Asides

Nanny Time

Aside | | patmcg

This time of year is challenging for child care.  Claire and Molly are still on summer break, but our summer nanny is done for the summer and back at college.  So the kids are left with “random nannies” from a service plus our reliable afternoon nanny, Sarah.  We had two morning-of nanny cancellations this week to make things even more complicated.

This week’s nannies were Nicole, Kristen, Ashley, Mayli, and Sarah.

Claire and Molly don’t seem to mind having a different person coming to take care of them every day.  My hat is off to them for their openness and adaptability.

Goaaaals!

Aside | | patmcg

Molly scored two goals in today’s soccer game, her third soccer game ever!

Kit took Molly to the game and was very excited to tell me the news.  Molly, for her part, denied everything.  She said she did not score any goals and asked not to talk about it any more.  Huh?

Molly Words

Aside | | patmcg

Picture of MollyNow at age five, Molly does not say a whole lot of words completely wrong any more.  But she does have a couple of oddities.

  • Molly calls pretzels “prentzels”.  It sounds really funny when she says it.
  • She calls a toilet plunger a “plumber”.
  • Toxic is “toskic”.  Plus for Molly, “toskic” and “non-toskic” are interchangeable.

But Molly is new enough to the language that she does not find this video about funny foods names very funny.  Claire and I crack up at “speggy and merbles”, but Molly seems to think that sounds just about right.  She doesn’t laugh one little bit.

On a side note, Molly did get one word just right, and not a good one.  It was a word that would normally get her in a lot of trouble but was funny this one time.  One morning before school, Molly was getting frustrated putting her jacket on, and she said very clearly and seriously, “I can’t get this f**king jacket on!” Oh, you had to be there.  It was so funny I had to run out of the room to laugh into my hand just to avoid encouraging her.  Claire and I giggled about that one for a while.

And yet she still can’t say “pretzel”.  Go figure.

Sidewalk

Aside | | patmcg

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.

Molly on the sidewalk
Sidewalk on the sidewalk
Sad Molly
Just don’t overuse her nickname

50 80

Aside | | patmcg

Molly says she has “fifty eighty” hairs on her head.

This is funny because it almost exactly mirrors Ramona Quimby in Ramona the Pest (I think), who said “I weigh fifty eleven pounds.” when she was about Molly’s age.  Keep in mind that Molly has not heard that Ramona book.  This was original Molly.

Siri’s Friend

Aside | | patmcg

We were all watching the movie version of Charlotte’s Web when the topic of the narrator came up.  I thought the narrator was Bob Newhart.  Kit said it was Sam Shepard (she as right).  Molly asked what we were talking about.  We said it was the voice talking off screen that you can’t see.  Molly said the narrator is probably Siri’s friend.

Siri actually comes up more than you would think in our daily conversations.  Claire and I like to try to stump her or faze her, but she is unflappable.  Claire even gets to be mean to Siri sometimes, which is probably fun since she isn’t mean to anyone else.  And we can always make fun of poor Siri for lazily falling back to “I found this on the web for you.”

Siri just wants to help.
Siri just wants to help.

Bedtime Delivery

Aside | | patmcg

There is a period of about 10 minutes between tucking Molly into bed and then finishing up Claire’s bedtime story and tucking her in too.  During those 10 minutes, Molly almost always does her daily poop.  It’s to the point where I literally now just expect to change Molly’s diaper when dropping Claire off to bed.  Molly has a poop something like 85% of the time.  You can tell for sure as you walk down the hall towards the girls’ room.  The odor is unmistakable.  I wonder how this will play out if/when Molly finally gets out of diapers.