sweet

That’s My Little Sister!

| patmcg

Claire loves to show off her cute little sister, Molly, to her friends at school.  When I pick Claire up from school in the afternoon, she usually says, “Can you go get Molly first?”  When I produce Molly a few minutes later, a group of Claire’s friends enthusiastically gather around her.  They love to get Molly to repeat their names.  Molly quietly works through the crowd, taking a crack at Charlotte, Ivan, Ella, Elke, and all the rest.  The girls love when Molly says their name, or even gets close.  At this point, Molly remembers some of their names and will say them without prompting, especially Ella and Elke.  They also love to hug Molly, and sometimes they want to pick her up, although usually I draw the line there.  Eventually Molly wears down from all the attention and has to withdraw to my arms, with her face in my shoulder.  Sometimes this affection can be too much all at once.

Claire seems to enjoy this outpouring of affection more than Molly does.  Claire is so proud to have Molly as her little sister, and she never tires of showing her off around school.

Hugs All Around

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When Claire’s class comes in from the playground at school, they pass through the “activity room”, which is a shared, open space that different classes use throughout the day for things like gymnastics or just some indoor play time.  Apparently today, as Claire and her friends came through the activity room, they discovered Molly in there with her class.  Claire ran over and gave Molly a big hug.  Several of Claire’s friends also thought that looked like a good idea, and maybe they should give Molly a hug too.  Eventually,  Molly’s teacher had to seal off an area around Molly to protect her from the horde of hugging friends.

“No more hugs, people!  Nothing to see here!” I imagine the teaching saying.

Molly does have many fans among Claire’s friends, but she usually doesn’t have to deal with them all at once.

Roomates

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We had been tossing around the idea of Claire and Molly sharing a room since we moved into the new house. Claire had been unexpectedly excited about the idea. She seemed to love the idea of sharing a room so she and Molly could “keep an eye on each other” during the night. And she liked the idea of being “roommates” with Molly. We liked the idea of opening up a guest room for all the hardworking grandparents.

Today we finally took the plunge. Kit is off this week for an all too rare vacation, today the kids’ school is closed for a teachers’ work day, and Claire is still gung ho about sharing rooms. So today was dedicated to merging all of Claire’s stuff into what had been Molly’s much larger, poorly appointed room.

Among other activities, Kit worked with Claire on a special new sign for the new shared bedroom door. “Claire and Molly’s room” it said, featuring a photo of the sisters together and the letters E and G, their middle initials, included at Claire’s insistence.


We did have some friction over where to place Claire’s bed. Kit had a very sensible arrangement picked out, with Claire’s bed and Molly’s crib on opposite walls. Claire really really wanted to stick her bed in the middle of the room right next to Molly’s crib! It was a ridiculous arrangement by any normal standard, but I talked Kit into going along with it temporarily to ensure that this little experiment started off on the right foot. I did not want Claire to sour of sharing a room with Molly before they even started.


We put Molly to sleep first, an hour or so before Claire. As we got Claire ready for bed, she proudly explained how she would look out for Molly during the night. She explained to us that she would be the closest one to Molly if she had any trouble (crying, etc). “Who do you think is closer? Someone here in the room with Molly?” she said using her fingers to illustrate her position in the house near Molly. “Or someone way over here in your bedroom?” she said, holding one finger a couple of inches away. We agreed that Claire would be closer. “Yep”, she said proudly. She also explained that Molly would be in better hands now since three people would be looking out for her at night. “What is a bigger number: two or three?” she beamed.

Kit read Claire her bedtime story in our bedroom and then took her into the darkened room where little Molly was sleeping. It was quiet at first, but after a while, Molly started crying, as she has been doing a lot lately, apparently due to some new teeth coming in. I gave Molly a few minutes, but the noise got worse, and then it turned into talking and giggling. I went to check out the scene, standing semi-hidden in the doorway. Claire was patting Molly on the back, sweetly saying “it’s okay, little baby”. Molly, who must have been surprised and delighted to suddenly have her sister there talking to her, sat up and started talking and giggling back at her big sister. Claire ate this up, and leaned in for giggles and hugs. That was it, I had to step in and end all the sweetness. It was time to sleep! I gave Molly some teething gel and told Claire her job was to help Molly get back to sleep by laying down and showing her how a big girl goes to sleep. Claire took her duty very seriously and did as suggested. Kit would check on the girls later from the doorway and exchange hand signals with Claire indicating they loved each other and everything was going okay. After another period of giggling and flirting, mostly on Molly’s part, the girls were asleep.

