This blog has moved to mcgkids.blogspot.com to make room for our new family member! 

Please visit that site to hear the latest adventures of Claire and her baby sister!

More Name Ideas

Claire is as excited as ever about her upcoming little sister, due later this month! We still have not decided on a name for the new little one, and Claire is happy to help brainstorm names. Today over lunch at Artz Rib House with my parents, the conversation went tobaby names. When asked what she thought the baby should be named, Claire suggested "Basil" without hesitation. This was a new idea from her, and it got a chuckle for us all, which irked Claire a bit. Claire followed up with one of her consistent favorites, "Claire". She took care to explain, "There would be two Claires. Claire and Claire!" I asked her if I said, "Hey, Claire", who I would be talking to. She said, "Well, I would think both of us." This kid is hard to stump!

Asleep in the Hall

Claire has always resisted naps. When it is time for a nap at home, she normally stays in her bed but does everything she can to keep herself awake. We can here what is going on in there from the baby monitor we have installed. Claire has conversations with her stuffed animals, complete with distinct voices for herself and the animals. Sometimes the conversations are borrowed from favorite movies. She sings elaborate songs to herself, usually about the events of the day. Sometimes her room gets quiet for 10 to 15 minutes, and just when we think she has dozed off, she suddenly starts singing or yelling really loud, apparently to wake herself back up. We are told that at school she takes an hour or more to put herself to sleep, although she is very congenial about it. Now Claire is old enough to talk to us about it. She tells us that she does not want to go to sleep because she wants to keep playing. (I cannot blame her for this behavior since I do the same thing, only instead of talking or singing to myself, I fortunately entertain myself with the computer or an audio book.)

Today Claire was obviously exhausted when nap time came around. She spent about an hour talking and singing to herself before it got quiet in her room. After another 20 minutes, I went to see if she was in fact asleep. Sure enough, she was asleep -- in the hallway outside of her room! I went and got Kit to see this unexpected situation. Not wanting to disturb her sleep, we left her alone and went back upstairs to work on a few things to prepare for the new baby. When we came back downstairs a half hour later, Claire was back in her bed sound asleep. It is hard to imagine Claire picking herself up, walking back into her room, and putting herself to sleep. But I can only assume the stuffed animals did not carry her back to bed.

Little Sister, Coming Soon

Claire has been very excited about the upcoming new baby ever since we explained to her why Kit's tummy was getting bigger a couple of months ago. Claire has ranged from mild curiosity about the baby ("When will it come out and see us? How will it get out of there?") to impatience ("I want to open Mommy's tummy and see the baby now!"). She has tried to help name the baby, with "Ansista" being her most original and consistent choice. Claire speaks often about how she will help take care of the baby by feeding it and showing it how to do things like cook and jump.

We had some early incidents when Claire bumped up against Kit's tummy while playing, so we had to give Claire specific instructions to be very careful around the bump. Now Claire is extremely cautious and gentle around Kit, and last night she make her way up to Kit's tummy and kissed it ever so gently. Then she just kept kissing it. We said, "Okay, thanks, that's enough," but she said she wanted to kiss the baby ten times, and that she did. We asked Claire if she wanted to say anything to the baby, and she gently patted the bump and said, "What are you doin' in there?" with a little smile on her face.

I know the new baby will not always be easy on Claire. For one, Claire is going to have to learn to get along without quite as much dedicated attention. But so far, Claire is off to about as good of a start accepting her little sister as we could have hoped for. We are very proud of big sister Claire.

Kit and I are not doing as well. We have have been too busy and/or exhausted to prepare, and we are struggling just to get a crib set up, much less get any basic baby supplies in place. I also have a small pile of books to re-read about babies (we already forgot the details of what to do with babies) plus some new books on siblings. None of them have been cracked yet. We will find figure it out, but it may be more of an on-the-job training than we had hoped for. We are glad that Claire, at least, is ready for the new baby.

Panda on the Loose

The new school year started today for Claire. She has graduated to the next class, and is now officially a Panda. This is good since Claire is now with her own age group. She had spent the first few weeks in the Colts classroom with slightly older kids since they had a random spot open just to get her through the summer.

Claire may benefit from having more girls in her new classroom as compared to the Colts, where there were only three girls to about a dozen boys. However, she will leave behind some friends, including her very favorite twins, Alex and Leo, who she seems to follow around and literally pull their arms towards her to make them play with her.

Claire's new teacher writes a little summary of all the kids' days, which is helpful. Apparently today Claire ate "some" of her lunch (just the muffin and bluberries), but she was too busy talking to do much eating. (One of her Colts teachers had also remarked that she "treats lunch time as sort of a social hour.") Claire's new teacher circled "cheerful", "silly", and "talkative" to describe Claire's mood today. I am glad Claire had a good day, especially since she is a little sick. If I were to fill out the same form for tonight, I would have circled "cuddly" and "frustrated".

Flippin' Out at Flipnotics

How did we end up with the wild kid at storytime? Claire is the blur in the brown dress trying to get a mosh pit going.



Hats off to Laura Freeman for her inspired performance at Flipnotics. She really knew how to get the kids -- or at least Claire -- going.

Finally, a Real Kid Bed

Kit and I had been shopping around for a crib for the upcoming new baby. While looking at various baby furniture stores, we saw lots of cute little toddler beds. We had no practical reason to move Claire out of her current bed, which is her original crib converted into a toddle bed. The problem is, we really liked the purpose-built toddler beds in the stores, and we thought Claire deserved a real bed. We also thought somehow we should get Claire a new bed since the baby was getting a new crib. Plus the beds were on sale for a great price. We probably came up with a few more justifications to pile on top of those. You can see where this is going...

Ladies and gentlemen, here is Claire's new big-girl bed!



Disassembling Claire's old bed made us surprisingly nostalgic. We thought maybe her crib would see new life with the second baby, but logistics in the new house are forcing us to get a mini-crib for the new baby. So the bed that Claire learned to sleep in (or perhaps more accurately learned not to sleep in) may be going to a needy kid at the nearby Goodwill store soon. So long, old convertible crib. You served Claire well through three years and three cities.



For the record, Claire and her new teddy bear, Corduroy, fell asleep fast and sound the first night in their new bed.

290 Express

Taking advantage of our new closer proximity to Houston, Claire and I made a quick road trip to see my parents this weekend. We left Kit back in Austin for some seriously overdue R&R. Kit was reluctant to let us go and wanted to talk on the phone a couple of times each day. She was usually waking up or falling asleep from a nap whenever we talked to her, so apparently the forced respite was a good idea.

Claire and I got to Houston in no time. We entertained ourselves in the car by listening to audio books, namely The Cat in the Hat and How the Grinch Stole Christmas, selections inspired by her recent fascination with another Dr. Seuss story. On the way back, Claire fell asleep for about half the trip and estimated that the whole trip took about 10 minutes.

We had some good adventures during our one-night visit to Houston. Claire got to play with my mom, briefly visit Discovery Green downtown, escape a sudden and unexpected rainstorm downtown, go out to eat in soaking wet clothes, consume an entire ear of roasted corn, dry off, go swimming, dry off again, and fall sleep on a giant inflatable bed.

"I want to go back to Houston!" she would say more than a few times after getting home. Yes, Austin has a lot to offer, but two things it will not give you are her grandparents and (at least this summer) a good fun rainstorm.

No no no no no no no no

As I have stated before, this blog is more about the highlights than the lowlights of raising Claire, so much so that when I go back and read this in 10 years, it will probably seem like even the "terrible threes" was nothing but fun. As sort of a reality check, I like to toss in the occasional reminder that raising Claire is not always 100% fun and sweet. This is the type of thing that happens from time to time...

Tonight, Claire wanted to do some pretend cooking with her playdough. Hey, that's a great idea. So I set her up with a couple of varieties of playdough and a some plastic plates and cups. That made Claire pretty happy, and then she asked for a spoon. I gave her sort of a leftover spoon that we don't normally eat with. That way, she was not going to confuse her "playing" spoon with an actual "eating" spoon. When I handed Claire the spoon, she said she wanted a real eating spoon. I told her no, sorry, but we use the playing spoon for playdough. Usually Claire respects this type of rule reluctantly by peaceably. But not tonight. Claire suddenly started yelling "no no no no no no no no no no no no no no" over and over. It went on for literally 30 minutes, with her just sitting there in front of her playdough yelling "no" over and over. I did a few things around the house. Still, "no no no no no!" Finally I asked her to help cook our actual dinner, and that broke the cycle. She was happy again.

Kit gets this treatment much worse than I do. Kit can say, "Look, the sky is blue," and Claire will respond, "No, it's not blue. Why did you say the sky is blue?!" in a rather annoyed tone. They say this is a preview of the teenage years, and I can believe it.

P as in "prenatal"

Claire came home from school the other day with a big white envelope and some brief instructions to fill it with with things starting with P or J. This is, of course, to help kids learn about the different letters and how they apply to real-world situations. We left most of the work up to Claire, and she quickly divined than we should fill her bag with a pen, a pencil, a penny, and some nail polish. The next morning before school, she said excitedly, "I know! Piano!" Then she hurried over to her little toy piano (a small plastic keyboard, really) and dumped it in the bag. We never came up with any J words, at least not ones we had laying around the house that would fit in an envelope.

Tonight over dinner, Kit and I were asking Claire what "P" objects that the other kids found. She mumbled a couple of things, then suddenly blurted out, "I know! Prenatal! I should bring your pills to school, Mom!" I wish she had. I think it is safe to say she would have been the first kid to bring prenatal pills to school for this exercise.

By the way, I think this was Claire's first real homework assignment. Actually, she did a different pair of letters, I think B and H, a couple of weeks ago.

Our Hero Horton

When we moved to Austin, we were the beneficiaries of free HBO for a couple of fleeting days. With access to all those great movies, we recorded as much as possible to the DVR. One such movie was Dr. Seuss's Horton Hears a Who!, which somebody (Kit's dad?) decided to record. How lucky for Claire.

Claire watched this movie the first time with Kit's dad. She seemed to enjoy it, but she forgot about it pretty quickly. A week or two later, we had it on again for some reason. This time, it really clicked for Claire. I mean, really clicked. It has literally been the only thing she has watched on TV for the last three or four weeks. She has lost interest in all other shows. I tried to get her to watch some other shows over breakfast such as her old favorites The Little Einsteins, Olivia, or the newcomer Special Agent Oso. But Claire has none of it. "I want to see Horton," she always explains. It's not worth fighting over, and Horton really is a great movie, so what the heck.

Horton may have even surpassed the cast-induced obsession Finding Nemo as her favorite movie, and that is saying something. And I can see where Claire is coming from. These movies get better with each viewing. After a while, you start to feel a special attachment to the characters, like they are part of the family. And you start to appreciate some of the unnoticed funny lines and small details that are crammed into these quick movies. Come to think of it, I haven't seen anything else except Horton for the past three weeks either!

By the way, we also got the original Dr. Seuss book that the movie is based on. To my surprise, much of the fine rhyming narration from the movie is actually not in the book. I assumed that all the charming, melodic narration was take straight from the book, but most of it is not. Also, the movie adds a whole lot of character development that is not in the book. It seems that screenwriters Ken Daurio and Cinco Paul (according to IMDB) may have out-Seuss'ed the beloved Dr. Seuss!

Changing Tide

About a year ago, Claire was having an awful time with her baths. Every night was a trial of patience and nerves. Since then, things have gradually gotten a little better, but no more so than since the move to the new house in Austin. Now the only problem is getting her out of the bath! Maybe it is the new fresher, nicer bathroom with the sunroof, or maybe the just general change of scenery. It really seemed to pick up after our trip to Barton Springs, for whatever reason. Anyways, she loves her baths now.

Claire has also gotten a lot more adventurous in the bath. She is now swimming, splashing, sticking her face in the water, blowing bubbles, and playing with the drain. She may be getting a little too comfortable. She insists that it is really not dangerous to run and jump in the tub. I finally told her that if she slipped and fell, she might have to go to the hospital and get a cast like with her bounce house accident. Yes, I pulled the bounce house card. I felt a little bad using a scare tactic, but it is an honest argument, and it did the trick. No more running and jumping in the tub!

TODO: Need bath or towel pic

Love that Pen!

Claire has never really had a true lovie, comfort item, or whatever you want to call it. There has never been a consistent object that she would not part with, she wanted to bring to bed, and she looked for the first thing in the morning. The usual suspects have failed the test. She likes her stuffed animals well enough, but they are really just regular toys that end up getting scattered around her room and then summarily ignored. She likes her purple sleep blanket, but she does not normally use it outside of sleep time.

So imagine our surprise when Claire developed a strong, dedicated attachment to a pen. Actually, it's a highlighter. A green one. But we call it a pen.

She tracks this pen with great dedication. She holds it in the car seat on the way to school. She walks it to the front door of the school, where I finally collect it from her. She asks who is going to pick her up, and which car we will be in. If the afternoon car is different than the morning car, then she asks if we can possibly transfer her green pen to the other car so she can have it immediately after school. At night, she always holds her green pen during story time and puts it down on the floor right next to the bed when it is time to turn out the lights. Occasionally there is a small panic if we cannot find said pen before bedtime. It is truly a lovie. Except she is not allowed to cuddle with it in bed. You know, because of the pen marks and all.

This pen is the sister of a purple highlighter Claire's her mom gave her for entertainment in the hospital when she broke her leg. I think that was the seed for why this pen is special. Claire quickly dried the purple one of ink, and we ended up giving her the green one as a replacement. She quickly dried the green one of ink too, but she still carries it around and has not lost interest yet.

Publisher's Note: On the night of July 30, 2009, Claire really, really lost her green pen. However, by pure luck, she was distracted by some new Horton Hears a Who! finger puppets, which she took to bed in her pen's stead. Over the next week or so, the finger puppets have yielded to a "squiggly straw" as her new comfort item. So we are officially over the missing green pen. But that pen definitely held the record by far for number of days as Claire's lovie.

Pack Rat

We spent a good part of the weekend preparing for the move to Austin, with the help of Kit's parents. Claire has mostly busied herself with packing and unpacking various bags. Her favorites, by far, are her backpacks.

Backpacks have been a long-standing amusement for Claire. She spends a lot of time stuffing them to the seams with whatever toys she has on hand, plus maybe a twig or two (another favorite). Several weeks or months later, out of her backpack comes a missing toy, such as Leo from Little Einsteins or that one puzzle piece we had been looking for. She has also lately learned to add load on the outside of her backpacks, by attaching a balloon or a stuffed animal with a string.

But today she took her backpack stuffing to new levels when she asked us to help her put her little backpack, already stuffed to the brim with detritus, inside the other backpack. "Will you help me put my backpack in my backpack?" were her exact words. Common sense took over pretty quickly, though, and we were able to talk her down from this idea. However, she did manage to load up her big backpack to the point where she was literally unable to get up. She kept struggling to stand up from a sitting position on the floor, and was only able to get up with a helping hand or two.

Office Worker

For a few months now, I have been promising Claire that I would take her to see my office. She has been to Kit's office at the hospital a couple of times, and she really enjoyed it. Claire knows I am not a doctor, and simply refers to me as an "office worker." Hey, that's senior office worker to you!

With time running out before the move to Austin, I finally decided to take her out to the office. We spent about half an hour looking at my cubicle and wandering the halls. Claire liked the names posted outside of people's cubicles and asked if a "Joe" worked here. So we walked down the hall to see. The closest we got was Bud. The other names tended to be a little more exotic, such as Senthil and Thuy.

Claire's favorite room was the conference room, which had lots of soft, rolling chairs and a big white board. Here is Claire pretenting to be a project manager:



Claire actually managed to put the fun back into project management!

Goin' for Ice Cream

Here is some more footage thanks to the new Flip Video camera. Claire has her leg cast off, but she it still walking a little funny on the left leg.

Goodbye, Cast!

Claire finally got her full leg cast off today. She has been as cool as a cucumber about her cast for the last three or four weeks. Once we explained that her cast was there to help her leg heal, but she would have to wait for it to work, she never complained about it. She just ambled around with one leg sticking out funny.

Today that all ended, and once again we got to see her left leg in its full glory. The process of taking her cast off -- where they take that loud power saw and tear through the cast towards her flesh -- did not go so well. There was screaming and resisting and crying. No amount of reassurance could convince this three year old kid that the power saw cutting into her leg was "okay." Once it was over, Claire, in tears, said she wanted to see the other doctor instead, meaning the one who shows her the x-ray of her leg and talks to her about it.

