mood

Panda on the Loose

| patmcg

The new school year started today for Claire. She has graduated to the next class, and is now officially a Panda. This is good since Claire is now with her own age group. She had spent the first few weeks in the Colts classroom with slightly older kids since they had a random spot open just to get her through the summer.

Claire may benefit from having more girls in her new classroom as compared to the Colts, where there were only three girls to about a dozen boys. However, she will leave behind some friends, including her very favorite twins, Alex and Leo, who she seems to follow around and literally pull their arms towards her to make them play with her.

Claire’s new teacher writes a little summary of all the kids’ days, which is helpful. Apparently today Claire ate “some” of her lunch (just the muffin and bluberries), but she was too busy talking to do much eating. (One of her Colts teachers had also remarked that she “treats lunch time as sort of a social hour.”) Claire’s new teacher circled “cheerful”, “silly”, and “talkative” to describe Claire’s mood today. I am glad Claire had a good day, especially since she is a little sick. If I were to fill out the same form for tonight, I would have circled “cuddly” and “frustrated”.

No no no no no no no no

| patmcg

As I have stated before, this blog is more about the highlights than the lowlights of raising Claire, so much so that when I go back and read this in 10 years, it will probably seem like even the “terrible threes” was nothing but fun. As sort of a reality check, I like to toss in the occasional reminder that raising Claire is not always 100% fun and sweet. This is the type of thing that happens from time to time…

Tonight, Claire wanted to do some pretend cooking with her playdough. Hey, that’s a great idea. So I set her up with a couple of varieties of playdough and a some plastic plates and cups. That made Claire pretty happy, and then she asked for a spoon. I gave her sort of a leftover spoon that we don’t normally eat with. That way, she was not going to confuse her “playing” spoon with an actual “eating” spoon. When I handed Claire the spoon, she said she wanted a real eating spoon. I told her no, sorry, but we use the playing spoon for playdough. Usually Claire respects this type of rule reluctantly by peaceably. But not tonight. Claire suddenly started yelling “no no no no no no no no no no no no no no” over and over. It went on for literally 30 minutes, with her just sitting there in front of her playdough yelling “no” over and over. I did a few things around the house. Still, “no no no no no!” Finally I asked her to help cook our actual dinner, and that broke the cycle. She was happy again.

Kit gets this treatment much worse than I do. Kit can say, “Look, the sky is blue,” and Claire will respond, “No, it’s not blue. Why did you say the sky is blue?!” in a rather annoyed tone. They say this is a preview of the teenage years, and I can believe it.

Changing Tide

| patmcg

About a year ago, Claire was having an awful time with her baths. Every night was a trial of patience and nerves. Since then, things have gradually gotten a little better, but no more so than since the move to the new house in Austin. Now the only problem is getting her out of the bath! Maybe it is the new fresher, nicer bathroom with the sunroof, or maybe the just general change of scenery. It really seemed to pick up after our trip to Barton Springs, for whatever reason. Anyways, she loves her baths now.

Claire has also gotten a lot more adventurous in the bath. She is now swimming, splashing, sticking her face in the water, blowing bubbles, and playing with the drain. She may be getting a little too comfortable. She insists that it is really not dangerous to run and jump in the tub. I finally told her that if she slipped and fell, she might have to go to the hospital and get a cast like with her bounce house accident. Yes, I pulled the bounce house card. I felt a little bad using a scare tactic, but it is an honest argument, and it did the trick. No more running and jumping in the tub!

TODO: Need bath or towel pic

Reality Check

| patmcg

You may have noticed that in most of these posts Claire comes off seeming fun, sweet, and good natured. That is not an accident; she is all of these things. But I feel like I should add a reality check here to avoid the inaccurate impression that Claire is only fun, sweet, and good natured, and every day is a breeze. That would actually be a little creepy. Claire is more complicated than that.

Besides being fun and sweet, Claire is also sometimes a fussy toddler. Or if not fussy exactly, she is often working on “asserting her independence” as her mom says, by resisting and disagreeing about arbitrary and trivial things. Here are a few examples…

Dressing Claire in the morning had become a mortal struggle for while. Taking off her pajamas caused a messy, crying fit. Putting the new clothes on was worse, as she did everything in her power to keep that shirt from going over her head. She can actually put on a fairly impressive display of strength if she is determined. It turns out that manhandling your crying kid for 20 minutes is not a good way to start a busy work day when you are trying to get out the door as quickly as possible. Fortunately, we may have turned a corner on this issue, as Claire is once again fairly cooperative getting dressed in the morning.

Sometimes if we give Claire a milk to drink with dinner, she will sort of slap the cup and whine, “Water!” If we exchange her milk for a water, she whines, “Milk!” Occasionally we’ll just give her both to see what happens, and she ends up trying to actually hold the milk, the water, and 3 or 4 empty cups plus their lids if we give those to her. It’s actually kind of funny.

Mostly Kit and I just get worn out by all of our demands, going around like tired zombies, or frustrated because we just can’t do everything or we can’t do any one thing well. I am writing this post after midnight, knowing I will be worn out tomorrow, but lacking any other time to do this. Of course, I enjoy writing the blog, but it’s frustrating because it basically has to come right out of my sleep time.

Ok, I guess that gives you an idea. I think I am starting to whine now, and it is a sign that I need to go to sleep myself.