Seven Things for Sunday

• We went to a garage sale yesterday, Maria likes them ever since we went to our neighborhood one a few weeks ago.  We got Maria a style-head thing and she was THRILLED.  Before she was thrilled, however, she complained a LOT and I couldn't even look at anything if it wasn't something SHE was interested in.  Anyways, we got some wands and stickers and the style head thing and it was a win.  
• Today she seemed so grown up to me, I mentioned it to Mike and Maria overheard.  She said If I'm a grownup, how come I don't have a purse, any money, a phone, or a Furby?  Ha!  She kills me. 
• She is unbearable about wanting to go places.  While we were at the pool this week, she was getting MAD about when the next time we were coming was.  Who does that?  She has a very hard time feeling her life.  And I do too, but I'm 45!  She's 5!  What the heck?
• Her handwriting is getting good, but it's at a cost.  She wants to know how every word in the language is spelled.  She yells Mommy!  How do you spell playdate?  I say "P" and she snaps "then what?", "L", "THEN WHAT?" and on and on.  Sheesh!
• We found out who her teacher is this year, and it's the teacher I was hoping it would be.  She also has four kids and she lives in our neighborhood.  We go for Kindergarten Roundup on the 14th and her first day is the 15th.  
• Lately, she's been asking me so much if she can go to the neighbor's house, I just let her go.  I figure my neighbor can just tell her you can't come over, and then I won't get in trouble with her.  She is driving me crazy, literally crazy.  
• I love her so much, though, and she is at a pretty good age, really.  She is driving me crazy but also she is good on her own, she is a TEENSY bit of help with Felicity, she's independent and just - I mean, she's getting there.  The other day at the pool I gave her a $5 and sent her for pizza, which costs $3.  I told her the guy should give her two dollars back and she came back a minute later, waving two dollar bills and crowing, "THEY'RE GOING TO CALL MY NAME WHEN IT'S READY!  THEY'RE GOING TO SAY MARIA!".  Cute.  

Maria's Five Year Stats

Okay, Maria is more like FIVE and a HALF, as we say all the time now, but she just went for that five year appointment, so here are her stats.  She's 44.88 inches tall and weighs 46.30 lbs.  She is almost always ten pounds heavier than Veronica lately.  Her blood pressure was 88/56, but I assume it went higher later at the appointment, when I was chasing her around the room and lying down on her so she could get her three stupid vaccinations.  SHEESH.

I was so mad, the appointment took forever, and she kept asking about the shot.  We were left alone in a hot room, where I had to keep the door closed lest Felicity get out, for like FIFTEEN minutes, which felt like forever because I knew they were just getting more and more freaked out about the shots.  Anyway, it was horrible and afterward, Maria limped out of the office and yelled that she couldn't walk!  She needed a cane!  Can you imagine?  A cane.  She is something else.

Pool

I took Maria to swimming lessons today, it was their last meeting in this session.  She's still an EEL, but she's doing well.  She gets really scared at the oddest times, she's hard to predict.  Anyway, I didn't see the last class because I was working with Felicity, who has her own special challenges and doesn't give a HOOT if I ever see Maria or Veronica again, but she did well, Marta said, so that's good.

Then we went to the JCC here in town, I bought a Living Social deal for $50 and ten visits and on each visit two adults and three kids can go, which is amazing.  They have a beautiful water park, it's perfectly designed, lots of zero depth entry to this fun water park thing, 6" of water, 1.5 ft., 3 ft., etc.  It was great and it was so hot today it was great to be near the water.  There are problems with going to the pool with Maria, though.

She is impossible to get to leave anywhere.  IMPOSSIBLE.  She yells and screams and cries and it's really embarrassing and awful.  I mean, it would be one thing if it was just Maria, but it's usually Felicity and sometimes Veronica too and - hoo boy!  I mean, what is there to do?  I know what I'd LIKE to do and that is smack her face, just WHAP right across her face.  I know it would shut her right up, too!  And it might even stop her from doing it in the future.  But I can't.  I mean, I never would but man.  It's tempting.

