T Minus 10

It's not like I've been off doing anything important for the last two weeks, like having a baby or anything like some overachievers I know (hi sis!), but here's the thing: I've been in full High Avoidance Mode lately. Because here's why -- in 10 days, Shae will be graduating from preschool. GRADUATING. She started preschool pretty quietly, without much ado, but her graduation is going to be a Big Damn Deal, complete with cap and gown and grandparents in attendance and the whole nine yards. And then after that, KINDERGARTEN.

MY KID IS GOING TO START KINDERGARTEN IN LESS THAN THREE MONTHS AND I AM STARTING TO FEEL FAINT AGAIN AND I HAVE TO PUT MY HEAD BETWEEN MY LEGS BECAUSE I AM HYPERVENTILATING AGAIN.

Quick: let's distract ourselves, shall we? Because I get all choked up just thinking about it, and I just can't right now.

The waterpark -- excuse me, sprayground --  down the street is open already, but it's been so hot lately that it's been insanely crowded, plus all the big kids are out of school already, and I just can't deal with that mess, so we did what any civilized person would do and got out the hose. (PS THAT LITTLE GIRL IS LESS THAN THREE MONTHS AWAY FROM BEING IN KINDERGARTEN Y'ALL WHAT DID I DO WITH MY INHALER?)

If only we had water pressure. Oh, the things we would do to this house, if only we had $248 million.

Still, we can always manage to have a good time. That's the nice thing about being 5 years old, I suppose: easily entertained.

Hey, how did that picture sneak in there?

And that one?

But -- and here's the good news -- the day after graduation we're going out to visit my sister and brother-in-law and Joey and the new baby and take lots and lots of pictures and I will be able to pretend, just for a little while, that I live in a house full of wee ones who are going to stay little forever and never get old.

PARTY TIME! EXCELLENT!

Someone went and turned five without my permission. I am not ready to be the parent of a school-age child. It makes me feel so old.

She's kind of smug about it, actually, but I'll forgive her this ONE TIME because she's so cute.

She wanted to start kindergarten yesterday morning. Because when you're five, you get to go to kindergarten. Could you just die?

We had a piñata at the party but we didn't get very good pictures, but we did get a great shot of the Oogie's Ice Cream truck, which judging from the response of the crowd is maybe the single greatest thing that ever existed in the entire history of the whole wide world.

I'm kind of inclined to agree, myself. Who doesn't love an ice cream truck? Nobody I want to know.

The only bummer about her party was that it was cold, maybe 40°F. But nobody minded, really, because there was an ice cream truck.

At least sometimes she's still my little girl.

Here Come The Sobs

OH. MY GOD. YOU GUYS.

I know it's been like two weeks, and I have so much to talk about! I could tell you all about school -- which, BTW, I should probably have written the last part of that last sentence as "... I have so much about which to talk," but whatever -- or I could tell you about work or I could tell you about my very recent truly traumatic experience at kindergarten (!!!) orientation (???) or I could tell you about how my neighbors' approximately 178 kittens have been hanging out on my porch making me pretty much The Simpsons' Crazy Cat Lady.

But.

Instead let me tell you about how a quick, spur-of-the-moment decision to play dress-up with my kid just about gave me a nervous breakdown. How about that, instead?

You may remember that approximately 142½ years ago -- okay, it was 2½ years ago, but it FEELS like it was very very long ago -- Shae was the flower girl in my sister's wedding. She wore a love white dress that was about eleventy sizes too big because she was two years old then, and the dress was a size 4T, because that was the best we could do. Shae's just about a month shy of five years old, and she's LITERALLY four feet tall now, and she wears a size 6 or a 7 because we need everything to be long enough to cover her ankles and her belly button, but I was looking for something in her armoire at bedtime -- don't ask me what, because I can't remember -- and I caught a glimpse of Ye Olde Flowere Girle Dresse out of the corner of my eye, and I know, "What the heck? Let's see if it still fits!"

