Nickels

The other day Maria asked me if she had nickels on her face and I was like, nickels?  I was picturing nickels on her face, trying to imagine what in the hell she was talking about.  She asked if I had nickels on my face and she was looking and looking, ostensibly for .. nickels.

Freckles.  I forget what made us figure it out but finally we realized she was asking if she had freckles.  She cracks me up, because even though I've corrected her, she is sticking with nickles!  She's so funny and tough, she will not let a little thing like not knowing a word get in the way of her saying a word.

Kindergarten

We've started to get notes from Maria's school, opportunities to buy backbacks and supplies, etc.  The real getting ready won't start until this summer but I am excited!  I can't believe she'll be in Kindergarten this year.  In just a few months!  She is super smart and she is very social and she can behave herself when she needs to, so I am not worried at all about her.  I am a teensy bit worried about myself, as I tend to be kind of a - well, I don't want to say I'm mean because I don't think I am but I *am* sort of straightforward and some - lots - of people don't like that.  I've been out of the working world for long enough that I'm afraid I'll come off like Nell or something, all grunting and groaning and just saying whatever comes to my mind.

When Maria starts school, she'll be starting eight YEARS of school at this place, with Veronica right behind her and Felicity not too far behind that.  Maybe Anthony will go there some day, even.  We are going to have a long relationship with a lot of these people, so I have to remind myself to be nice and to let small transgressions go, I suppose.  I have a few friends who are there already, as parents, so that is nice, too.

Maria still falls asleep every day, if I let her.  She wakes up too damned early and last week was her first back to preschool after Spring Break, so she was a little off.  She is better than Veronica, though, in that she just pops awake and is fine.  Veronica cries like her heart will break when she wakes up, it's awful!

She has a lot of friends at school, things seem good there.  We have been having some playdates and tomorrow she'll start back to tap class on Thursday nights.  She and Veronica are doing just great at Anthony's school, all is well on the Maria Front.  I never post on her blog anymore, because I guess I mostly like to complain about her, and there's not been anything to complain about, ha!

Ballerina

Maria had her ballet and tap 'recital' this week, it was super cute but man.  She is - I mean, are all five year olds like this? - she is no dancer!  She does moves when she wants but otherwise she talks, runs around, BOSSES everyone else around, ASKS THE TEACHER HOW MUCH LONGER the class will be, tells me Felicity wants to get down, ay yi yi!  Sorry for some of the video quality but I was indeed holding Felicity who did INDEED want to get down.

Here's one link but I am going to have to post more later as it's taken HOURS for this one to upload on You Tube.

Haircut

Maria hasn't had a haircut yet but she wants one.  We looked at pictures of haircut styles online and she has chosen a VERY short haircut.  I don't know if she can pull it off - her hair is pretty fine.  I'm going to try and sway her, we'll see.  I think she'd look super cute with a haircut like she had before, just a short bob with bangs, we'll see.

We had a good weekend, she had her ballet recital on Friday and then we went to meet a friend of mine with her daughter for lunch.  Maria was driving me crazy, CRAZY.  She doesn't let me talk at all, to anyone.  "Mommy!  Mommy!  MOM!  MOMMY!", all the ding dang time, it's infuriating.  It takes forever for us to leave anywhere, I count it down, I give her warnings, all of it and she just refuses to listen to me.  I am working on it, but in the meantime it's annoying.  

So we were walking out, we walked maybe 50 feet and then I wanted to see my friend Christina, who is in with her baby girl twins, her friend Adam, and her cousin who is going to be her nanny.  I was trying to say that if the cousin needed anything ever, she should call me because I live close by, etc., and Maria was all up in my grill needing water.  These people think that I should be able to just SHOOT water and tissues from my fingers, it's DEEPLY BOTHERSOME.  So Pat, my boss and the owner of the restaurant said he would help her and he took her and then I sort of said to the sky, like I'm wont to do, "drink that water, and then fold up the cup and jam it in your ear, Maria" and the nanny said "um, are you the nanny?  Or their mom?".  Ha!  I said that although I'm sure I ACTED like a DISGRUNTLED hourly employee, I was in fact their real mom.  Ha!

Of course!

Today Maria and Veronica and I went to church and then we went to Le Peep to pick up breakfast.  As we pulled up to the restaurant, Maria started bugging me about getting a booster.  She didn't say booster, exactly, but I figured out what she was saying and I said no, Maria, you are not getting a booster, you already have a car seat.  Ooh she was getting so mad!  I knew why she was thinking it, she spent time with her friend Charlie this weekend and she has a booster seat.  She is six months older than Maria, although I like to keep them in 5-point boosters as long as I can and I had no intention of moving her, which is WHY, I told her, we spent almost 300 damned DOLLARS on her present car seat.  Anyway, she cracks me up.

We went into the LePeep and this GORGEOUS young guy was working there and he gave them each a mint and she said "Thank You" and he said Gracias, say gracias, and now you know Spanish.  He was SUPER cute but she would not engage, even though she totally knows gracias, and hola, and a lot of Spanish words.  But she was TOO MAD about the BOOSTER seat to even talk to this cute boy, ha!

We were walking out and I was blathering on about her car seat and how safe they were, I said don't you think I should keep you as safe as possible?  And she said OF COURSE I DO, MOM!  Ha!  She is five years old!  She was still mad when we got home but we settled on this - we will revisit it in July, when she is five and a half.  So I have until July.

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.

Happy Birthday Maria!

So, Maria turned five.  She is a real dreamboat of a five year old, I'll say that.  I mean, she wakes up too early and she is super loud and she yells at me the second I say NO about anything but all of that falls away when I think of what a good girl she is.  She is so funny and charming, and she is tough and cute and she knows how to have a good time.

We had cupcakes for her on Friday night, my sister Laura came up before bedtime and gave Maria her present.  She gave her this excellent headband making kit and both Maria and Veronica went crazy over it.  Saturday we had a party for her at Chuck E. Cheese and she got up and dressed by 7:30. The party was at 12:30, soooo that was a long five hours, as you can imagine.

That place is CRAZY.  I told her that she could have a party here and have as many friends as she wanted or if she had it at CEC, she'd have to just invite a few friends from school, and she wanted it at Chuck E. Cheese.  Since we only intend to have big parties for their 5th, 10th and 15th birthdays, I wanted to do what she wanted.  It was hard to be a good hostess, so much of it is done for you and it's just crazy insane, so crowded and loud.  I feel like I barely saw her.  But it was so cute, Chuck E. Cheese himself gives her a crown, our hostess announced Maria like this, she said, "this is Maria, she' FIVE today and her favorite color is pink!  Give it up for Maria!" and then everyone went crazy banana pants clapping for her, including me.  It was exciting and Maria has NO problem being the center of all that crazy attention.  Veronica needed a little time out from all the noise, but not Maria.  She could have stayed there all day.  She really remembered to say thank you (with some prompting) and to talk to everyone, she is a good girl, I kept thinking all day.  She is the best little five year old I know.