We’d been attempting to come up with a cool place to have Claire’s birthday party, and we also wanted a place where we’ve not really been to a party. When Claire joined Karate recently, they offered her a free birthday party and we jumped on it. They have a two hour block on a weekend, and we chose today since my schedule isn’t great on Saturday’s this month. Donna set everything up from the cake and balloons to being in charge of RSVPs for Claire’s friends. This morning I ran around to get everything Donna had ordered and we got to Sandoval’s Freestyle Karate at around 1:30PM.

Her friends came at 2PM and Mr Garrett, her regular teacher, had cool activities for the kids while the parents were able to just sit and enjoy ourselves. I ran around shooting photos while they had a mini-lesson including board breaking. Later we all ate pizza and birthday cake before Claire opened her presents (with the help of Raegan!)

While her actual birthday isn’t until Wednesday, she had a wonderful day with her friends today. Next up is making cupcakes for her school party Wednesday, opening family presents Wednesday night, and playing with everything all week with Mimi.

Last summer Claire graduated from survival II swim lessons and entered Bronze Jr level where she began her final training to graduate from survival swim school. She started out really well and excelled by Halloween, but then she began to regress. Her teacher, Miss Maribel, and we were concerned about how she was doing, as she’d have some weeks when she was really on and then weeks where she was a nightmare. Eventually she switched teachers, lesson times, and pools to see if the change would “jump start” whatever was going on. I also stopped sitting in on her lessons. Now I’d go out by the reception area and read, grade or watch TV. Because her lessons were after the regular work day, Donna could come sometimes and would sit in the pool area. She said Claire was doing better in the large pool with Miss Elena at a later time when there weren’t so many students.

Last week Claire was told to wear her shirt, and she did very well going back and forth down the pool. After class Miss Elena told me to have Claire wear pants this week and maybe she could test again. I’d heard this story about half a dozen times since early November but I was still eager because I’d seen her really grow over the last month.

Mama was able to come tonight and we brought the camera and video camera. Claire did the length pretty well for Mr James, the deck manager but she still needed to prove herself a little more. Mr James asked Miss Elena to work with her on some of the basic Silver Jr things (which she’d need to do in the next level), and Claire did very well there. Miss Elena said Claire’s balance in the pool with the new techniques was better than some of her regular students! Eventually Claire convinced Mr James she was ready to move on, and a huge weight was off my shoulders when he finally nodded in agreement that she was safe in the water, could get to the side in a panic situation full dressed, and she was ready to move up to the Silver Jr level where they begin to teach the student proper swimming form, which will eventually lead to the swim team! Donna and I shot several pics on Flickr here, and we also have video to edit and upload later.

Claire and Miss Elena are going to continue on this journey together as Miss Elena agreed to teach Claire Silver Jr as well, at least until summer.

We returned to school on Monday after being off for over two weeks for Spring Break. Before break she always dressed mostly in shorts, jeans or long pants, and whatever shoe fit her fancy. After break she suddenly wanted to wear dresses, have her hair done, and bathe daily.

Mama hates to get up early. This morning Claire announced that she wanted to her hair braided by Mama at about 4:30AM. My wife’s alarm goes off at 7AM. I chuckled and told her to go into our bedroom to ask. I stood quietly by the door to see what my wife’s response would be, because I knew how she’d respond to me! She nicely said “gimme a minute to wake up” and proceeded to get out of bed within minutes. Go figure!

Claire’s taking karate now, which requires her to wear a starched, bleach white karate uniform four days a week. Well, climbing in and out of cars is dirty and so are parking lots. It’s quickly becoming a chore to put on and take off this uniform as we come and go and fit karate in among other things. Today, after karate, we were heading to ASU to pick up a friend. Claire hopped into her car seat and strapped herself in quickly, but as I got on the road she checked with me about where we were going and how we had some errands to run, and then she grabbed a blanket we keep in the back seat and tossed it over her head. I knew she was tired or thought she was playing, but after what seemed like 14 nanoseconds, she tossed off the blanket (almost as if ti cry TADA!) and she was full clothed in a really cute blue plaid short set with pink tank. She smiled at me like she was Helen Slater in that cheesy Supergirl moving from like 1983. Remember the one where Helen Slater was getting a few jobs because her brother was suppose to be the next Jack Nickolson? Anyway, Claire gave me this smile, like “this is how I roll and I’m ready to rock, Dada…”

Helen has her phone booth; Claire has her fleece moose blanket!

Used under (cc) from Mark Owens, 2009.

Disclaimer: No I don’t advocate allowing your 3/4 year old unbuckle her car seat & strip in public.

Claire’s 4 in a few weeks here, but the other day we were forced to give her her own Google Calendar. She’s accumulated enough weekly events that we’ve moved her to her own calendar. Haha yes, with Karate now four times a week, we were both done with her events crowding our own calendar items. Between gymnastics, karate, and swim, this girl’s got it made. Stuff to do all of the time. Our little social butterfly has her fingers in everything, including a brand spanking new own Google Cal. One of her grand mothers with whom we shared it (she’s Google savvy) responded only with “oh yoi”. Now if I can just get Claire to put her own events on the calendar, drive herself there, and get a part time job to pay for it all!

