Gardening

Yes, those are Elmo underwear. Fancy boots, huh?

Graduation

Pre-school is officially over. Alyssa's graduation ceremony on Friday night gave me yet another opportunity to prove that I should NEVER, EVER be in charge of capturing these precious moments on film, digital or otherwise. I had the camera perfectly positioned and ready to shoot as she made her grand entrance (with flair, I might add). Perfect photo-op. And then, I pressed the wrong button and turned the camera off. Great job, Mom!

After receiving their "diplomas", each class sang a song, then each kid went to the microphone to answer 2 simple questions: 1) what did you like most about pre-school? and 2) what do you want to be when you grow up? Popular answers to question No. 1 included coloring, playing outside, making friends, etc. Not surprisingly, Alyssa most enjoyed coloring. Question No. 2 elicited aspirations of becoming astronauts, policemen, firefighters, doctors. Alyssa? She wants to be a bunny.

WHAAAT?

I work with a woman whose daughter (now 20'ish) declared at a school function when she was about 5 or 6 years old that she wanted to be a brain surgeon when she grew up. She was ridiculed and pooh-poohed by teachers and fellow students and their parents. Guess what? Some 15 or so years later, said daughter has been accepted into the MD/PhD program in neurosurgery at the University of Illinois. See, this is the kind of stuff that was going through my mind as I awaited Alyssa's turn at the mike. Now all I see are carrots.

The other night, I was picking up around the house and decided it was time to do something with her pre-school homework folder. It had been sitting on the table in the foyer for over a week because there was no homework left to be done and I wasn't ready to part with it. I cleaned it out and then stared at it, wondering if I should save it. After all, it was her first homework folder. What if she gets to be 30 years old and wants to see what her first homework folder looked like? If I throw it away, will I be discarding all of her pre-school memories? In the end, I threw it out. It was empty, after all, because I'd already removed the important papers throughout the year. At any rate, I may be completely inept at camera operation, utterly failing to digitize my first-born's first scholastic milestone. Danny, the master of machinery, did capture this auspicious occasion on video...the summation of Alyssa's formative school years...

Our little bunny.

The Art of Primping

Primping is a process - a skill, if you will. Not only am I a highly skilled primper, I am a master teacher. Effortlessly, I have taught Alyssa that shoes can elicit a range of emotions. Once, I bought her two pairs of shoes in one trip and as we were getting in the car, she declared it to be the luckiest day of her life. On the other hand, the ultimate punishment for her is being forced to wear a certain pair of white sneakers. It's not that they hurt her feet, they just don't match any of her clothes. And, this, my friends, is a sin.

Alyssa is an apprentice who would make any master proud.

After trying on several outfits one day last week (I was having a particularly fat day), I finally settled for the black patterned skirt, black t-shirt and black shoes. Not crazy about the outfit, but whatever. In the end, I received Alyssa's approval, sort of. She stepped back, hesitated, and said, "That's a lot of black you've got going on there. But, I guess it's cute." Yesterday, she looked at my outfit and told me it was really cute. I put on the shoes and she said, "YES!!!!!! I LOVE those shoes!!! You look ADORABLE!" She's 5. (And a half.) One day I promised to get her some Krispy Kremes on the way to school if we had time and she explained to me that if I were to try on only ONE outfit, we would definitely have time. She is way smarter than her mother...every evening, she chooses her next day's outfit, up to and including socks, shoes, and accessories. Sometimes even a headband.

Stella is also entering the primping apprenticeship:

Stella is also interested in shoes...
















I hope my girls realize how lucky they are to be learning the art of getting ready from such a master. Lucky for them, I think they'll have something to show for it whereas all I have to show is that primping makes you late for work.

Ruben Samich Lee

How cute is he? His name is Ruben Samich Lee, and he is the newest member of Nina's family. She and hubby Michael and son Dylan adopted Ruben last weekend and it's been reported that he's as sweet as he looks. This not-so-little guy spent a good amount of time on death row in a shelter but was then transferred to a no-kill shelter where Nina et al found him. His story warms my heart but here's the other part I love...yesterday morning, Dylan said this to Nina: "You know, Mom, it's like something was missing in my life and now I know it was Ruben".

Crackers and Eggs

Here's the great thing about daycare: you never - whoops, I mean ALWAYS - feel guilty setting your kid down in a room with that grouchy Miss Eva who kind of seems to hate kids and is really put out if your baby wants to sit on her lap for a few minutes. So instead you set your baby down by the toys and realize they are dirty and you don't want her to play with them. Then you try to sneak away while she isn't looking (because if you say "bye" she thinks she's going bye-bye with you). Then you're off to work, but you still don't feel guilty - I mean now you feel even worse - because you know it will be fine. I mean, you aren't missing out on anything because they fill out a sheet to let you know everything she did all day: what time she was changed and what was in her diaper each time, what time she napped and what she ate and drank. If you don't get a call during the day about any mishaps and she comes home without scratches or bite marks and her clothes are relatively clean, you know she had a great day. Sometimes when you pick her up, they even complain that her poop was a little runny from the apple juice you've asked them not to give her.

Yesterday was a particularly great day for Stella. I dropped her off as usual at 6:15 (6:30 according to her sheet). In addition to the routine diaper changes, she had breakfast, a snack, lunch, and another snack (I'll describe the menu in a moment because it deserves special mention), and napped from 12-2.

WAIT!!!!! How could she have eaten lunch at 11:00 and a snack at 1:00 while sleeping from 12-2? WAIT!!!!! How could she have done ANY of that if Danny surprised her and picked her up at 9:30 a.m.? I don't know if it could get any worse, but here's the kicker. In addition to "gravymeatballs", "mixveg", and apples, she also had "cearial" and "crakers". I ask you, what in the frick are cearial and crakers? And how can a "teacher" not know that you need a c before the k to soften that a? (Don't even get me started on teachers who don't know that an apostrophe does not make a word plural or don't know the difference between it's and its. Seriously, wouldn’t this be like a chef not knowing how to crack an egg?) I grant you that this is daycare, not higher education, but come on...sorry, tangent over.

The good news is that in just a few short months, Stella will be old enough to attend Alyssa’s school, where the teachers there already know and love her. And they know their grammar! I never, ever feel guilty leaving Alyssa there; in fact, I feel great about leaving her there every day. Summer is here and I think this will be the first time EVER that I am actually looking forward to fall, when I will be able to drop both my babies off and go to work feeling good, no great, about it.

O.M.G!!! Daddy, that's a big thing you've got!
Said the 5-year old about Daddy's new swamp cooler. Yes, Daddy brought home a swamp cooler last night. He said it would be small and unobtrusive, not one of those "big, ginormous" ones. So I was picturing a cute little window unit, like the one I had in my bedroom on Sacramento (the one in Chicago, not Las Vegas). Here's what we've got, and we froze our butts off last night! This thing is supposed to save us some $$ on our power bill...we'll see.

How's my hair look?