The "nice" doctor said her leg was fully healed, and gave her the green light to walk and jump and do whatever she wanted. After a nice bath back at home -- her first real soaking bath in weeks -- Claire spent a few hours getting comfortable walking on her leg. Eventually she was fine with it, if a little slow. I dropped her off at day care for a couple of hours towards the end of the day. When I went to pick her up again, she was in the play room playing a game called "fall down on the ground" with her best friend Catherine. The game involved repeatedly crashing down on the carpet and getting back up (on her healed leg) to do it again. This kid is okay!

Here is Claire working the room with the "nice" doctor after her leg had been freed.

Dream Day

Somehow Claire and Kit got into a conversation about Claire's perfect day. Claire described it as:

1. Her cast would be off so she could walk wherever she wants
2. There would be no pond monsters (who are from her favorite scary book, The Dark, Dark NIght, and have been haunting her dreams)
3. We would go to Chick-fil-a (probably more for the playground than the food)
4. We would all go get ice cream.

I bet if she really thought about it hard, she would also probably include no nap and staying up playing as late as she wants. I picture a bloated, exhausted, and sweaty Claire snoozing on the floor in the living room, which of course is a sign of a truly good day.

Cast Conversation

This is Claire telling the story of the cast on her leg. At this point, she has had the cast on for about three of her planned four weeks. She says her leg still hurts here, but of the many times I have asked her that question, this is the only time she has said it still hurts.



Also, kudos to the new Flip Video camera, which takes even better ;-) footage than my cell phone.

Ouch!

On Sunday afternoon, I took Claire and Muffin for what I thought was going to be a simple walk down Turtle Creek to Reverchon Park. Unfortunately, this innocent walk turned into a broken leg for poor Claire, all day Monday at the hospital getting her fixed up, and several weeks in a full-leg cast. So, not a good day.

Kit was off at work. After Claire woke up from her nap around 4:30, I decided to do something productive with that dubious time between nap and dinner, so I decided to take Muffin for a bath. This has been on the to-do list for weeks, but Muffin's hygiene had repeatedly been pushed to the bottom of the list. Her white hair was turning yellowish now, and it was really time to get her clean.

When we pulled up to Dirty Gawgz, the self-serve dog wash place, it was closed -- out of business. Muffin was out of luck again! Rather than just go straight home, I decided it would be fun for everyone to go for a little walk along nearby Turtle Creek. Muffin was very excited about the idea, but Claire was only luke warm. I think she said she would rather go get some ice cream. In retrospect, I wish I had listened to Claire.

We walked down the creek for about a half mile when we hit Reverchon Park and started to hear a crowd and some music. It was a festival of some sort. The minute I saw the inflatable "bounce house", I nearly turned back before Claire (with her lower profile) could see it. I knew Claire would really, really want to go play in the bounce house, as she had enthusiastically done at many birthday parties. But I was not really "up" for a fair and not excited about keeping track of Claire and Muffin by myself in a crowded park. Just as I completed that thought, Claire saw the bounce house and yelled, "I want to go there!" I considered telling her we didn't have time, or something along those lines. But the fact was that we did have time, and the only thing keeping me from letting her play was my own lack of energy and/or adventurism. Isn't this the kind of thing childhood is all about? Stumbling apon a fair on a nice Sunday afternoon and getting to go play for a while? In retrospect, just this once, I wish my grumpier and more hesitant side had prevailed. But it did not.

We did a couple of arts and crafts first, to sort of warm up to the fair. But there was no line for the bounce house, so we headed that way soon. In fact, nobody was even watching the bounce house. Claire crawled in with two or three other little kids about her age and started doing her thing. Several minutes later, a pair of older boys crawled in. They were maybe 8 or 10 years old. Their size made me a little uneasy, but everything seemed fine as the older boys gave the littler kids some extra space. Even if I really wanted to, I had no good way of getting Claire out of there. The entryway was too small for me to climb in and grab Claire. Plus I had Muffin to keep track of. And have you ever tried talking a kid out of a bounce house? That must be like trying to talk a fish out of the water.

Then it happened. Claire fell down, as she had may times before in these bounce houses. But this time one of the big kids landed on her leg. Claire screamed and started crying. Everyone stopped bouncing. I pushed through to the entryway but again could not get in to rescue Claire, who was laying down grabbing her left knee and crying. The big kid looked confused and just said, "What happened?"