Tonight I headed home early from work so I could work on my English 102 course in WebCT. Of course since I was headed home early today to work, WebCT was down. It’s never bothered me before because I don’t usually use this CMS but this school year I do. This sucked for me. I had 4 out of 20 students emailing me before 3:00PM. So here I was sitting at home, ready to work. Claire was balling because Daddy wanted to watch adult TV instead of her watching some cartoon. I got to a point where I didn’t want to deal anymore, so I told her to get her butt into my bedroom where our small second tv sits. I put in her DVD and hit play. Fifteen minutes later she came out and said she had paused it to go potty and couldn’t turn it back on. She was carrying the remote.

The remote was up on top of the file cabinet where the tv is when I left the room. I asked Claire how she got the remote, and she simply told me “I used my tippy toes”. To her, this was the obvious answer. She couldn’t've been more clear if she just replied with “Doh!” I sat down in the bedroom with her and showed her the play button and the pause button. We put the show back on and I headed back out to the living room. A few minutes later she came back and said she was done watching.

She hung out for a few minutes, and then disappeared. I went in after hearing the tv on. She was in my bed with our blanket pulled up to her chest, chewing on chocolate cookies, and watching a new DVD. I asked what she was doing, and she simply told me that she was watching a new DVD as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

I’ve talked elsewhere about the fact that today’s generation has essentially been born with keyboards & mouses (mice doesn’t sound right here) fused to them. My 21 year old cousin had his hands on a keyboard from the age of 5; he’s now a web designer. Our kids today know a language that didn’t exist when we were young. They don’t know writing on typewriters and mailing letters in odd large metal blue mailboxes. They’ve never needed quarters for payphones.

As for my own child, she enjoys shopping at the Apple store (preferably at Chandler Mall). We’re there often. (Mama says too often.) I will never own PCs again, and we’re quickly becoming a MAC family. Claire loves to play with the Macs at the store. Today she wanted to play the 5-7 year old games, and then she was excited, called me over, and showed me that she’d typed her own name. WOW.

Dan & Madeline moved to Amsterdam in February 2008, and since then I haven’t seen them until today. They called a month ago to say they’d be in AZ around New Year, and we realized our schedule would overlap just for this evening. We flew back from Pittsburgh this morning, got a ride home, picked up the dog, had lunch and watched the Cardinals kill the Falcons before Dan & Madeline got here with dinner.

Their daughters are 2 1/2 and 1 1/2 and Claire’s 3 1/2, so we all figured our house would be better than going out. It was freshly clean since we’d not been here so we quickly agreed for them to bring dinner.

Dan’s an Intel engineer doing an Expat program, and while Madeline’s in Amsterdam she’s picking up another law degree. Lilliane and Amelie are enjoying learning from the nannies and taking in a culture many american children aren’t exposed to at this age. We spoke of family, holidays and work over a nice meal, which was finished with cake and black tea for Dan & I and wine for the ladies. The girls played nicely together after the Mahoney girls realized Claire’s agressiveness was mostly just excitement to have her friends come over. (I know she shouldn’t remember Amelie, but I sure bet she remembers Liilane.)

We talked, enjoyed each other’s company, watch Peyton bite it in HD, and then we all said goodbye so they could head back to the hotel to pack and fly back to the Netherlands tomorrow.

Took Claire skiing on the 23rd, and you know, I thought it was going to be terribly tedious but I didn’t mind it. It had it’s glitches, but that just added to the panache. The day before I kept calling Tiny Tots ski school to get her an early morning private lesson, but I kept getting their voice mail. I left multiple messages, but nothing.

When we got to 7Springs yesterday morning, the lady at Tiny Tots said she had no availability until 1pm. My response was “My family’s been coming here since 1962. My dad worked here for several years. I learned to ski here 32 years ago and both of my siblings learned here, too. My father would like to get my 3 1/2 year old a private lesson. Now what can we do about this?” The lady’s jaw about fell to the floor.

Needless to say, after she spoke with her supervisor, Claire had a lesson 20 minutes later. Miss Kelsey, her teacher, and I dressed her, and then the Tiny Tot’s ladies told me to leave her backpack and boots. They’d be ok right where they were, they said.

Miss Kelsey did the best she could with Claire, but sometimes Claire doesn’t like to listen. She pulls the same stunt with her swim teacher, Miss Maribel. My dad, brother, and I skiied elsewhere so Claire wouldn’t get distracted. And after an hour I went to pick up Claire at the Tiny Tot’s area. Miss Kelsey gave us her report card and told us her strengths. We took a photo of the two of them, and then Miss Kelsey went off for her next lesson. I began dressing Claire, but then went to grab her boots. No boots. Looked around. Checked in her bag. Checked in my bag. No boots. Asked the lady who didn’t remember the boots. Miss Kelsey was asked. She definitely remember the boots since she took them off Claire to put on her ski boots. Still no boots. Finally the manager gave us a smaller pair of rubber boots someone left, so Claire could go to up to lunch with the three of us (who also needed a break). She said to stop by later and check; in the meantime, they’d keep looking.

I dropped Claire off with Uncle Jaime, and I walked over to the lodge where there’s a Willis Ski Shop. Gina, the clerk, said that they in deed sold children’s boots. I found a nice pair in Claire’s size, and Gina offered to hold them for me.

After lunch we tried to the skiing bit again with Claire, but she didn’t want anything to do with it. I finally got her down the mountain and into the lodge. Jaime was changing her clothes, and I ran down to Tiny Tot’s. They did indeed NOT find her boots. The manager Pam apologized profusely and proceeded to refund me the money from her lesson, so I could go upstairs and get “free” $50.00 EMU boots for my kid. Not a bad Christmas from 7Springs. Ho ho ho.