Update

It's so much harder to use pictures since I have my new computer, it's a pain.  Hopefully I'll add a picture later but in the meantime I need to update these blogs!  Time is flying!  Tempis is fugiting!  Or something.  Anyways, this is how things are going for Maria.

Just fine.  She is doing just fine.  She turned five, she had a birthday party, she went with me to the Open House at her new school and inspected the two kindergarten classrooms there, she'll be in one of them.  There are two possible teachers for her next year and I met both of them, they both seem very nice and I have no opinion about which one is her teacher.  She drives me crazy, Maria, but she is my easiest child in this way.  She is so smart and flexible and not shy and I just am not worried about her starting school full time.  I worry it won't come soon enough, ha! Now that we've seen the classroom, she keeps bugging me every day about when will it be 'the fall' and when she'll start.

She had her first sleepover at a friend's house this weekend.  She has a nice friend named Josie at school and they were in the same classroom last year but this year they are in a different one, because Josie is an 'explorer', for which you have to be five by 12/31 and of course Maria wasn't five until 1/11.  They still are great friends and they have been setting it up to get together for a few weeks.  Josie's mom asked me last week if Maria could sleep over and I said HELL YES so she did.  Of course it was fine.  Maria said her 'ear hurt' that morning, which made me a little nervous because Veronica and Felicity both have ear infections but she was fine.  They went swimming at the local Y on Friday night and had a great time.  Maria came home with cupcakes that they made and a temporary tattoo, and she was so tired.  She napped for over an hour yesterday in the chair, she was OUT like a LIGHT.

She drives me crazy about what time it is, every single second of the day should be accounted for, according to Maria.  It's extremely annoying and is really hard for me.  I know that sounds crazy but my God, you can't imagine.  EVERY SECOND, what time it is, she asks?  And if I don't answer right away, she asks again, more urgently and louder.  WHAT TIME IT IS MOMMY?  If I say it's 10 of 12, she says WHAT NUMBERS IS THAT?  Oh, it's crazy.  CRAZY.  But she's super smart, she really is learning to tell time, so what can I do except count the damned seconds when she is bugging someone else about it.

She's doing well in ballet, she is in the Intermediate class now and it's going well.  She has a friend in class whose name is Kestral, but she calls her Gestral.  I say Maria, it's K-K-K-K-Kestral and she says, like my niece Moira always used to, K-K-Gestral!  Ha!

She weighs 45 pounds, we found out last Sunday when we took Veronica to the Be Well Clinic for her ear infection.  She is in mostly size 5 clothes now and her new ballet shoes are size 12.5.  So far, five is going very well for Maria and I love her madly.