When I checked on them I before going to bed myself, they were both asleep in exactly the same position, both laying on their right side at the same angle with their little arms sticking out the same way. What a pair!

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Helping Hand

| patmcg
Claire offered to feed Molly her solids this morning. Claire did not want to simply “help” feed Molly. She wanted to just do it herself. Claire has been on a real helping kick lately, wanting to help fix dinner, wanting our help to clean up her room, etc. Claire had been pretty good with some limited Molly feeding in the past, and frankly I could use an extra hand with things, so I decided to turn Claire loose to feed Molly. She poured Molly’s pureed carrots into a little bowl, got a baby spoon, a set up shop in front of Molly, who I had already sat down in her feeding chair wearing a bid.
It went really well. Claire did a careful and thorough job feeding Molly, even cleaning up the food mess as she went, and Molly got lots of carrots. See for yourself. (The sound seems to be missing for some reason. I think my camera phone is messed up. It’s not big deal, though, since everyone was mostly quiet anyways.)

http://www.youtube.com/get_player

It’s Still Pants

| patmcg

This morning Kit was complaining about her pants on her way out to work. We had just picked them up from the dry cleaners last night, and even though we had asked for no crease as always, Kit discovered this morning that her pants in fact had a sharp crease down the middle.

So Kit was about to walk out to the car, saying something like, “These dry cleaners! We really need to go somewhere else. I hate the creases!” Claire heard this and said sweetly, “Maybe you should wear a dress like I do.” It was such a nice, constructive suggestion. Kit said that was a good idea, but she already had her pants on and needed to go ahead and wear them. Claire observed again sweetly, “Okay. Well, it’s still pants.”

She really cheered up our morning.  It is nice to see Claire have such a good perspective and try to be so constructive and helpful. 


Career Plans

| patmcg

Claire has been thinking about being a working mom lately.

Her daily note from school today said Claire “went to work” while Carissa (her teacher) “babysat” her babies named “Dona” and “Roshashana”.

One night during her bath, Claire rattled off a few job ideas, but after some thought settled on being a teacher.

Yesterday, said Claire said she wanted to be a doctor and go to the hospital with her mom every day. Kit was really touched by this. However, she is suggesting that Claire look into an allied health field or a technician position rather than being a straight up doctor. The hours and stress have been getting to her lately. :-


Christmas 2009

| patmcg

This was a great Christmas, especially for Claire.  My brother Tim and his wife Cindy came to Texas for the holidays along with my parents.  Everyone came to Austin, and we hosted everyone for Christmas for the first time.  Tim and Cindy really hit it off with Claire.  Claire had countless games and jokes with them all through the two days they were here.  She started things off by showing them her very favorite new show, a Pixar animated short film which Kit had recorded, called One Man Band.  She tried to get them to laugh and scream at all the funny bits.

Claire was pretty bummed out when they had to leave.  “When are we going to see Uncle Tim and Aunt Cindy again?”  When they were actually leaving on Saturday morning, Claire wanted to avoid an extended goodbye.  “If your’e going to leave, then just leave already”, she said disappointedly.  Later we told Claire we might go visit Tim and Cindy some time, and she said, “I really love that idea.  And that’s a fact!”  She was really sad to see them, and her grandparents Noni and Phil, go.  She loved all the fun an attention.  And the presents.

As Cindy noted, Claire is the perfect age for Christmas. At four years old, she loved every present she got.  There was no complaining about not getting the “right thing” or not getting enough.  And she just loved having all the fun people around to entertain.

This was the first year that Claire was really aware of Santa Clause.  She said in a matter of fact way that Santa was going to come by at night and drop off some presents.  She wanted to know if Santa was coming to our house “first” or not.  On Christmas morning, Claire showed up in our bedroom about 6:15.  She was concerned because she did not hear Santa Clause during the night, and she thought maybe he had skipped our house.  Kit went back down to Claire’s bedroom, pointing out the stuffed stockings on the way down, and Claire was relieved to her that Santa had actually showed up.  Kit snuggled with Claire until the “morning light” came on.  The morning light is a small light we set up in Claire’s room, and it is set on a timer to turn on at 6:45 to announce the start of the day (ie, when she can come get us).  Claire patiently watched the morning light until it turned on, then she and Kit came back up to get me and start Christmas.  All the other family members were rousing around that time as well, and we got started on stockings right away.  Claire was thrilled with just the stockings, and did not mind taking a long break for everyone to get dressed and freshened up before opening the presents.

