molly

Fredericksburg

| patmcg

To break the doldrums of the family being cooped up at home for four straight days over the long Thanksgiving weekend, as well as to stay clear of Black Friday traffic, we decided to make a daytrip out to the hill country today. We decided on Fredericksburg as our destination, with it’s location only a 90 minute drive away and its nice, walkable Main Street, lined with historic buildings and unique shops, providing a nice medium between indoors and outdoors on this cold day. After my parents headed back to Houston, we loaded up an inordinate amount of baby supplies, snacks, and other essentials for the 90-minute trip. The plan was to drive to Fredericksburg and enjoy the countryside while Claire watched movies (Annie, etc.) on her DVD player and Molly had her morning nap. We even had a pair of earphones, Claire’s first, ready for the DVD player to keep the noise down so Molly could nap reliably.

We rolled through the hill country, Kit and I having a rare long chat (ie, more than 5 minutes) while Molly slept and Claire watched her movie. But it would not last. Right around Johnson City, the earphones idea backfired badly. Claire broke her 45-minute silence by saying — no, shouting — “Mama! Can I have my water?” Kit and I quickly told Claire to quiet down, please! Claire looked confused and dismayed, like “What? I just asked for some water.” In retrospect, Claire probably did not even realize she was shouting over her earphones. Anyways, the disturbance caused Molly to wake up mid-way through her nap. Within five minutes, Molly was crying, then shrieking, and occasionally spitting and gasping. We could not settle her down. This lasted for final 45 minutes to Fredericksburg, the last 15 minutes being stuck in gridlock on the final mile into town. Yes, Black Friday seemed to hit even Fredericksburg, way out here in the country.

Once we finally parked and got out of the car, Molly almost immediately stopped crying, and Fredericksburg was great. We strolled onto Main Street in the slightly cool, sunny afternoon. We poked around a couple of craftsman and/or antique stores, where Claire exercised her “one finger rule” for touching any wares, and Molly’s little arms were always held out of reach of anything at all. We had a delicious German-inspired lunch in a crowded corner cafe. We looked at old antique gates for sale in an alleyway. Claire said the gates looked good even though they were old and rusty, although she still preferred shiny, golden gates. Claire also enjoyed the koi pond in front of the old hospital. Molly enjoyed the crowds and a chance to crawl and climb (under supervision) on a nice iron bench on the busy sidewalk. We picked up a Christmas decoration and headed back to the car, where we gave Claire another lecture about keeping quiet. Then we loaded up and headed home.

Claire was very quiet in the car on the way back. When she did talk at all, it was a quiet whisper. This lasted until right around Dripping Springs. At that point, Claire was so engrossed in her movie that she once again shouted something out by mistake, and once again Molly woke up, and once again Molly cried and shrieked as if mortally wounded until we got home to Austin. After we got home, Molly settled back down pretty quickly and played with her big sister. Kit, who was understandably rattled by all the crying, took about 15 minutes to herself upstairs and then came down in a better mood. I would have hoped that this fun excursion would not have required a 15 minute “cool down” period at the end. Still, it was a really great day overall, even though I would give back about 90 minutes in the car. I am sure Molly would agree.

Scoping Out School

| patmcg

Kindergarten is still almost a year off for Claire, but we thought it would be fun to drop by her upcoming school and play on the playground to help warm her up to the idea. The school is rather big for elementary and has over 160 kindergarteners enrolled, so we want to ease Claire into it gradually.

Anyways, we all had a great time in the nice weather on the playground. While Claire was introducing herself to some of the other kids hanging out, Molly also had a great time. She got to ride around in a pink, plastic, rather bumpy, little car. The faster and bumpier we went, the more giggles from Molly. She also got to dig around in some dirt and rub it on her face. What a day!

Readin’ and Talkin’

| patmcg

The kid and the baby, aka Claire and Molly, each demonstrated some significant progress today in their respective fields of reading and talking.

This morning, Claire had written out the random letters O-L-A-J-A on a piece of paper and decided to try to sound out the word. She had been learning letter sounds at school for the past several months and was feeling pretty comfortable with the letters now. She slowly and deliberately read it out: “Oooh la jah.” It was amazing to see her really read something. And this was definitely not a case where she just recognized a word from memory, like her own name. (Granted, she might have been referring to the small Spanish village of Santa Olaja de la Accion, but I am going to stick with the random letters theory.) I decided to go with the momentum and write out my name: P-A-T. She slowly read it out: “Paaat. That’s your name!” Definitely not a fluke.