Once I got her to go, it was fine and of course by then the ding dang baby was SLEEPING like an ANGEL in her stroller so we could have stayed but honestly.  I was over it, and they were too.  Three hours in the broiling sun is enough for anyone.

I told my sister the other day, going to the pool at the Y is like a combination of some of my least favorite things - I am out, in a bathing suit, in the hot hot sun, with a low level panic that something terrible could happen, and there are TEENAGERS telling me what to do.  It was much nicer at the JCC than it was at the Y, though.  There were lifeguards everywhere and they were teenagers but they were just nicer and not such pedants about putting a little baby in a swim diaper on the pool deck.  Sheesh.

Independence Day

I'd like to declare my Independence from these people, but it's too late for that, I suppose.  It's also illegal, I always tell them when they ask if I am going to go to the store without them, or leave them in the car, or run away, or whatever.  Then again, lots of what went on during 1776 was illegal, right?  Because they were under a terrible regime?  Hmmm.  *I* am under a terrible regime!  My life is completely unfair!  OK, then...

When in the course of Joanne's life it becomes necessary for Joanne to dissolve the familial bands which have connected them with one another, ... that is a good start, right?  Fortunately for everyone I have no time to write my own Declaration of Independence, so instead I am just NOT letting Maria stay up late tonight, as we told her she could if she was GOOD, which she has NOT BEEN so the HELL with it.

We went for a walk before, I and the girls, while Mike took Anthony to the store.  Anthony is having his first day off from Camp and no school and he's having a hard day.  He's whining a lot and crying some and - it's just a hard day, so we are trying everything we can to make it better.  Anyway, Mike took him to the store and we went for a walk.  I took the double stroller for Lazybones Veronica and Felicity and Maria asked to take her scooter.  Maria wanted to walk past her friend Lorelei's street, which we did, but it's so hard - there are no sidewalks and the best part of the road for the scooter is the middle.  Of course, that isn't ideal, so Maria had to walk a lot and lord, lord, lord!  You would think it was the Trail of Tears, she was dragging that scooter along, like she could barely move!  She weighs like 45 pounds, surely it can't be harder to drag that around than me and my fat ass, along with a DOUBLE STROLLER FULL OF PEOPLE!  Anyway.  At one point, she said to me:  BORED!  HOT!  TIRED!  Okay then, I said, let's end our fun walk and go home.  I do not even know what to do with her.

I found out that she is going to wear a uniform to school, at my old school where I worked the Kindergarteners didn't wear a uniform but they do at St. Joan of Arc, which is fine by me.  I bought her two jumpers from a friend of mine, they are super cute.  I think they can wear khakis too, so I should start looking for those, right?  How exciting!  I can't wait, I was THRILLED the other day to set up the payment account for her and Veronica's tuition.

This coming week, they'll start one day a week back at their preschool for camp, Tuesdays and Thursdays we have swimming, and hopefully we can go to the pool a little bit.  It is incredibly challenging for me to take them some place like a pool by myself, but my friend Jill said she'll come with me, and if I could just get Maria to be a more cooperative person, it would be fine.  Tuesday we were at the Y and Maria was across the lot from me, taking something to my friend Marta.  I saw a car was coming so I said, sternly, "Maria!  STOP!".  Do you know what Maria did?  I'm sure you can guess, but that dummy ran DIRECTLY into the line of traffic.  I mean, she is so eager to do the opposite of what I say that she is willing to KILL HERSELF.  I don't know how to deal with that.  I'm so tired of telling her no and saying the same thing over and over I want to run away.

So hopefully we'll send them to bed early tonight and eventually she will get it, she will understand that she can't just do whatever she wants and ignore me.  I hope something starts to take with this girl, because I am at the end of my rope.

Here's a cute picture of her today, to soften the blow of these harsh words: