Milestone

So Maria has started Kindergarten.  She hasn't just done well, she's done incredibly well so far, and maybe I am naive, but I feel like that's half the battle, just getting her there, her liking it and wanting to go.  I have many friends on Facebook whose kids are not having as easy a time as Maria, they don't want to go, they cry every day, etc.  That would be really hard and I feel for them.  But for the first time in my life, I feel like I may be having an easier go of it and for that I am grateful.

She loves her teacher, she is very excited that there is a behavior chart and it has colors and she is DYING to get to the top of it every week.  She told me that there are things you can do to be good and she is going to do them! I asked her what kind of things and she said, you know, like being quiet when the teacher talks, and pushing the chairs in.  I saw her teacher last week on the playground, after school, and she said it seems like Maria was made for kindergarten, she loves it.  She said someone lost their lunchbox that day and Maria was all, "I CAN FIND IT!  I WILL FIND IT!"  Ha!

We see her classmates in church, and last week we went to Target one day after school.  We saw Maria's friend Gracie and although she seemed shy about it, she went over and said hi and the girls had a little hug right there by the carts.  Stuff like that makes me a little weepy thinking about it, not that mah babee is growing up but that she is going to meet so many people in her life!  And she is the kind of girl, so far, who wants to hug her friends and say hi at Target!  It's exciting.  Mostly it is all very exciting, with old Maria.  And LOUD.  Exciting and Loud.

The Final Countdown

Seriously, I do not think I'm going to make it until this child starts kindergarten.  I suppose I have created this monster, but I don't know how.  This morning, I was sleeping when Maria came in at 7:04.  She was yapping away, "It's 7:00!  I know it's after 7:00, but it's so dark, isn't it so dark?  It's so dark but it's after 7:00.  It's after 7:00, I know, but it seems dark".  I lifted my head, just barely, to check my phone and it was 7:04.  I guess it's a little overcast but whatever, it's not like it was really dark.  I was just mad because I thought and hoped she was wrong and it was 5:00 and I could make her go back to bed.  I was up late because we had dinner late and then Anthony was up until 1:00, banging away in his room so anyway, I was tired and grumpy and I am SICK of Maria getting up so early.  She gets up so early and has for so long that I feel like I should be GRATEFUL that she sleeps until 7:04!  What the hell kind of world is this?

Then she started talking to Mike.  Can anyone guess what she wanted to talk about?  Anyone?  I bet you can guess.  She wanted to know where she was going today.  It would be funny if...well it would be funny NEVER or maybe if it were happening to someone else.  But it's not happening to someone else, it's happening to me.  Every day of my stupid life, some jerk store crawls up my ass and starts honking away about what she is doing today, ORDERING me around and I can't take it.  Mike took her downstairs, he knows I am dangerously close to losing my mind and I don't know what kind of help I could be from the loony bin.  So he took her downstairs and she stayed down there for about 40 minutes and then she came up and started up again, where is she going, can she go to Target, where will she be going later, why can't she go to Target, she wants to go somewhere, can she go?  Where?

Yesterday after swimming, we went to play in the play area at the Y.  I didn't break the normal POUNDS of food that I bring for after swimming because we were heading home right after, but that didn't stop them from bugging me for food.  We're HUNGRY!, Maria yelled at me, in front of everyone.  I'm hungry!  What do you have for me?  I said let's go home and we can eat every single thing in the house, the pantry, the cabinets and food drawer, let's do it!  Nooooo!, she yells back!  I WANT SOMETHING FROM THE BENDING MACHINE!  We started to walk out and this woman in front of me held the door, she said what everyone always says to me, some variant of 'you look like you could use some help!', which is humiliating but whatever, she was holding the door.  She said her daughter was eleven and she was horrible too, I said I admit, I'm scared of how this girl is going to be as a teenager.  Keep in mind Maria was YAPPING away this whole time, doing her litany about how was she hungry?  Yes.  Was she going to get food from the bending machine?  No.  Did she have any money?  No.  Did she need money for the bending machine? Yes!, Did she have money for the bending machine?  NO!  Would her mother give her any money?  NO!  On and on and on and on and on and on and ON, Lord, GOD I consider it to be a remarkable accomplishment that I don't just spend all day smacking her mouth.

