Images

Splashing into Summer

Image | | patmcg

The day after school ended, Claire got to go to a birthday swimming party for one of her friends.  She started off summer break in style, jumping off the diving board with her friends over and over.

Originally, this was going to be a bad weather make up day due to several snow and ice days this winter.  But the AISD Board of Trustees and the Texas Education Agency basically would take action and “designate March 3, which is already a regular, full instructional day, to serve as a bad weather make-up day.”  Huh?  I heard the Texas state legislature was also somehow involved in this scheme, which requires me to hire a sitter for the day.  But it works for the kids and the teachers, and they do deserve a Friday off!

Drop Off

Image | | patmcg

This is a picture of the start of a typical day for Molly.  Molly has a nice, set routine each school morning.  I won’t got into the all the details of the routine (although I have done that before), but here are a few highlights of how Molly likes her morning to go…

  • Molly always has Cheerios for breakfast but doesn’t finish them and asks for a “to go” for the car.
  • After dropping Claire off at school, and on the drive to Molly’s school, Molly usually initiates some sort of creative activity with me.  It’s anything from “What do you want me to draw?” to “Tell me everything you see that starts with letter S” or an “I’m thinking of something that…” game.  “I’m thinking of something that grows on fences.”, which is flowers, for example.  She always has something to offer.
  • On a related note, the drives home in the evening are less creative and more grumpy.  A favorite question of Molly’s is a whiney “Why do you always have to cook dinner at home?” (I actually pick up food on the way home really often).
  • Once we’re at Molly’s pre-school, we can either take the stairs or the elevator upstairs to her classroom.  Molly always gets to pick.  Lately Molly’s trick is to stand at the hallway between the stairs and the elevator and say out loud, “Hmm…which way?”  And then she’ll suddenly sprint towards the elevator, giggling loudly, trying to get away from me.  She always looks back to make sure I’m chasing her.  It is hilarious to see Molly tear down the hall in a dress and shiny shoes.
  • Once at the elevator, the next game is for Molly to press the “up” button before I can do it, and then to press the “3” button once inside before I can get to it.  It makes Molly giggle even more when I just barely lose to her every time.  By the time we get to Molly’s classroom, she is panting and laughing.
  • Then Molly suddenly gets real quiet when we actually enter her classroom.  It is hard to get a even one word out of her.  Sometimes she gets a little excited to give an extra toilet paper cardboard roll from home to Turbo the Gerbil, but that’s about it.  Normally it’s the quiet little girl you see in the picture above, at least until the afternoon grumps.

Rainbow Claire

Image | | patmcg

This is a picture of Claire in her handmade paper-and-tape Rainbow Dash costume.  The lovingly-made costume is a tribute to Claire’s enduring fascination with My Little Pony.  She is even talking about publishing to YouTube a video of her playing with the My Little Pony.  There are video like that that have over 30,000 views.

One time I said something offhand to Claire about, “When you move on to the next thing after My Little Pony…” and Claire, shocked, said “What?  I will never move on from My Little Pony!”

The only other rival for Claire’s attention is the movie Frozen.  Claire and Molly both know all the songs, etc. and talk about who is better, Anna or Elsa (the consensus is Anna, although Claire has some sympathy for Elsa).  Claire and I can perform the song “Reindeers Are Better Than People” with me on guitar and Claire on vocals.  It actually sounds okay.  Maybe we should put that on YouTube, huh?

Still, MLP is king no matter if some people Claire’s age think its “babyish”.  Claire is a loyal and proud fan, and her paper costume shows it.

The First Tooth Comes Out

Image | | patmcg

Claire officially lost her first tooth today.  That bottom-middlish tooth had been loose for almost two months but finally let go at school today during lunch.  Apparently it comes out as Claire was eating a pear in the cafeteria with her friend Harper.  Claire stared run-walking to find a teacher and almost got in trouble with the cafeteria monitor.  Claire was very proud of her missing tooth.

The tooth stayed in Claire’s school desk the first night but came home the next day where it slept under Claire’s pillow in a special tiny pillow of its own to help the Tooth Fairy could find it.  When I woke Claire up the next morning, the very first thing she did was check her Tooth Fairy pillow.  In it, she found her tiny little tooth had been traded for a special half-collar coin.  That was a special coin from the Tooth Fairy, who will probably end up slipping a plain old dollar bill in there on later teeth.  Claire was surprised it was a silver half dollar coin, thinking half dollars were normally gold.  Still, she really likes her “only silver” coin.

T is for Tiara

Image | | patmcg

The letter of the week for Molly’s class was T, so for Show and Share on Friday, Molly brought in a tiara from her dress up collection.  Molly had let the tiara idea leak the day before.  Her friend Joycie showed up on Friday with a tiara too.  They had a good giggle over the whole thing.

Bullseye!

Image | | patmcg

A while back, Claire bought one of those toy plastic bows with suction cup arrows, for the movie Brave.  She never really figured out how to shoot it and never had a good place to practice.  She taped up a hand-drawn target on a piece of paper on the playroom cabinet, but of course the suction cup arrows never stuck to the paper.

At the end of her latest sleepover, Maddie’s dad tried it out and stuck an arrow right into the white board of the kids’ art easel.  Brilliant!  A few days later, Claire’s friend Claudia come over, and they drew a target on the easel.  Pretty soon, after working on their technique, Claire and Claudia were firing and sticking one arrow after another to the easel.

Today before we picked up Molly, Claire got her first perfect bullseye.  She shot and just nailed it.  So here is a picture to commemorate her first bullseye.