With the nice weather, everyone in a good mood, and a little time on our hands today, we decided to go out for lunch South Austin style. We went to the South Congress Ave. trailers to eat. It was a little awkward feeding Molly out among the wind and crowds on a picnic table, but everyone had a good time, as you can see.
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Molly has so much fun at school playing with her friends and exploring her classroom. But she gets pretty worn out during the week. She rests up on the weekends, sleeping in late and indulging in two long naps per day. And these are hard naps; she tends to wake up all sweaty and disoriented.
This Saturday, Molly was especially sleepy, and Kit kept track of her sleep and wake times. For the 24 hours from Saturday morning to Sunday morning, Molly was actually awake for just over 7 hours of the day. Sometimes she starts to “cave” within an hour or two of waking up from a long nap or even a full 12-hour night’s sleep.
But no wonder she is so tired. Those are some very busy 7 waking hours, with barely an idle moment. She has lots of exploring to do, household items to pick up and drop, household items to shake and roll, furniture and people to crawl over, stairs to climb, dogs and kids to giggle at, silly games to invent. She makes the most of her precious 7 hours!
Her birthday party will be coming up this weekend.
Kit was holding Molly while waiting in line for some coffee before heading out for a very short jaunt to the lake to get Molly at least a little outside time today. Kit was just standing there talking to me when she said, “Ouch!” Someone had bitten her finger. That someone, of course, was our little Molly, who had sprung her first tooth! It’s a tiny little number in the center of her bottom gum. It’s not much to look at, but apparently it can do some damage, as Kit’s finger will attest.
Molly has been so busy! She is learning to move herself around and is so excited about it.
She recently started “army crawling” (todo: link or video), and today at school, for the first time, Molly sat up all by herself! She also pulled herself up using the edge of a little table. I heard about this from Molly’s teacher when I picked her up today. Molly especially gets a real workout everyday at school, where, unlike at home, it is safe enough for her to crawl around wherever she wants.
Here are some sample daily notes from her teachers:
Date: 5/26/2010
Disposition: Busy, determined, happy
Activities: Worked her way into bottom book shelf for teether -> got out by herself! Speed-scooting around the room. Trying to pull up on ducks.
Date: 5/27/2010
Disposition: Busy, focused, cheerful
Activities: Played outside -> chewing on & waving shovels. Laid on her back squealing @ the trees! Army crawled under the sorting table to get blue bucket.
Date: 6/10/2010
Disposition: Active, determined, happy
Activities: “Real” army crawling w/ both arms! Reaching for & batting @ elastic bands under high chairs. Sweet smiles!
This weekend, we had our first road trip together as a family of four. It was Molly’s first real car trip ever. As far as I can recall, this was the first time she had ever left Austin.
The destination was Arlington, Texas, where my second cousin Worth was graduating from high school. We were warned that the ceremony itself, in which 750 people were graduating, was too long and for a mature. We were urged to consider doing “something else” with Claire and Molly during the actual graduation and just show up for the meet-n-greet afterwards at Worth’s house.
So rather than sit through the long, boring graduation ceremony, we sat through a long, boring drive to Arlington. The one-night trip took significant planning. We put together individual checklists of must-have stuff to remember for everyone, and we ended up with 55 things. Molly accounted for about half of the total. The list did not include the normal travel items, such as clothes, toothbrush, phone numbers, etc. The list was full of things like baby bottles, bottle scrubber, dish soap, bottle steam sterilizer bags, formula, teethers, bibs, Pack ‘n Play, baby sleep sack, kid’s pajamas, teddy bear, baby medicine, car window shades, DVD player, and so on.
Once we were on the road, the trip went surprisingly well. For a while, Molly and Claire seemed to enjoy having time to just sit and talk with each other. There was some giggling and a game vaguely resembling pat-a-cake. Claire also had a lot of questions for us about where we were going and who was graduating, and she indicated that she was excited to meet some teenagers. After a while, Claire started watching The Polar Express, her latest movie obsession, and Molly fell asleep and remained asleep for most of the trip. This was a double score because it would keep Molly from being groggy and irritable later.
Once in Arlington, we checked into our overcrowded hotel, where my parents were also staying, and headed to the graduation party. Molly’s cousins got to meet her for the first time. We passed Molly around from relative to relative. She had a little stranger anxiety (crying) early on, but she got used to everyone after a while. Claire got a little bored but did get to open up Worth’s graduation presents for him, which she did with great enthusiasm. She also got to admire cousin Richard’s yellow Corvette, which she could touch the roof of if she stood on tippy-toes.
Molly stayed up very late — it was 8:30 by the time we got her back to the hotel, about two hours past her usual bedtime! She and Claire ended up sharing the “living room” of the hotel suite, with Claire on the fold-out sofa and Molly in the Pack ‘n Play. Claire loved sleeping on the fold-out (a couple of weeks later at home, she asked for me to replace her flower pillowcase with a plain white one, just like at the Arlington hotel). And Molly took to the Pack ‘n Play just fine. Claire noted that the Pack ‘n Play was great because it could be used for “packing and playing”.
The next morning we had breakfast with my parents and headed back to Austin. The trip back was slightly less smooth. Claire got a little grumpy during a rest stop at McDonald’s because she wanted to keep playing on the playground (and she was clearly getting tired, although she would not admit it). And Molly ended up sucking on a pacifier from about Waco to Austin. Normally we don’t let Molly use a pacifier when she is awake, but the alternative was potentially hours of crying baby, so we made an exception for this car trip.
So there you have it, our first family road trip. I was initially scared it could have been horrible, with screaming and crying kids who couldn’t sleep or eat or settle down in a strange hotel room. But it went okay, and I am proud of both girls for making such great travel companions.
todo: Add pictures
Tonight, Molly, Claire, Kit, and Kit’s parents went to dinner at Magnolia Cafe. Unfortunately, I missed this one because I was off trying to catch up on work, thanks to the generous grandparent coverage.
Apparently Kit was eating a salad with Molly in her lap (uh oh!). Kit was trying to keep Molly out of her salad, especially since it had a big red heap of salsa on top. When Kit turned away for just a second to talk to Claire (or something like that) Molly jumped on the opportunity and grabbed as much salsa as she could hold in her little baby hand. And of course, being a baby, Molly immediately stuck the salsa right into her mouth. This is a baby who had thus far subsisted solely on milk, baby formula, and mashed vegetables and fruits. The idea of “spicy” or even “seasoned” was completely new to her.
Fortunately, Molly took fairly well to the odd mixture. She did not cry. She simply looked bemused and carried on with things. We can safely say that this was Molly’s very first taste of salsa or anything even remotely interesting for that matter.
Today Molly yelled out “Put the flag up!” to Kit, Claire, and me. We all heard exactly the same thing. She clearly wanted us to hoist some sort of flag, but she would not expand on the idea. What kind of flag? Where to display it? She only followed with, “Baaa ba ba ba baaaaa. Pft pft pft.”
McG Kids 