Videos
Getting Down at the Neighborhood Picnic
At the annual neighborhood picnic, Molly was inspired by the music. She started to really boogie. Some of her moves are reminiscent of Sally O’Malley from Saturday Night Live.
Claymation!
Claire just finished up a brief 4-week claymation class at the Art School at Laguna Gloria. All of her classmates’ animations are posted together as a single montage online. Claire’s creations are in there, but I’m not even sure which ones are hers exactly, except for the one spelling “Claire” in the names section near the end. Anyways, the class put together some really creative ideas, the kind of stuff only kids can dream up.
How Easter Began
Claire had Friday off and, as usual, she spent most of her day working on a project. Lately, she is particularly interested in making seasonal or holiday-related pictures, cards, gifts, etc. This Easter, she has taken this idea to new a level. On Friday and Saturday, Claire planned and prepared her first play, a performance about how Easter began. She assigned each member of the family a character. Claire was the Easter Bunny, Molly was a chick, Kit was a bumble bee, and I was a butterfly. Claire then made costumes for each character. She taped paper and stickers to dresses for her and Molly, a similar idea for Kit, and we agreed on an outrageous orange outfit for my monarch butterfly. Claire wrote a script, which I dictated on the computer so we could print out a copy for everyone. Claire picked some music so we could do a dance in the middle. She created a set and put out chairs for the audience.
This whole play was a surprise for Grammy and Grandaddy, who were staying with us and served as our audience. Claire made sure they did not see the costumes or other preparations before it was time for the performance on Sunday morning! Claire was super excited about her play, and he excitement was contagious for the rest of us. Well, except for Molly, who refused to take part in the dress rehearsal, but who came around when it was time to actually do the play for a real audience.
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you “How Easter Began”…
Bedtime Helper
Last night at bedtime, Molly asked if Claire could give Molly her bath and get her ready for bed. So we went downstairs and asked Claire, who immediately said yes. Claire took care of Molly’s entire bedtime routine, including bath, getting dressed in pajamas, brushing teeth, reading a story, and getting tucked into bed. The only help she needed was a little bit of guidance on shampooing Molly’s hair, which does tend to be dicey at time.
Here is a video of story time. (It’s chopped in the middle to keep it shorter.)
Molly Uses the Potty!
Part of Molly’s bedtime routine is to sit on the toilet for a while. She actually loves her toilet time. She pulls up a step stool with a stack of books and sits on the toilet and looks at her books. Normally we have to put an end to her toilet time after a few minutes because she is just relaxing but not getting ready for bed. But tonight while Molly was browsing books on the toilet, I went off for a minute to check in with Kit. When I got back to Molly, she was yelling, “I went to the potty! I made urine!” Now, Molly has been known to have an active imagination at times, but I did not get the sense she as making this up. She was grinning ear to ear and super excited.
I congratulated Molly on her fine toilet work. After wiping and washing hands, we went back to tell Kit and Claire. Kit screamed really loudly with delight and started jumping around. Molly got super excited too and started doing the same. Personally, I was excited too, but my ears were literally ringing from all the noise. Molly was so proud, though! She said she wanted underwear now, and she thought Santa would know she used the toilet.
Claire, who was in a grouchy mood, initially tried to be excited but get a little irritated, maybe from the noise and/or maybe a little hint of sibling rivalry. This was the first small whiff of sibling rivalry we have ever seen from Claire in her 3 and a half years as a big sister. Claire complained that we were screaming too loud, and we are always asking her and Molly to quiet down if they are anywhere near that loud. (She had a really good point. We were really quite loud.) Claire also said, sourly, “I but you’re going to email everyone in the world!” and then left the room. Later she could complain about having to go out in the hall with just Muffin and her last remaining fish to get some quiet. We had a certain amount of recognizing that Claire uses the toilet many times a day, and nobody ever says anything about it, but when she first did it as a toddler, we were really excited for her. Molly was feeling sympathetic and started a “Claire used the potty!” chant and dance.
No, it’s really just Molly
The girls tend to get worked up at night, reaching their peak of silliness and pure volume right before going to bed. We had always thought of this as the girls “working each other up”. However, this theory was accidentally put to the test this week when Claire was off to stay with Grammy & Grandaddy in Corpus Christi for a few days of winter break. As the evidence clearly demonstrates, it is not “the girls” who get worked up. Molly does it just fine all by herself. In fact, she may go crazier without Claire than with her.
Draggin’
Claire is out of school for two weeks for winter break, and Molly’s school closes early, at 4:30 instead of 6:00, around the holidays. So have been getting back home with the girls before 5:00, over an hour before a normal week day. This extra hour makes a huge difference! We cook together, play, or just hang out. The normal weekday involves nothing but rushing to get dinner on the table and then get right to bed.
Molly and Claire are really enjoying the extra time. They have so much fun just goofing off with each other. I caught a little video clip of one of their games, a kind and gentle dragging game. Originally Claire and Molly wanted to drag Molly by her neck, but they took my advice and adjusted to the torsop-based approach as shown here.
Robot Night Dance
After enjoying the crazy holiday light show at Mozart’s, the girls were feeling a little frisky walking back to the car. They are not usually out walking around when it is completely dark outside. Somehow they stated doing a crazy robot dance in the light of Kit’s phone, and this is what we ended up with.
McG Kids 