At three months old, Little Molly was not as excited about Christmas.  In fact, this year, she could not tell Christmas from the Fourth of July.  She was a little worn out from all the excitement of entertaining her aunt and uncle and grandparents on Christmas Eve, and she slept quietly upstairs almost the entire Christmas morning, through all the gift exchange.  She did not have a chance to appreciate her many presents, including one from Santa.  Molly’s time to enjoy Christmas will come soon!  You could say she was the big present to us this year.

Now this post could go on and on about all the fun of Christmas 2009.  But I better just jump to some highlights…
  • Not to be too materialistic, but this is always interesting later… Here is a partial list of presents Claire received this year:
    • A Band in a Box (from Santa), featuring a tambourine, a snare drum, maracas, and a harmonica.
    • A scuba diver Play Mobile set
    • A Crayola Glow Station
    • A variety of stuffed animals
    • An alphabet puzzle
    • A variety of books
    • Countless fun and silly little toys and gadgets
  • Molly received:

    • Soft play blocks
    • Teethers
    • Baby books
    • Baby puzzles
    • Clothes
  • Claire gave lip balm to everyone for presents.  She (and me and Kit) made up special lip balm packets from a kid-friendly “make your own lip balm” kit.
  • Christmas dinner was Texas style, feature BBQ beef brisket, black beans, cole slaw, and apple pie.  (I was a little turkeyed-out from Thanksgiving)
  • Tim and Cindy went running on Town Ladybird Lake and tracked down an award-winning public bathroom that Kit had read about. 
  • In the late afternoon after nap time, we loaded everyone up — all eight of us — in the Honda Pilot for a driving tour of the neighborhoods and houses we are considering to move into next summer. We also drove by said award-winning bathroom.
  • Claire noted on several occasional that the day after Christmas is Boxing Day.  And then Kwanzaa comes next.
  • Claire, my dad, and I went to Zilker Park in the afternoon to let Claire work off some energy.  The playground was full of happy little kids her age, some trying out brand new bikes.  Claire came home and had a good hard nap.  We repeated the same exercise on “Boxing Day”, and Claire once again had a good hard nap.
  • Claire’s night ended watching A Charlie Brown Christmas on her little potable DVD player.  Gradually five or six of us ended up watching over her shoulder.  Claire played her tambourine to the show’s music and distributed her other instruments to the rest of us for additional percussion.  We did not sound good, but it was fun.
  • Claire, of course, did not really want to go to bed on Christmas night, especially since she had so many people and toys to play with.  But she was pretty zonkered out and fell asleep quickly.
  • Molly was wiped out by the whole experience as well, or maybe she was just being her usual sleepy self, and slept through much of Christmas and Boxing Day, including some three-hour haps.
  • Kit and I were pretty wiped out too.  We had prepared to host Christmas and did our shopping in about the day and a half before Christmas.  Actually, Kit was wiped out from working 15-hour days, and I did most of the shopping and prep work.  (I had been up in Washington DC for a surprise visit for Tim’s 40th birthday party.  A big blizzard had hit DC, and I was stranded there an extra day, not leaving  much time to prep when I got back.)

Kit’s parents will come up to Austin to celebrate a late Christmas next week. They will certainly bring more entertainment, fun, and toys for Claire and Molly, and some much needed baby siting for me and Kit!

Sister’s Portrait

| patmcg

Claire asked me for a blank sheet of paper today, then ran off to her room with the paper and a purple marker.  She emerged about 15 minutes later to hand me the paper, explaining, “See?  It’s Molly!”

Wow!  I did not expect to recognize a real image of Molly, but there she is.  You can see a very clear face in the middle.  I am not sure what the other stuff is.  Maybe blankets, diapers, etc?  Anyways, that face is amazing.  Seriously, that is what Molly really looks like when she is tired. 

Curly Q

| patmcg
Molly is suck a little sleepy head. And when she gets tired, she loves to curl up like a little doodle bug. She literally curls into almost a perfect ball when cuddling. It can be challenging to feed her because it is hard to simply lay her out straight enough to get the right angle for her bottle!