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.