Molly’s new nickname is Sidewalk.  Molly apparently came up with the name herself, maybe due to an accident or miscommunication, but anyways the name sticks.  It really suits her.  Molly has embraced the nickname Sidewalk for the most part, but don’t over-use it or she will tell you her name is not Sidewalk, but Molly.
Grammy and Granddaddy have a new boat in Anacortes, Washington.  They have been sailing there for years and recently got a new boat which is apparently friendlier for kids, etc.
They have now officially christened their boat after their grand girls! Â The boat is called the “Molly Claire”. Â It turns out that “Molly Claire” just sounds better than “Claire Molly”. Â The girls will get a chance to sail on their namesake in July.
Molly continues to talk up storm. Now she knows way more words than can be listed. She will often point at things and name them: a picture of a butterfly (“bu-fly”), her diaper (which she sometimes calls a “BM”), or a stuffed bear, crocodile, etc. Sometimes she points at something in a way to sort of ask what it is called. Usually this involves repeatedly tapping the object. She’ll tap a hair brush until someone says, “brush”, and then she will repeat “brush”. One time Molly was tapping a sort of stamp thing for one of the girls’ art projects, and being distracted and not entirely sure what to call it, I said, “That’s a, uh… thing”. Molly repeated very carefully, “thing”. She’ll have to sort that one out over time, I guess.
Molly has finally figured out what to call her sister. She is “Care Bear”. Molly is probably trying to say, “Claire Bear”, which we sometimes call Claire. When Claire was feeling grumpy the other day, she said she does not like being called Claire Bear because a bear is “boyish”. She would rather be called “Claire Bear with flowers and bows in her hair”. Molly has not adopted this idea yet. I was trying to get Molly to call her sister just plain ol’ “Claire” but that hasn’t taken either. There is always a “Bear” stuck on the end, much to her sister’s chagrin.
Molly is also combining words with great acuity. She will describe what belongs to who, as in “Molly’s bottle” versus “Care Bear’s bottle” and “Mommy’s shoe” versus “Daddy’s shoe”. In panic or frustration, “Molly’s bottle” sometimes still turns into “mine!”. We sometimes have a real, practical conversation, for instance when Molly did not want to carry her stuffed bear in from the car but she wanted me to bring it in, which came out as the pretty clear “Daddy do it”.
Claire’s imagination continues to run on high power. She spent most of last weekend in character as a five year old girl named Tara who lives in a hotel lobby. Tara loves to show guests around the hotel lobby (the downstairs of our house) as well as the hotel kitchen, laundry room, and bathroom. There is one guest room upstairs. Apparently it is a fairly exclusive hotel. Tara hangs out with a six year old boy named Sam (me). She spends a lot of time saying things like, “Hey, Sam! You wanna see the hotel dog?” A hotel chef (also me) serves delicious food from time to time, about which she always says, “My compliments to the chef!”, which she learned from her grandparents.
Over the last few days, Tara has morphed into Polly Wogalina, a two year old toddler who also lives in a hotel lobby. Polly is bigger and abler than her baby sister, Pig Tail Polly Wogalina (Molly), but big Polly is still just learning to walk, and talk she speaks like a baby, although she has full control of proper and sometimes quite complex grammar. I am a boy named French. Sometimes I call Claire “Polly Woggle”, but she does not like that. Kit is Sarah Cockaberra, a name which Claire is very proud to have invented.
We will see what next weekend holds, although Claire may be too distracted from Christmas presents to create any brand new characters.
Claire is as excited as ever about her upcoming little sister, due later this month! We still have not decided on a name for the new little one, and Claire is happy to help brainstorm names. Today over lunch at Artz Rib House with my parents, the conversation went tobaby names. When asked what she thought the baby should be named, Claire suggested “Basil” without hesitation. This was a new idea from her, and it got a chuckle for us all, which irked Claire a bit. Claire followed up with one of her consistent favorites, “Claire”. She took care to explain, “There would be two Claires. Claire and Claire!” I asked her if I said, “Hey, Claire”, who I would be talking to. She said, “Well, I would think both of us.” This kid is hard to stump!
Claire has been very excited about the upcoming new baby ever since we explained to her why Kit’s tummy was getting bigger a couple of months ago. Claire has ranged from mild curiosity about the baby (“When will it come out and see us? How will it get out of there?”) to impatience (“I want to open Mommy’s tummy and see the baby now!”). She has tried to help name the baby, with “Ansista” being her most original and consistent choice. Claire speaks often about how she will help take care of the baby by feeding it and showing it how to do things like cook and jump.
We had some early incidents when Claire bumped up against Kit’s tummy while playing, so we had to give Claire specific instructions to be very careful around the bump. Now Claire is extremely cautious and gentle around Kit, and last night she make her way up to Kit’s tummy and kissed it ever so gently. Then she just kept kissing it. We said, “Okay, thanks, that’s enough,” but she said she wanted to kiss the baby ten times, and that she did. We asked Claire if she wanted to say anything to the baby, and she gently patted the bump and said, “What are you doin’ in there?” with a little smile on her face.
I know the new baby will not always be easy on Claire. For one, Claire is going to have to learn to get along without quite as much dedicated attention. But so far, Claire is off to about as good of a start accepting her little sister as we could have hoped for. We are very proud of big sister Claire.
Kit and I are not doing as well. We have have been too busy and/or exhausted to prepare, and we are struggling just to get a crib set up, much less get any basic baby supplies in place. I also have a small pile of books to re-read about babies (we already forgot the details of what to do with babies) plus some new books on siblings. None of them have been cracked yet. We will find figure it out, but it may be more of an on-the-job training than we had hoped for. We are glad that Claire, at least, is ready for the new baby.
McG Kids 