Here is Claire’s poem about Muffin. She is studying poetry in school and seems to enjoy it.
Who’s that standing there
with white fluffy hair?
Big black eyes.
Tail swishing back and forth wildly
like an angry flock of seagulls.
pet
Peacocks!
Today while the kids were at school and I was working from home, we had some surprise visitors in the backyard. Around 9:00 am, without warning or explanation, two peacocks suddenly appeared in our backyard. They would stay there, hanging out on our back porch, just outside my office, until evening. I emailed the neighborhood email distro, and eventually found out that they were (sort of) a neighbor’s pet, “A much as you can own a bird”, the neighbor said. They had been trying to round up the peacocks for a while, and after a botched attempt by someone named Quentin to capture the large fowl, another attempt would be made the next day.
When Claire got home on the bus in the afternoon, I decided not to mention the peacocks right away and let her discover them herself. A few minutes after being home, Claire came up to my office and said, “Dad, sorry to bother you, but this is important. You won’t believe this.” And then slowly and seriously, she said, “There are two peacocks in our backyard!”
We went out and took pictures of the birds, making sure not to let Muffin out. As I noted in the neighborhood email, “I would like to avoid breaking up a peacock / dog fight.” Claire would name the white peacock Caramel Dream and the colorful one Captain Chubbles. Later, Molly got to see the peacocks too. Molly was not quite as fascinated with them, but she did note that someone must have “painted” the colorful one.
Just Kit’s luck, the birds finally flew/hopped away over the neighbor’s roof minutes before Kit arrived at home.
Goodbye, Sonny
Claire lost her first pet today. He had not been with us for long.
About a week ago, Claire picked out four fish and a snail to put in the aquarium that she had received from Santa for Christmas. Their names where Larry and Mary (the two tiny fish), Spots and Sonny (the two slightly bigger fish), and Max the snail. Today Sonny stopped moving and gradually sunk to the bottom of the tank. We are not sure what caused his premature death.
Claire was sad to lose Sonny but managed to hold back her tears. We buried Sonny under the large pecan tree in the back yard, under a few inches of soil. We all showed our respects with a few words. Claire came up with something like, “Sonny, you were only with us for a week. But we loved you, and we will always remember you.” It was a brief but dignified ceremony. Then Claire came inside and went to work on a small marker. It was a nice drawing of Sonny with a few extra sparkles stuck on it to make it fancier, and then taped to a straw and stuck in the ground on Sonny’s final resting place.
Molly missed the ceremony since it was held during her nap time. When Molly woke up, Claire was anxious to show Molly the grave. Once outside, Molly was not so interested since she wanted to ride her little bike instead. Since Molly would not pay her final respects to Sonny, Claire did it for her.
Nurturing Side
Claire still loves Reese’s trains and dinosaurs, but she is also discovering her girly nurturing side lately.
She has been trying to change her Raggedy Ann’s clothes and diaper. Unfortunatley, Ann’s clothes are sewn on, so it is impossible in actuality to change her diaper. But she seems happy enough pretending to change it, mumbling, “change diaper…” or “clean up…” as she fiddles with the doll.
Sometimes she tries to dress her little plastic dolphin bath toys up in her own cloths, saying things like “How cuuuute!” or “He’s snuggly!” Of course, these dolphins are about 3 inches tall, so even a toddler’s little shirt dwarfs them. Speaking of her dolphins, she has named them too. The orange one, the first one of the bunch that we got out her, is named Thomas, after Thomas the Train. The other two are named Henry and James, who are also train names. She is very consistent about the naming. Thomas is always the bright orange one, James is the dull orange one, and Henry is the green one. She has even started to wash her dolphins during her own bath. I give her a washcloth, and she gently scrubs the dolphins with it one at a time, saying, “Let’s clean him up.”
Claire also loves to feed dog treats to Muffin. They both get a real tickle out of it. Claire holds the treat out for Muffin and waits for her to grab it with her mouth. She still seems a little scared that Muffin will bite her hand, so she usually lets the treat go when Muffin opens her mouth, dropping it on the floor. But especially when she makes a successful delivery, she giggles and jumps around. Both she and Muffin could do this all day.
Actually, Claire’s nurturing side has take a slightly odd turn as well. She has a Thomas the Train board book with a raised plastic face on the front. If you press it’s nose, the book plays a little song. Claire has recently adopted this book as her little baby to take care of. She likes to dress it — the book — in clothes, pretend to feed it with a bottle, and will sometimes put it to sleep. This is sort of bizarre to watch, but I guess it makes sense since the book sort of resembles a doll, with its little plastic face. In fact, it is the closest thing that Claire has to a doll besides her stuffed animals. I thought dolls only made sense for four or five year old girls, but I guess not. Perhaps it is time to gt Claire a doll.
McG Kids 