks to her mom’s recording from Turner Classic Movies (Claire does tend to like the 1960’s musicals.)  Claire especially likes to watch and giggle over the ads for the other movies at the end, especially the 1938 edition of Robin Hood.  She roars and says that the guys look like babies when they are sword fighting.

Kit and I are hoping to get Claire into the upcoming Olympics, though.  We have fond memories of watching curling on the 2006 Winter Olympics while cuddling with little baby Claire.  Maybe that is how she got started on the whole social watching thing.