First Day of Pre-K

Today is the first day of Pre-Kindergarten.  It is all so much, is it not?

This one short year and she will be in official school, as in, the required kind.  I'm so happy for her.  She has been looking forward to this day for some time, yet I have been all worked up over it.

This morning as I took her in and she walked off to meet up with friends Olivia and Maddy I teared up.  She told me to walk away.  I took some breaths, found a mom to walk out with and did just as my sweet, super excited, independent child asked me to do.

Very fun and exciting times...

Pre-Kindergarten Registration

Yesterday was pre-k registration for Lil Bit.  She'll be going to the same school as last year (for preschool).  It was nice on one hand to have an idea of how the process works and to know who the staff is.  It was nice to sign up for activities and plan ahead.  It's hard though, to know I have one short year of pre-k before my child is officially enrolled in school.  She's grown up so much in the last year and learned so many new things.  I feel like every time I turn around, she's managed something new.  I used to try and write it all down...first steps, first words, first foods, first friends....and now I just hope to catch some big stuff like name writing...even though she writes it backwards. One day she did not recognize her written name and then the next, she's writing it.  It's still nearly illegible enough that most people don't "see" it....but I do...that scribble that looks like an "i" with three "o" looking shapes behind it.

At any rate...I came home from pre-k parent orientation with a bunch of great things to read for the school year.  I look forward to this year, as much as I dread what its end will mean.

Some 4.5 Year Old Favorites

It's been a while since I wrote anything.  I've been busy.  There's work, and for a while, also teaching class.  Then a trip to Mexico followed up with a week camping in Missouri followed up with a week camping in Indiana.  Santa Claus, Indiana to be exact.  Then there's been Lil Bit's summer camp at her schooling which she's enjoyed.  We just received this coming year's school supply list and I'm excited once again about school supply shopping!   Year two....here we go...let's get this Pre-K going!

So I guess I should take some time to write up some things so one day I can read this and think, "oh gosh, you remember that?"

Lil Bit's favorite rides at Holiday World in Santa Claus, IN: the canoes; turkey shooting; the carousel & old time cars are up there!

Her favorite food: still spa-geg-ee followed up by tacos but let's be real...chocolate ice cream and Popsicles.

Favorite pajamas: we just bought 4 new jammies....Paw Patrol seems to be winning.

Favorite lovey: well there's Mr. Snuggles of course though she's dropped the mister; Bulldog or Boo for short (he enjoys the children at Childcare so he usually goes daily, he's very ornery); Horsey the Build-a-Bear stuffed Clydesdale giveaway from last year's baseball game (he's been a contender for favorite since her teacher Mrs. R. brought her real horse Storm to summer camp); the newbies are a fish she won from a Holiday World duck pond game and a Holidog stuffed animal we bought her from there as well.

Favorite show: Gotta be Paw Patrol

Favorite song:  As soon as she hears the guitar ...Do do do da da do do do krsch do do do da da do do do krsch... she knows "Glastonbury, You up for a bit of singing?" is about to come and delight ensues.  I guess maybe Ed Sheeran's cover of Nina Simone's "Be My Husband" may not be the song for a 4 year old but for now she thinks it's an ode to her actual daddy.  I let it go and ya know, I like Ed.  She requests the "daddy daddy" song daily and goes right along.

Things Change Seemingly Overnight

One recent day I talked to Lil Bit about things we were doing that day and it just so happened that Aunt Eva was going to be involved.  It took a moment to realize that as LB said Eva's name she used a V where an S used to be.  I adored the name Aunt Esa and here my baby has grown up enough to now saw Vs?  What happened?  I felt myself crumble a tad.

There have been other things that she says or does that confirms that she's growing up, mastering skills, developing vocabulary and speech at an alarming rate.  I'm rarely one to dumb down word usage for the sake of a child and I try to enunciate things very clearly...I catch her doing these same things as well now.

Even recently, as of the end of the school year (May this year) she started singing the alphabet (I gasped aloud when I heard it).  It is something she refused to work on or sing with me...always messing up and making up her own version missing most of the letters.  I used to joke that she could tell you if a quantity of something was and even or odd amount (very proficient at this by the way) but she couldn't sing her ABC's...a most backwards thing for a small child.  Now she does them both!

I continue to see these skills and I am happy and pleased but saddened that my little girl is growing so quickly, seemingly overnight.

But then, you hear something that makes you realize you have a little time left with your small one...she's still there beneath the big girl facade.

We recently had to use some eye drops for her and this morning she asked, "do I need dry ops for my eyes mom?" and I melted.  I had thought she maybe outgrew that habit she had for a very long time where she mixed up syllables/word order...balloon was laboon; eye drops was dry ops; guitar was target....to name a few.

I suppose it's something I want her to outgrow but for now, for just a little while longer, I want to hold on to my wee sweet preschooler that uses s's where v's should go, and dry ops means eye drops.


I guess now might be a good time to just update things from my last big post at the end of 2014.  This year so far has been jam packed with exciting and new things.  We finished preschool with the greatest of great preschool teachers, Mrs. Reuter.  She was amazing and we loved her guidance.  It was very cool to see LB develop skills like using scissors, targeted coloring (as in, coloring specifically an object as opposed to just all over the place), drawing pictures (I adore her butterflies), numbers, alphabets, colors, Spanish, turn taking, etc.  She's in Summer Camp at the same place (school) and today, Storm, Mrs. Reuter's horse is supposed to make a visit.  It is ALL I have heard about this week!

We finished up dance class this past weekend with a recital at the Wildey Theater.  It was amazing to see her shine on stage...looking forward to rewatching the video with her.  The dance class was fun, beginning in January.  She was a year too young to actually be in the class but she got to stay because she listened well and tried hard...and I think it paid off.  She thought the younger class of girls were "babies".

This past semester I was teaching at SIUE so she spent two nights a week at home with dad.  They usually watched car racing shows and she now says things like, "spinnin' ain't winnin'" and "now that's how you drive".  She has high hopes for her own race car one day (egads)!

Since February she has been sleeping in her own bed, occasionally going through a week long phase where she has bad dreams and ends up in our bed.  I miss her sleeping next to me...but I know supporting this is a good thing.  I'm beyond proud of her.

New Car

I bought a new car on February 21, 2015.  Lil Bit loves it and tells me that since it is so fast cops are going to chase me in it.  It's not really that fast, but in comparison to my previous 13 year old Toyota Matrix it's fast.

Bedtime

I'm sad. Lil Bit decided she wanted to sleep in her own bed tonight.

More Adorable Things

I scared Lil Bit today by saying, "oh my, what is that on your belly?"  It was only a freckle but I guess not knowing what a freckle is could be scary.  So for some time she was asking about "frackles".  Big ones, small ones, non-existent ones...frackles were very important.

The other thing she talked about today was her heart.  "Hey mom, feel right here, my heart is beeping really fast. "  Beeping...I love it!