For July 4, we met up with some friends and went to the Tarrytown neighborhood parade. The friends enthusiastically collected candy tossed from the parade and/or generally acted goofy in celebration of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Claire and Molly had fun too but were not quite as silly.
Molly is usually curious, and often brave. She will climb, grab, or throw any unknown object with the best of them.
But Molly does at times get scared by ordinary things. For instance, she used to have a paralyzing fear of shredded paper in her old classroom as a baby. When they got out the shredded paper for a special festive play activity, Molly reportedly screamed and cried and crawled out of the area as fast as she could.
Apparently she still holds a fear of unexplained, colorful, festive items in the classroom. The picture below appears among dozens of others from Molly’s classroom. In the picture, you can see a teacher wearing a colorful parachute on his head, surrounded by delighted toddlers. When you look a little closer, you can see Molly, alone among her peers, running away as fast as possible.
Molly seems to be thinking…
That man has a poisonous octopus on his head! No, wait, that IS his head! Run for your life!
Happily, later photos show Molly contentedly playing with said teacher and parachute, so she was able to calm down after the initial panic. I should not make too much fun of Molly, though. This quick, irrational fear may have been useful for some long past ancestor when, say, a colorful snake appeared in a tree above. While her fearless friends stuck around to see what it was, maybe this ancestor ran for her life and was able to produce a long line of similarly panicked and embarrassed offspring.
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Molly’s picture was featured, along with a few other kids, in a display that everyone sees right when they enter the day care. And she is, of course, wearing her signature “HOLA!” T-shirt.
This week, Texas, and most of the country, received an extended frigid blast of winter weather. We did not have to tolerate anything too bad here in Austin. Sure, it was real cold — down into the teens at night, some days never above freezing all day, and windy to boot. But we were fortunate enough to avoid any power outages or other substantial discomforts. Kit’s parents were not quite as lucky. They were in town and got stranded here for a few extra days due to ice and other logistical issues.
The girls, of course, had a ball. They missed a bunch of school due to the weather (and illness) and stayed home with good ol’ Grammy while Kit and I worked. Claire recovered from strep in time to enjoy the snow on Friday, which provided a rare opportunity for snowball fights and a snowman, not to mention some fun pictures and videos (see below). Claire and I also enjoyed a brisk walk around the block right before bedtime on one of the colder nights, punctuated by some refreshing hot peppermint tea at home.Claire was invited by one of her friends to an Austin symphony Christmas sing-along tonight. Kit took Claire and got this awesome picture of Claire and some of her school friends.
Here are some footage and pictures of Claire’s ballet recital this weekend. She takes a 45 minute lesson every Saturday at the YMCA with her friends Coco, Zoey, and Isa. This was the culmination of the last few weeks of class. The dance teacher said it was not really a recital, but she just wanted to show off what the kids could do because she was so proud of their progress. The teacher also said, much to everyone’s relief, that the recital would not last the scheduled two hours, and would instead take about 30 minutes.
During this recital, I also got a troubling text message from Kit, who was at the doctor’s office with Molly.
– Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
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.
McG Kids 