Molly was impressed with Claire’s reading but did not want to be overshadowed, so she showed off a bit of her own hard earned new skill while getting ready for bed that night. Kit and I were chatting while putting Molly into her pajamas when Kit used the phrase “thank you” in the middle of a sentence. A few seconds later, Molly clearly said, or tried to say, “thank you” three times in a row. It sounded kind of like “tank wa, tank wa, tank wa”. We cheered and gave her a big hug. Molly beamed, and then started saying “Daddy” over and over. That is a pretty easy go-to word for her, along with her favorite “uh oh”. Molly tried to say “Mommy” but is still having trouble with that darn “mmm” sound, but she definitely tried. Molly also has trouble with the “nnn” sound as well and has not yet learned to say “no”, but I am sure that will be a future favorite.


Breathe, Molly, breathe!

| patmcg

Molly had a bad scare this Saturday at the doctor’s office. It really started a few days earlier…
On Tuesday, just before noon, I got a call from school that Molly had a 103.5 F fever and was inconsolable. They thought she might also have an ear infection. I set up a doctor’s appointment for 1:30 and went to pick her up. When I got to school, the assistant director was walking Molly around outside to calm her down.
Molly spent the next two days at home with a temporary nanny. Her fever went down pretty quickly, but here energy, mood, and appetite were also way down. She went to school on Friday and had a decent day, but her daily note mentioned she had developed a small rash. On Friday night, Molly woke up around midnight crying, which is not terribly unusual. The unusual part was that she did not stop crying until after 4:30 am. Kit and I took hour-long shifts holding, but not really helping, poor Molly. Claire cleared out of the shared bedroom around 2:30 and slept the rest of the night in the guest bedroom. She was the only one who got anything remotely resembling her normal sleep that night.
On Saturday, while I took Claire to her ballet recital, Kit took Molly to the doctor again. Molly was exhausted and cranky from her lost sleep and fighting whatever was ailing her. During the recital, I got this text from Kit:

Molly just gave me a heart attack. She passed out when she got her shot. Seems ok now.

Yes, Molly actually passed out while receiving an antibiotic injection. Kit says that Molly had opened her mouth to let out a big bellowing wail, as she often does. But instead of actually letting out the big shriek, she stayed tensed up with her mouth open. After about 20 seconds of this, her eyes rolled back and she went limp. There was some panic, but the nurse and the doctor helped get Molly back to normal pretty quickly.

I am happy to report that Molly was in better health even by Saturday afternoon. The rash may have been a reaction to another antibiotic she had been on. Grammy and Grandaddy happened to be passing through town on Saturday and added some extra support as well. Molly slept well on Saturday night and was pretty much her normal self on Sunday. We even had lunch outside on the patio, where Molly put down some smoked turkey, beans, and papaya with a smile. Whew!

Halloween 2010

| patmcg

Halloween is upon us again. Just like last year, we joined Claire’s school friend Megan for Halloween festivities in their Mount Bonnell neighborhood. The neighborhood has an annual Halloween parade — actually, a loose gaggle of spooky kids and their accompanying parents, lead by ceremonial bagpipes. Immediately following the parade, the kids and accompanying parents fan out for tricks or treats.

This was technically Molly’s second Halloween, but it was the first one that Molly was actually awake and conscious for. Today, Molly found herself walking down the street among dozens of kids dressed up as cowboys, Sesame Street characters, princesses (including her sister), and of course Star Wars heroes and villains. They would go from house to house, knocking on the strange doors asking for candy. As Sally says in It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, “Are you sure this is legal?” Molly, who dressed as a pumpkin fairy (whatever that is), loved it. She stayed up late and had no dinner aside from some bread and strawberries while on the move. Ordinarily, this would be enough to make her rather fussy, but she smiled and looked around with wide eyes the whole time.