  

And lo and behold,whaddaya know? It still does! It's significantly shorter than it used to be -- way back when, it went almost down to the floor, and now it's above the knees, and it looks kind of like some kind of empire-waisted babydoll thingy, and it's definitely tight in the armpits because Shae's shoulders are broader than they used to be -- but we could zip it up fine. She had room in it, even. And while she was twirling around her room and putting on her white Easter shoes from last year (the ones that definitely DON'T fit any more, and can I just tell you how much I HATE buying white shoes every Easter?), I got what I thought was a brilliant idea.

  

I got out my veil, from my wedding ensemble, which we played with before. And I don't know how it happened, I must have stopped paying attention for a second, or I blinked, or something, but when I looked again ...

  

 ... my little girl was standing there ...

  

 ... with chocolate still on her face from an ice cream sandwich she had eaten earlier ...

 

... and she was about to get married. And I needed to lie down for a while.

  

WHAT IS HAPPENING? HOW LONG HAVE I BEEN AWAY?

Wummer

"Wummer" was the alternate suggestion for "S'Winter" (again, TM Phineas & Ferb), and since these pictures are from the same day, I figured I'd just go with it. As should you, if you know what's good for you.

I still have to finish going through all the pictures from last Saturday when it snowed -- I got as far as picture 92, but I took more than 250 -- but I had homework due for class on Monday. HOMEWORK. That's such a weird concept after 16 years of no homework.

Took this picture with my cell phone, and it's lightly processed (softening filter and then whatever it is that Instagram does), but it's still one of my favorites from the day. I am not a huge fan of snow, but I really love how Shae gets SO EXCITED when it comes.

And as much as I am still undecided on the hot pink snow pants -- because DEAR LORD ARE THEY BRIGHT -- they sure do make for some spectacular snow angels. (Also, you can see a bit of green hood peeking out -- that's from a 15-year old Eagles sweatshirt that's, like, 4th generation inherited, and Shae recently said it was her favorite shirt in the world.)

But this -- THIS is the best part of a snowy weekend day. When you have to get up for work in the morning and you have to deal with traffic snarls and the like, you can't really enjoy a snow day in quite the same way that you can when it's a Saturday and you can wake up gradually and stuff yourselves full of homemade chocolate chip and/or blueberry waffles and crispy bacon and tea and hot cocoa before you go out to shovel and play.

Maybe if it snowed more often on weekends when we don't have to rush around, I could learn to love the snow. (But probably never the hot-pink snow pants.)

Attack Of The 50-Foot 4-Year-Old

We start swimming lessons on Sunday, and we spent 20 minutes tonight trying on approximately 538 bathing suits to see what still fits, because it turns out that one of the primary requirements for swimming lessons is a bathing suit. Preferably one that covers all of one's important bits and that does not give one a perma-wedgie.

You would think this would not be excessively difficult, since it was summer just 15 minutes ago, but -- wait, WHAT? Has it really been 15 WEEKS since Shae's put on a bathing suit? REALLY? 15 weeks and two missing teeth ago? DEAR LORD.

(Gratuitous pictures of my kid's missing teeth are gratuitous.)

So. Anyway. It's seems I've gone and overcommitted myself again, what with the OT at work and the new grad student orientation and the classes and the whatever the hell else I have scheduled which I can't even remember what it is any more, so OF COURSE we waited until practically the last minute to make sure we had a bathing suit. We tried on every suit she wore all summer, and -- SPOILER ALERT -- let's just say its a good thing we have a membership to Costco, where they sell swimsuits even at this time of year, because we have maybe 2½ suits that still fit, and at the rate this kid is growing, at least 1½ of them are going to be questionable by the end of the winter, I think. My niece is getting at least half a dozen hand-me-down suits, which will probably not fit her until she's 4 years old, because she? Is a normal-sized child, and not the Jolly Green Giant, like my kid is.

Shae is going to be 5 in less than three months, and by that time, she's going to be fully four feet tall. I'm 37, and I'm only five feet tall when I am wearing shoes with a nice thick sole. She's going to be taller than I am by the time she starts second grade. Maybe sooner, if the way she's been eating lately is any indication. We joke that her tapeworm has a hollow leg, because she just eats so much, but HONESTLY. There don't seem to be enough cheese and fruit snacks in the world to keep her belly full, and every morning I swear to God she's a little bit taller. I can hear her sprouting and spurting in her sleep.