Here's a picture of us walking out:

Isn't that nice?  You know what is funny about this?  That picture of Maria makes me think of my sister Laura, and the picture of Veronica looks like me.  I think by all accounts, Laura was kind of a grump, but I was happy go lucky.  So I don't really know why I have to raise a grumpy jerkstore but whatever, mine is not to reason why, they are all little blessings and snowflakes, WHATEVER.

Mike took them to the fair this week, just Maria and Veronica, I stayed home with Felicity.  They had a great time, rode ponies, went on rides, played games and won prizes.  Then when they got home, Mike threw the balls that they won over the fence and Maria went insane, crying and screaming.  I had just laid Felicity down for a nap and started coloring my hair, so I ran downstairs to see what was wrong.  She was mad that Mike had thrown the balls over the fence because now she couldn't see what was hers and what was Veronica's!  Screaming!  Actual screaming and crying!  I go out and look and I see two identical pink balls.  She cried for 15 minutes about it.  I told her, Maria, Daddy took off from work, drove you there, paid all this money, pushed you in a stroller around the fair and really?  Really you are going to scream and cry because he threw the ball over the fence?  YES!, she told me.  I do not even know.

We've decided not to have her buy her lunch at school, not regularly anyway.  We might just have her buy it on Mondays but we will see.  I did find out last night that they only get 20 minutes for lunch, isn't that crazy?  Not 30 minutes for lunch?  I mean, we don't spend 20 minutes eating lunch, so I'm sure it will be fine but it doesn't sound like a lot of time.

Anyway.  My head is killing me from the pure torture of being home with Maria when we don't have plans.  It's 10:36 and she has already gone to her room twice this morning, and I'm not counting the time that she tried to carry her table up the stairs.  In closing, I want to say help me, get me out of here, what have I done to deserve this, etc.

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:

Five for Friday - Early Edition

Remember Early Edition?  Wasn't the Coach from Friday Night Lights on it?  My friend Brad also did a two part guest spot on it, and those two episodes were the only ones I ever watched.  Anyway.

1. Maria cracked her wrist last week.  She bent the bone in her left wrist, which is not uncommon for little kids, I guess, the combination of hollow but bendable bones are ripe for bending.  My sister mentioned that Pink song about being not broken, but bent and now I think about it all the time.  She fell off a slide at VBS, of course the last day.  I went to get her and she wanted to stay for lunch, so I set her up and went to get the other girls and I looked over and she was pressing her arm into her belly, leaning over and eating like a dog.  That's when I knew something was up, ha!  I took the three girls to the ER, it took 3.5 hours, but they were all pretty good and really, two weeks of a splint is nothing, she is fine and has been since she got the splint, no cast, no worries, it's fine.  She went to ballet the next day!
2. She had such a conniption fit this week I began to wonder if she was crazy.  Then I talked to some preschool moms and they all seemed to think it was normal, but man.  She was in the toy room and I heard a LOUD CRASH.  I went in and she was, like, running across the room, fear and guilt in her eyes.  I asked her what happened and she said NOTHING!  I WAS JUST STANDING THERE AND NOTHING!  I DID NOTHING!  This went on for a while and finally I said, well, the hell with it, I'm not going to talk to you if you're just going to lie.  Then for the next 10 minutes, she laid on the floor, screaming I AM GOING TO TELL YOU THE TRUTH!  I AMMMMMM GGOOOOOOOING TO TELLLLLLLL YOOOOOOOU THE TRUUUUUUUUTH!  I was like, um, okay, but when?  DO TELL!  She calmed down and told me a sad tale of how she grabbed one book but 50 fell down and I said big deal, Maria!  I don't care if something falls, I want to see if you're okay, there is no reason to go on and on like that.  Ay yi yi.  
3. I cut her bangs this week and they look really good, if I do say so myself.  
4. I keep complaining about this but I got her tuition email this week, about how to set up payment. You can pay four different ways - all at once, in two payments, in four payments, or every month.  But get this - there is no incentive to pay it all at once.  WHO would do that?  Why would you give all that money away if you get nothing for it?  Dumb.  
5. She has some neighbors over right now, they went to Vacation Bible School this week but they all learn the same music and they're in there singing.  It's super cute.