Claire dragged herself over to me at the entryway, crying. I picked her up and hugged her. I had completely forgotten about Muffin. Fortunately, Muffin is not the type of dog to run off. Plus a nice little girl had stepped on her leash to keep her from getting away. This was the only help I received from anyone during the whole ordeal at the park.

At this point, I did not know Claire's tibia was broken. It turns out when you break a bone, it does not necessarily make an audible "crack" sound or any other obvious sign of breakage. I thought it was just a "normal" injury, as in "Ouch, someone bonked my leg!", or worst case some sort of twist or sprain. After a few minutes, Claire has stopped crying, and I tried getting her to stand up so she could walk back with me. We had been through many seemingly similar situations over the years, and the standard drill I had worked out is to say sorry that hurt, now let's move on and not wallow in it. But even though Claire had stopped crying, she would absolutely not put any weight on her left leg, and I ended up carrying her and walking Muffin back to the car.

One I got home, I called Kit to let her know what happened and to get her medical perspective. Claire was in decent spirits, but she would not walk. She was just happily watching TV while I talked to Kit. But Kit came home to check out the situation. Thinking it was still some sort of sprain, we put Claire to bed that night with one Tylenol to help ensure a good night's sleep and waited to see how her leg was feeling in the morning.

Monday morning came, and she still would not put any weight on her leg. I took Claire to her regular pediatrician that morning. Claire was very excited about seeing the pediatrician because she usually gets a lollipop at the end of her visit. The pediatrician -- much to my surprise -- told me to take Claire to the emergency room! She said it was possible the leg or knee had a fracture or tear, and the ER would be able to do an x-ray and determine what was really wrong. We got back in the car, and Claire said, "Bummer." I asked her if she was bummed about going to the hospital. She said no, it was not that. She was bummed because we forgot to get a lollipop from the pediatrician! Feeling guilty and knowing that we would be in for a long day at the ER, I got Claire a milkshake from the McDonald's drive-through on the way to the hospital.

We went to the ER right by where Kit worked so she could come visit us and help provide some more seasoned medical perspective. Claire and I were very glad to see Kit. She made us both feel better from the shock of actually being in the ER, and she got to look at the x-rays to see what was really happening. After several hours of waiting, x-rays, more waiting, talking, taking calls from work, more exams, and more waiting, we left the hospital around 5:30 pm with a full-leg cast on Claire's left-leg. Kit went back to the hospital to finish up her work late that night.

Amazingly, through this long day of boredom and uncertainty, without a nap or a regular meal, Claire stayed almost entirely calm. She had a few short moments of frustration and eagerness, but for the vast majority of the day, she showed amazing steadiness and maturity. At one point later that night, looking at our sweet little girl in a full leg cast, I started to tear up. Claire saw this and said, with genuine curiosity, "Why are you crying, Daddy? I'm not crying, and my leg is hurt. See?"

Not knowing if Claire could even put any weight on her leg, we were not going to just send her right to daycare the next morning. I had already missed a full day or work and canceled several meetings, with several more scheduled tomorrow. This ordeal was not only rearranging my own schedule, but some of my peers at work as well. So we called Kit's parents late Monday night. They were on their way back to Texas from a long trip to the Northwest. They were in Kansas and said they could be in Dallas by 3 am so they could watch Claire on Tuesday. They snuck into the house undetected in the middle of the night and were ready to take over Claire duty in the morning. Their showing up on such short notice helped keep this difficult situation under control. My parents were unavailable because my dad was back in Houston recovering from a dislocated shoulder, which like Claire, he had suffered while out with me having "fun" (in this case working out) in uptown Dallas. I am bad luck, people.

Claire slept well, and when we woke her up the next morning, she saw her cast and said, "Can we take this off now?" That's when Kit and I explained that the cast was going to help her leg heal, and she needed to leave it on until June or July to make sure her leg was okay. Claire listened paitently and accepted the news calmly. Until we got the new routine figured out and saw a specialist who would tell us exactly if and when Claire should walk around, we settled into a new routine which involved a lot of carrying Claire around and letting her watch a lot of TV, including her new obsession, Finding Nemo. I wonder if she will forever think of that movie as the "broken leg" movie.

That first day at home with Grammy, Claire scribbled a long note. She said it says, "Dear Mommy, thank you for coming to the emergency room with me and Daddy. And Daddy, thank you for loving us!" She and I really did appreciate having Doctor Mom with us at the emergency room.