I JUST CAN'T EVEN WITH THIS KID AND HER GROWING.

Super Hero Girl

We've been watching A LOT of "The Power Puff Girls" in our house, so it was only a matter of time before we started wearing our blankie like a cape.

Okay, sometimes we look a little cult-y, but then again, this is a kid who calls my niece her "sister-cousin" and my nephew her "brother-cousin," so.

Still, it's a great thing to watch her tap into her inner super powers and go careering around the house, pretending to fly.

And she understands that with great power comes great responsibility, so there's that, too.

And honestly, she's already MY hero half the time, so she might as well be someone else's, too, even if that someone else is just herself.

Surprise Cake Face

You guys, these pictures are SO DAMN OLD (taken on 10/1) that I had forgotten I even had them.

October 1st was Shae's half-birthday. Yeah, I know we're grasping at straws, but it's been a while since we had a birthday - the last one was G's birthday, way back on August 28th. So we let Shae pick out a cupcake so we could have a little "party." There were all kinds of cupcakes decorated with footballs and baseballs and Phillies logos - remember, this was way back at the beginning of the playoffs, when we still had high-cherry-pie-in-the-sky-hopes - and even a couple that looked like the Phillie Phanatic.

But she picked out this one, a Halloween-decorated number, with purple icing and a ghost-shaped Peep and a little decorative pick that said "Boo" on it, which she didn't even noticed because OMG YOU GUYS PURPLE ICING AND A GIANT PIECE OF CANDY WHOOOOOOO! The "Boo" pick was my favorite part, because we still call her Boo at home (after Boo from Monsters Inc. and also Boo-Boo Kitty from Laverne & Shirley. I AM OLD SHUT UP GET OFF MY LAWN.)

Yes, she is kissing the Peep that she is about to stuff into her mouth. This kid has a very bizarre romantic relationship with her food. Whatever. My sister once wanted to marry a Brussels sprout or a broccoli, I can't remember which, so it's not like messed-up relationships with food are unheard of in my family. (Now that I think about it, my sister was around this age at the time that she fell in love with a vegetable, so maybe it's just preschoolers, and not something hereditary.)

Anyway: Happy Friday! And Happy Surprise Cake Face Day!

PS - Purple cupcake frosting? DOES NOT COME OUT OF ANYTHING.

Legends of the Fall

YOU GUYS! Let's pretend we like autumn! (The season autumn, and not my COUSIN Autumn, whom I love with all my heart and soul, and I'm not just saying that because her sister would totally kick my ass. Autumn-the-Person rocks. Autumn-the-season sucks. Carry on.)

There are things ABOUT the fall that I love -- when the leaves change color and turn those lovely shades of pink and bronze and gold, being able to turn off the air conditioner but not having to immediately turn on the heat, Halloween candy.

And I like making soups and stews and roasts and casseroles in the crock pot and the oven, and busting out the bread machine, and spending Sundays in a house that smells so delicious that I sometimes consider gnawing on some of the old lead paint.

But I DON'T like when it starts to get cold and damp and wet and windy and all the leaves start to fall off the trees and they turn to mulch right there on the grass and the branches are all naked and sad and creepy.

And, yes, my kid gets no end of amusement playing outside when the weather changes, when you can tolerate the fresh air for more than 15 seconds without dissolving into a sweat puddle on the ground where you stand.

And also, she loves dressing up in her costume and going door-to-door with her little trick-or-treat bag, so naïve that she fails to notice that I have been secretly hiding the mini Twix bars in my pocket for the last half hour.

By the way, you guys, if she ever finds out about the Twix bars, you're all out of the will. And it won't work, anyway, because then I'll just start stealing the Kit-Kats and the Milky Way minatures, too, and you'll have to live with the guilt.

Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da

Now that all that other sad stuff is over with -- well, all over but the random crying jags and the self-medication with the occasional caramel-dipped shortbread cookie that actually tastes more like butterscotch, if you want to be completely honest, not that I am complaining, because I really think there ought to be more butterscotch-based cuisine in the world -- it's time to get back to our regularly-scheduled recounting of events that happened to my kid way the hell back more than a week ago, which is practically a lifetime in preschooler years. I mean, she probably doesn't even remember this stuff any more -- which is of course precisely why I take 958 squidillionty pictures of everything that happens ever day forever and ever, amen.

So Shae's friend from school had a birthday party, and there was a sprinkler with a spinning head that you could jump over, and it was pretty much determined to be The Greatest Thing Ever for like ten minutes until someone got the brilliant idea to start throwing water balloons at each other's heads.

That went as well as could be expected. Nobody lost an eye, thankfully, primarily because small children do not have (1) especially strong throwing arms or (2) particularly good aim, both of which significantly improved the odds in favor of not having to call the paramedics to remove little rubber bits from tiny eyeballs.

Oh, and there were also frozen Dora bars that I think were made of sherbet or something, with gumball eyes. They were kind of gross and messy and of course they were a huge hit with the kids. Although Shae was disappointed because the boys got Spider-Man pops, which were equally disgusting, with the added bonus of being bright blue and red and shaped like a superhero instead of "some dumb girl." It's like she's not even my child or something -- oh, wait.

Looks like someone is proud of her gift-wrapping skills. It IS my very favorite part of Christmas, after all, and it's fair to say that WE NEED A LITTLE CHRISTMAS, RIGHT THIS VERY MINUTE, every day all the time all year 'round.

And, yes, there was cake. This particular cake was very pretty and I really love the flower work here. This cake was almost too pretty to eat.

But only almost.

See You Later Alligator

Return of the Great Polyvinyl Alligator (who never, technically, went away, but it's been awhile since he was featured as a Special Guest Star on the ol' blog-a-vision).

Now, I will be the first person to tell you that THE ABSOLUTE LAST THING that Shae needs is a Partner in Crime, but you know what? My extended family is a more-than-moderate amount of awesome, so as is generally the case, I don't mind. The other adorable moppet in this photo is my (second) cousin AJ's kid, Akira, who is ALSO known as AJ, which certainly makes things interesting at family gatherings. Akira is "Hanna Banana"'s big brother.

I am pretty sure that my kid wore this bathing suit the last time Mr. Gator made an appearance. I am also pretty sure that this swimsuit was more of a two-piece and less of an actual bikini last time. +1 for skinny kids not growing out of their suits too fast, but a big -1 for little girls who grow up all long and leggy like dahlias. (Which is a net zero, I suppose, although her father might argue otherwise, even though he is also coming to terms with the Overwhelming Bikini-ness of Modern Times, but he and I both draw the line at padded bikini tops for our preschooler, because down that path lies Crazytown.)

I believe we are now getting to the point in the summer where  I hope ever-so-wistfully that it never ends, because nothing pleases me more than offloading 200-plus pictures from my camera every weekend, and they're all filled with miles and miles of my daughter's dazzling white smiles.

Tea Party in Pixie Hollow

Over the least year or so, my mother-in-law has been redoing her backyard, and now there is this little space kind of made of dappled light hidden behind a young tree that she calls "No Man's Land," but Shae took one look at the area and declared it to be "Pixie Hollow." And, by gum, she was going to have herself a tea party with her pixie friends.

Okay, maybe it was more like an iced-tea party, because it was so hot, and maybe it was technically more of an iced-tea snooze at certain points, but whatever.

And also, I don't know if it's technically a "tea" at all if there are no little-bitty sandwiches with the crusts cut off and scones and clotted cream and stuff, but what do you expect? She's FOUR, and I suspect she was a little bored.

She totally believes she saw Tinkerbell, though, hanging out near the bird feeder with the little sparrows, heckling the squirrels and chipmunks who were trying to figure out how to get their grubby mitts on the deluxe seed mix, which included whole nuts and dried berries. The songbirds eat VERY WELL at my mother-in-law's.

We're still working on sticking out our pinkies when we sip, but we're making great progress. By this time next year I fully expect her to bring a small emergency backup tiara with her everywhere she goes, just in case. You never know when you'll be called up to exercise your responsibilities as Her Grand Highnessty the Princess of Everything.