For her part, Claire, at age four, has become an old pro. Claire wore her running shoes and literally sprinted from house to house trying to (1) keep up with her friends, and (2) maximize her candy intake. Claire, who dressed up kind of like Sleeping Beauty, ended the night exhausted and sweaty with a bag full of several pounds of candy. Claire had some indecision on her costume up to the last minute this year. Several months ago, she mentioned that she wanted to be Snow White, then almost changed her mind to a butterfly princess we saw at a Pottery Barn outlet. Afraid she would later change her mind and want to be Snow White in the end, we persuaded her to stick with Snow White. She wore the Snow White outfit once or twice before Halloween and looked perfect. But she got cold feet the day before Halloween and changed to a generic pink princess outfit she had from her dress-up collection, declaring herself Sleeping Beauty. We are not sure why she abandoned the Snow White idea, but we probably pushed Snow White too hard. We were trying to avoid the exact situation we got in, switching costumes at the last minute, except in reverse! Oh, meddling parents! Still, both girls looked cute and had a really fun time.

An Unruly Bunch

| patmcg

Here are the photos of Molly’s class wearing their Halloween costumes. You can see Molly in the right-center area slightly behind a large blonde boy wearing a silly sweater. Molly apparently loved wearing her pumpkin fairy outfit and complained when they took it off.

Toss Up Talk

| patmcg

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.

– Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Roomates

| patmcg

We had been tossing around the idea of Claire and Molly sharing a room since we moved into the new house. Claire had been unexpectedly excited about the idea. She seemed to love the idea of sharing a room so she and Molly could “keep an eye on each other” during the night. And she liked the idea of being “roommates” with Molly. We liked the idea of opening up a guest room for all the hardworking grandparents.

Today we finally took the plunge. Kit is off this week for an all too rare vacation, today the kids’ school is closed for a teachers’ work day, and Claire is still gung ho about sharing rooms. So today was dedicated to merging all of Claire’s stuff into what had been Molly’s much larger, poorly appointed room.

Among other activities, Kit worked with Claire on a special new sign for the new shared bedroom door. “Claire and Molly’s room” it said, featuring a photo of the sisters together and the letters E and G, their middle initials, included at Claire’s insistence.


We did have some friction over where to place Claire’s bed. Kit had a very sensible arrangement picked out, with Claire’s bed and Molly’s crib on opposite walls. Claire really really wanted to stick her bed in the middle of the room right next to Molly’s crib! It was a ridiculous arrangement by any normal standard, but I talked Kit into going along with it temporarily to ensure that this little experiment started off on the right foot. I did not want Claire to sour of sharing a room with Molly before they even started.


We put Molly to sleep first, an hour or so before Claire. As we got Claire ready for bed, she proudly explained how she would look out for Molly during the night. She explained to us that she would be the closest one to Molly if she had any trouble (crying, etc). “Who do you think is closer? Someone here in the room with Molly?” she said using her fingers to illustrate her position in the house near Molly. “Or someone way over here in your bedroom?” she said, holding one finger a couple of inches away. We agreed that Claire would be closer. “Yep”, she said proudly. She also explained that Molly would be in better hands now since three people would be looking out for her at night. “What is a bigger number: two or three?” she beamed.

Kit read Claire her bedtime story in our bedroom and then took her into the darkened room where little Molly was sleeping. It was quiet at first, but after a while, Molly started crying, as she has been doing a lot lately, apparently due to some new teeth coming in. I gave Molly a few minutes, but the noise got worse, and then it turned into talking and giggling. I went to check out the scene, standing semi-hidden in the doorway. Claire was patting Molly on the back, sweetly saying “it’s okay, little baby”. Molly, who must have been surprised and delighted to suddenly have her sister there talking to her, sat up and started talking and giggling back at her big sister. Claire ate this up, and leaned in for giggles and hugs. That was it, I had to step in and end all the sweetness. It was time to sleep! I gave Molly some teething gel and told Claire her job was to help Molly get back to sleep by laying down and showing her how a big girl goes to sleep. Claire took her duty very seriously and did as suggested. Kit would check on the girls later from the doorway and exchange hand signals with Claire indicating they loved each other and everything was going okay. After another period of giggling and flirting, mostly on Molly’s part, the girls were asleep.

When I checked on them I before going to bed myself, they were both asleep in exactly the same position, both laying on their right side at the same angle with their little arms sticking out the same way. What a pair!

– Posted using BlogPress from my iPad